If you’ve ever read anything about networking, you’d know that the possibilities for networking are everywhere.
Personally, I like networking with people at car events — we already have one big thing in common, the cars. It then makes it easier to connect.
Drag Races
The Friday Night Street Legal Drags makes this pretty easy… The people spend a lot of time sitting around in line waiting to go, spend very little time actually running and get right back in line to wait again.
We can go, sign the insurance waiver, get a bracelet and walk around the cars to our hearts’ content. This gives us plenty of ways to interact with the car owners.
For me, I always carry business cards for my blog. It also has the url to my flickr account. Why? Because I’m always taking pictures and like letting people know where they’ll show up.
Unexpected Connections
Perhaps the best part of this networking is the variety of people we meet.
In Arkansas, we had friends who were doctors, surgeons, lawyers, mechanics, students, business owners, bankers, auction buyers and real estate agents, just to name a few.
We got lucky one Friday, we ran into some people who had a very nice 180SX out.
The pretty car that led us to meet some really cool people here.
Funny enough, the guy knows a ton about Nissans… And offered to take a look at my 240SX.
Instead of sending my car a couple of hours away, she’s only twenty minutes away, spending some time at a house with two other Silvias. One is the car we saw that night, the other is an S13 convertible with her own SR20DET, and belongs to the guy’s wife. 
Oh, and the money we’d spend at a shop for them to try and figure out what’s wrong? Not happening. We’ll spend a small fraction of that to get her working.
You never know…
Basically, you never know who you’re going to meet on any given day. There’s a huge variety of people who go out to races, and you can pretty much find a person who does just about anything.
While I try to network to promote my blog and my photography, it’s always handy when something like this comes up and I find somebody who can help me out with a problem I’ve got.
My only issue is figuring out what I can offer in return…
Yeah, I definitely need to work on baking more! 
Everybody loves cupcakes, right?
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Don’t underestimate your photography for trade. Last I remember auto photography wasn’t cheap, especially since you’d be willing to get on the track. Glad to see you’re having fun in the Pacific Northwest. I had my husband reading your posts on the 240. We were about to buy one, but he found a great deal on a ’69 Datsun 510 wagon that he’s wanted since he’s a kid, so we got that instead. Let the engine swap begin!
I haven’t had much exposure to the paid photography side of things, so I’m moving forward with great caution lol. The one thing I do know is that many people care for their cars like their kids, and people love having pictures of their cars.
Congrats on the 510! I love those, haha. A friend in Little Rock was fixing one up, and now our friends here have one their working on as well. Best of luck on the engine swap, hopefully it doesn’t take very long!! (And share some pics?
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