No experience? No big deal! Right..?

The advantage of Karting and Junior Formula experience….and severe disadvantages of not having any!

Experience – ĭk-spîr′ē-əns

1. knowledge or skill so derived by all professional wheelmen
2. active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill over a lifetime
3. something all racing drivers have personally encountered, undergone, or lived through
4. something the author has precisely none of

After considering it for some days now, I decided to pen the next few (read: several) posts discussing a few of the major challenges I face in greater detail. This may seem to readers like strange points to focus on at all, but it is indeed requisite reading to understand just how poor the odds I started with were. If for no other reason, maybe someone reading these next several posts in the future happens to be disqualifying themselves based on similar challenges – irrespective of whether their goals involve motorsport this potentially long-winded series of posts may prove galvanizing to the tiring efforts of someone else. At least, I hope so! As stated in the last post this site is a home to unhurried storytelling, so consider these next several posts the collective prologue before the story can really begin.

You may grow weary in the next several weeks as I am not discussing the first several posts in any logical order. I am new to this so please stay c a l m e.

If you took a moment to read my very first post you know I briefly touched on it; when this freight train started its journey it was loaded with precisely zero practical experience. Although, it was fueled with boyish hope – the kind that makes “No problem” the preferred response to every solemn encumbrance encountered.

Before writing about the advantages with respect to karting and junior racing categories, let us quickly examine the typical “route” or perhaps more appropriately, the education of a typical racing driver and briefly describe each stage. Keep in mind I can only speak on some subjects herein as an outsider looking in. I am simply relaying my own understanding of these subjects now in the hopes it might demystify them for someone who may read this from the same, humble position I started off in.

First Stage – Karting – Ah, the evidently irradicable preliminary footsteps in an often lifelong march. Here lies a budding racer boy’s (or girl’s, I guess) very first taste of speed and wheel-to-wheel dueling. A young upstart driver, at this stage armed with Mum & Dad’s hopes, dreams, and all of their money, learns the fundamentals of car control and something I have heard described as “driving by the seat of one’s pants.” My assumption was always that, rather important in Single seater racing, it was here young stars learned how to slide the kart through corners, throttling the nose through the apex..
Time spent in this stage – eight to ten seasons.

Second Stage – Step up to Single Seaters – A big step for a Formula 1 hopeful especially, this leap is made by drivers with enough capability and/or financial capability to enter a low-aero single seater series. Think regional series Formula 4 or Formula Renault 2.0.
Time spent in this stage – typically one season.

Third Stage – The crucial jump to Formula 3 – seemingly where almost all professional drivers of the future land. Aerodynamic grip is moderate and a much more important subject here. Depending if you were around for the Dallara F309 days, you bagged some experience in some amazing race-crafts – these were proper baby Formula 1 cars which were apparently physically challenging to operate.
Time spent in this stage – one to three seasons.

Fourth Stage – Feeder Series – Formula 2 is the last step on the way to the ultimate goal of Formula 1. The machinery here generates similar g-force and may not have power steering. These are more physically demanding to drive that any other Junior Formula machinery. The speeds are higher, the risk is higher, and the aerodynamics are mega. Despite all this, the series is still “spec” with identical machinery which should yield the best drivers rising up the points race.
Time spent in this stage – one to three seasons.

The thing to remember with respect to the modern era at least is only the best of the drivers who can afford to move up at each stage make the progression. This effect compounds as we get further up the ladder. I’d hazard to say that at the last level described before “professional” (yes I will explain why I quoted that, just much later on) many of drivers can inject themselves onto the grid with next to no relevant experience or success. Money really does talk on the junior level – in fact budget shouts the loudest. That is, of course, unless you were brought into Junior Driver Program like the one Red Bull or Mercedes runs.

At this stage in the modern era, and possibly a bit earlier, potentially after a bit of Formula 3 experience is acquired, road racing ladders seem to diverge quiet a bit.

Formula 1 – What every racing driver’s childhood dreams are made of. Here a suitcase full of cash and some appreciable talent is required, though less of the latter as time goes on within the modern era, it seems.

Endurance – GT racing or ..everything else, I suppose. Here a suitcase of money isn’t required but still a… satchel or two of cash is often required.

Things start to get less tidy here for the purposes of this description. Insert an additional handy drawing + popular girl writing to lend a hand visualizing..

There will be another few posts as follow-up to this entry, one with respect to that other pair of handy pyramids encompassing GT racing. While much more relevant to this tale than the current posting, GT racing is a broad category which really does deserve its own dedicated entry or two. Feel free to berate me for those entries in the comments and they may follow in short order.

Great – so what are the costs involved in all of this? Well, the costs with respect to the main pyramid above are not terribly relevant to this story. Though, I know some people may be interested, so a few posts in the future I will discuss the most relevant costs in more detail as well. Next week’s post, however, will describe the advantages of having this experience, that is, Karting plus mid/high level junior formula – and how having none of it places me firmly in low odds to accomplish my goal of becoming a professional driver.

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