Here at the Journal, we strive to bring you the world of collector cars with engaging content, humor, and most of all, expertise. If it’s on four (and sometimes two or even three) wheels, we are attracted and probably know something about it, as we have “been there, done that.” Our editorial staff has a combined experience of nearly 200 years.
Each month, we will be choosing a topic from the collector car hobby to explore, lending our knowledge and that of many other experts and participants. As we pursue these themes, along with our regularly scheduled content, we will have a number of features that pertain directly to the topic.
July is a celebration of Track Days on the ClassicCars.com Journal. There is such a cornucopia of opportunity to get behind the wheel and experience the most from your vehicle in a safe environment without the worry of law enforcement – or causing other people problems on public roads. No one is likely to be a greater advocate of drag strips and racetracks vs. street racing than me. Unless perhaps, a person who has been an innocent victim of the stupidity that is lawless risk taking.
The reason we are all here is our love of cars – and ultimately driving. We love to drive. From the moment we were aware, and being driven around in cars, we looked forward to the day we too would be able to manipulate the controls to our ultimate freedom: to go wherever we want, whenever we want to.
But the spirited, performance element is there, too. There is a clear market for it: just go to the SEMA show every year, or a local cars and coffee. Our passion to drive motivates our hobby like none other.
There are many experiences available to the novice or seasoned racer to get off the beaten path and drive awesome cars – or your own – on a track. If you ever wondered what it would be like to channel your inner-Andretti, feel the limits of your own car, test and tune improvements or compete head to head, we will guide you via a series of feature stories.
Competitive motorsport began more than 120 years ago, when the second car was built. From there, a grassroots movement became a myriad of bigtime racing. However, in recent years, motorsport has lagged as a spectator sport and has returned to a more grassroots, participatory endeavor.
If this is something in which you have been active already, or have never done, we will try to present cool options that we have found, and at the end, hope we have all learned a few things.
Enjoy the drive with the shiny side up!
