Novices and Car Modifications

After getting a few events under your belt, it's natural to start thinking of ways to make your car faster, but in the beginning you are the slowest part of your car. For at least the first season your car has much higher limits then you do and making it faster really isn't helping you. Thankfully, you are also the cheapest mod in that as you get more experience you will naturally start getting faster. $25 to $35 for an event can improve you by over a second when a new exhaust might only take a tenth of a second! Here are some points to consider as a novice:

Your Car

As a novice you're most likely not showing up at your first event with a perfect race car. It's most likely not powerful, with stock, or even worse, cheap aftermarket suspension, average brakes, and all season tires. It probably hasn't had even a stock alignment for some time, much less a performance alignment, and was designed more for comfort or efficiency than performance. In other words, it's a perfectly normal, average car. This is a good thing! It has low limits on track which makes it a great car to learn on. As a novice, you need to learn how to drive your car just below it's limits, and with a normal car those limits are easier to reach. Yes, you will blow right by those limits in your first event and push through turns, miss apexes, and basically make a lot of noise, but you will eventually start to learn where those limits are and learn to run just below them. Trust me, you will know when you are better than the car and it will not happen as soon as you think it will.

Upgrade Your Car As Things Wear Out

Run those poor all season tires until they wear out and only then do you get some better ones. This way when you raise the limits of the car through better traction, you will naturally go faster to match it. Since you've learned how the car feels as it reaches the limit you will always follow the car's limit when it goes up. Tires, alignment, and brake pads are all good modifications to make as they wear out. Upgrades like suspension add too much variability and as a novice you may accidentally make the handling worse.

Catch Up on Maintenance

If your car is more then 5 years old you should make sure all it's parts are in good shape. Things like motor mounts, suspension bushings, filters, valve adjustments, and fluids will all need attention and all of them will help the car perform better. Taking care of the car will also make the car less likely to break under the strains of racing and also make it more reliable as a daily driver to boot!

Be patient! You will get better! Racing is a skill that takes time to master and rushing it will lead to frustration.