10 years
Long ago in the early days of F2000.com I read a post by EYERACE in which he talked about a driver’s school he attended in which the instructor frankly told the students very few, if any, of them would be racing in five years. Damn harsh. But real.
I have now managed to have reached my tenth year anniversary in sanctioned roadracing. Way back in the early 70s I was pretty serious about autocrossing and solos. I retired from that scene in 1977. In 1989 I took a 3 day Skippy school to see if I was still interested, I was. It was in June of 1998 that I ventured up to Plover Wisconsin and purchased an ’84 Reynard FC. As they say, the rest was history, and for most of that history, you the readers of Apexspeed have had to read.
Ten years ago there wasn’t much, if any, info on the Internet. Most cars were sold through ads in Sportscar. Learning the ‘how’ of racing a FC was tough. One basically travelled the road of hard knocks, learning by trial and error, or if you were real lucky you found folks at the track that would give some advice, many times of questionable value. In the late 90s there was the “Blue Site”, the first FC forum. FC on that site stood for Flaming Constantly. Whew, it was virtually violent.That site was the reason so many of us old timers had to create monikers instead of using our real names. Fortunately, along came the Carters and revolutionized car racer forums. They created not a chatty place for spectators, but a place for real participants to communicate sanely with each other.
I can easily say that F2000.com, and Apexspeed, have had more to do with me being able to enjoy racing for ten years than any other single thing.
My humble racing statistics for the last decade are pretty plain; 66 races completed, four different chassis purchased, $108K spent. Nothing really spectacular. Many have raced more, and I now realize many spend my decade’s worth each year. One SARRC championship, and one ARRC championship also won’t create much of a stir among racing historians. Yet it seems in ten short years I already have a lifetime of great stories, and many friends… yes, the folks I can now call friends are the biggest win over the last 10 years. Mrs. Frog’s, and my holiday racing card mailing list is starting to look bigger than our local phone book.
Hundreds of racing friends all over the world. Yes, that’s the best thing about the last 10 years.
On to the next decade!
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... and you're still beating me. 
Your front wing, I swear it was/is built out of steal sheet. Other wings would have collapsed. A dent in it for every FM or FC that you thought needed a "lift" in the braking zone.
I think he had more money back then...
Originally Posted by Doug Carter
but maybe it's just that you're nostalgic.....
