My Road to the Top

[gogatrs]

OK, I apologize that the prefix is wrong, if a moderator could please change it to something more appropriate, or even eliminate it altogether, please do so. I'm using my iPod Touch to post this, so I can't see it. If the thread needs to moved to a more appropriate sub forum, please don't hesitate to move it.

I'm going to use this thread to track my racing and karting career. Hopefully I'll be able to look back on this thread sometime in the future and be proud of how I made it to wherever I'll be at that time.

But first, you need to know a little bit about me.
I'm 14 years old and have loved racing since I could walk.
My grades are good, and I'm relatively good at other sports.
I'm from Connecticut and most likely will not be moving until college at the University of Florida.
I plan on either becoming some sort of engineer for Porsche, or in a best case scenario, a factory driver.

Now my family isn't all that wealthy, my dads an engineer and my moms a teacher. The only way we made this work is through the brilliance of my dad which I will explain more about later.

Here's some details about my early career...

My first ever experience of organized racing was at Grand Prix New York. An indoor facility with 6 HP karts that could reach about 45 mph.
I completed their Junior Racing School and soon began doing Arrive and Drives.
When my lap times were good enough, my dad decided that we should try out a race in the Junior Racing League.
I really can't remember how this went, but I believe that I finished mid pack.
This was a success so we decided to get some private racing instruction.
This was probably the bet decision my dad has ever made for me.
We got VERY lucky and met a really good guy.
He's Scottish, he's one both British and Scottish Karting Championships multiple times. Not having the money to continue, he dropped this for a while. This was until he saw an ad for a Skip Barber scholarship. He won the competition and flew here to the states. After completeing a course, he was offered a ride in their national tour or something like that. He won that. And eventually he somehow ended up as an instructor at GPNY. (Using a controller, he made it to the final round of GTAcademy, he finished like 4Xth in the national leaderboards with only two hours of play time)
So we started meeting regularly for lessons and soon I entered an entire Junior Racing League season, and was able to win that easily.
As we came back more and more often, I was soon a couple hundredths of a second off of the lap records set by Stevan (the driving instructor).

Eventually, my dad set up a rental for me and my younger brother in a Junior Rotax at Oakland Valley Race Park in New York.
After that was successful, we continued to go back to GPNY.

So one day back at home my dad asked me if I really wanted to continue with racing and move to the next step. When I responded by asking if he was completely stupid he asked me if I wanted to get a kart. Hell Yeah!

So we went to New Jersey to watch an International kart race. We were able to pick up one of the drivers back up chassis' and got it for a used price even though he had only done one practice session with it.

I'll post more over summer and spring as more stuff pops up. Support from my fellow GTPers are accepted.
If I bore you, just post and I'll stop the updates.

 

[Lizard]

Im jealous.

 

[Ardius]

I always wish I had been given the opportunities to do that when I was younger, but alas it never happened. I still want to eventually start kart racing when I gather enough of my own money.
Good luck mate! I hear its very difficult to progress up formula in America other than through Sportscar and Touring car categories, but even so, would you ever consider single-seater racing or racing in Europe if you got the offer?
Is Le Mans a goal or just ALMS?

 

[gogatrs]

You can definitely expect to see me at Le Mans one day.
I really have to thank my parents for all this.
We are not exactly a wealthy family, which makes this a HUGE commitment.
My dad has been able to make this work by gathering up a couple of families from GPNY to split costs for mechanics, transport, track rental, instructors, and stuff like that.
He's been able to find a way to make a profit off of it too.

 

[The Bman]

You can definitely expect to see me at Le Mans one day.
I really have to thank my parents for all this.
We are not exactly a wealthy family, which makes this a HUGE commitment.
My dad has been able to make this work by gathering up a couple of families from GPNY to split costs for mechanics, transport, track rental, instructors, and stuff like that.
He's been able to find a way to make a profit off of it too.

Seems like a Denny Hamlin situation. I'm interested in this.

 

[gogatrs]

OK, time for an update.

After a year or so of racing at GPNY, my dad decided that we should try out some enduros.
A while back, when visiting Lime Rock for the ALMS, someone was handing out flyers for "Endurance Karting with Johan Schwartz."
So I reminded my dad of that, so we went on their website and found that they were doing two enduros at Lime Rocks Autocross which is in the infield. Each enduro was 1.5 hours long, which means I needed a partner.
So my dad asked Steven (he's the driving coach from GPNY if I haven't mentioned that yet) if he had any suggestions to who we could ask. Upon hearing this, Stevan volunteered.

I'll share more of how this went in a little bit, I've got to run now.