It’s the weirdest feeling ever to, at 21 years old, wonder if I’m just too old.
Too old? For what?
Too old to have my chance… Ya know? Maybe you don’t, so of course I’m going to try and explain it.
At the autocrosses here, there are a few kids who run Junior Karts. When I went to the Test & Tune event in February, there was the cutest little five year old boy out in his little kart for his first race day ever. It was totally adorable watching him.
It didn’t hit me until later on when I was looking at some magazine features of cars and driver bios that wow, a lot of them are either my age or not much older than me.
I swear I’m boring…
Most of the time I feel like the most boring person in the world. Repeatedly. I have yet to fully shake this awful feeling.
And it’s not like I’ve never done anything in my life!
I went to England for three weeks… A few years ago. I went racing at Hallett, but not recently. All I really, consistently do is autocross. Which I guess has become my normal, so I don’t see it as that exciting.
No matter how many other people seem amazed to find out that I regularly race my Miata, it’s my average life. I’m not an awesome racer, because I don’t have enough seat-time to have become really good. I wonder if I’ll get the chance to have enough seat-time to become really good. I want to badly.
This is my normal... Probably far from normal by some people's standards.
I also want to go and race in a professional series. I’d like to go to some of the organized drift events someday, for sure. If I could get into Redline’s Time Attack, I would in a heartbeat.
I mean, most days I’d settle for having a car that people talked about, lol. The Miata definitely wasn’t the way to go for that. I needed my RPS13 in order to ensure that I’ve got a good shot at making it happen someday.
Then again….
I’m not too old, right? I still have years to go!! It’s just rather annoying to see other people who have gotten so much further than I have at the same age.
Of course, I’ve only really been modifying cars for a year and a half at this point, coming up on two years. Racing for just over one. I didn’t get the benefit of being introduced to cars like this when I was little, or having been into them for that long.
Regardless of my age, I’m going to still try my best to get to where I want to go with them. Moving to Washington state is going to be a huge step in the right direction, I think.
I’ll be in an area with a track locally, and a few others within driving distance enough to tempt me out to them. Not only that, but grassroots drifting exists up there! I have a feeling my RPS13 and myself will fit in well and be very happy.
Just wait and see what I manage to do… I intend to make my life not so boring, on my own terms. 
But if you think I’m already not so boring, thanks!! I’m trying, for real.
No related posts.
A word of advice: the sooner you learn to just enjoy driving instead of modifying, the sooner you’ll settle into the car. Modifying cars is like flipping houses instead of living in them–at some point, you’re just putting on nice parts and getting it in good shape for someone else to enjoy. Look at the 5yr-old example: he doesn’t care about alignments, spring rates, tires, or horsepower; he just wants to drive the car!
Try 51………it’s fun
peace,
Laz
That’s way true, I know I didn’t start autocrossing the Miata right away because I thought it’d be weird to be driving a stock car… Probably just my fear holding me back until I stepped off the edge there. Turned out okay because her entire suspension needed to be replaced and she did need new tires badly, so it wasn’t a total made-up sort of thing.
Definitely, my advice to people who ask me about it is to go out to an event if they’re curious and never been, and then to run in one once they think they’ll like it. You don’t know until you try, and it can be a lot of fun.
I didn’t realize you were only 21.
You’ve got all the time in the world.
i’ve learned as you get older your priorities change, but also your drive to get certain things accomplished also increases. as you get older, if you still want to drive professionally, you will make it happen. don’t worry about age, schumi is 41, paul newman didn’t start his professional career until he was 47 and won the 24 hrs of daytona when he was 70. and getting older’s not so bad. as i get older, i enjoy life more because i appreciate it more.
I guess part of it comes from the fact that I act a *lot* older than I am, and most of our good friends are a fair bit older than we are. (Hubs is 24.) So part of me compares what we have and what we can do to people a lot further along than we are, which I need to stop doing. Doesn’t get me anywhere fast!
I had no idea Newman started so late… Gives me plenty of hope.