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ross bentley speed secrets
Speed Secrets: Setting HPDE Expectations

Speed Secrets: Setting HPDE Expectations

The story of two bad wrecks and how experience teaches that managing expectations is key for track days (and even more important for wheel-to-wheel racing).

By Winding Road Staff | February 08, 2022
sponsorship
By a Racer, For Racers: Finding Target Brands for Sponsorship
By a Racer, For Racers: Finding Target Brands for Sponsorship

For young racers looking to make the step into racing professionally, a singular topic is always at the forefront: sponsorship.  Current Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup challenger Aidan Fassnacht dives deep into the prospect of finding funding to secure a racing seat; the first of a four part series - By a Racer, For Racers.

By Winding Road Staff | September 27, 2022
electric vehicles, formula e
The Vancouver Formula E Debacle
The Vancouver Formula E Debacle

This is a spectacular case of how not to promote a much-anticipate race.  After just finishing it's 8 season of around-the-world racing, Formula E has endured multiple debacles throughout it's growing phase (Miami, Montreal, & London to name a few), so it's not entirely surprising the young Series fell victim again to over-promises and under-deliveries.

By Winding Road Staff | September 02, 2022

Racing

Features , Racing
“Make My Day” — Pirelli World Challenge Ticket Giveaway!

Pirelli World Challenge is in several ways the most exciting road racing series in the U.S. The nice people at PWC have given us 24 passes for the 3-Day season kick-off at Circuit of the Americas in Austin on March 6-8. And we’re offering those passes to you. For free.

By Winding Road Staff | February 20, 2015
Features , Racing
So You Want to Own Your Own Race Team…

If you’re a driver with visions and goals of participating in pro racing, and especially if you’re climbing the ladder to the top, it’s big business. Ten years ago, my good friend Bruce Cleland and I wrote the book Speed Secrets 5: The Complete Driver. In it, we covered how to make a career out of racing, and one topic we covered has come up again and again: whether or not to start and run one’s own race team.

By Ross Bentley | February 17, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Race Planner: Vol. 7, Winter 2015

New tracks, driving schools, iconic courses and vintage wheel-to-wheel competition – there’s a little something for everyone here. Check out this selection of events worth making the trek to in the next 8 weeks.

By Winding Road Staff | February 16, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Race Planner: Vol. 6, Winter 2015

Looking out over the next two months, spring will be in the air just about everywhere. That opens up many tracks that shut down for the winter. Here are some picks that are worth travelling to in the next 8 weeks.

By Winding Road Staff | February 09, 2015
Features , Racing
Speed Secrets: Effective Physical Training to Prepare for Race Season

We all know that being physically fit helps us perform better, whether behind the wheel or anywhere else in our life. I’m no expert on the matter, but it seems to me there are two main reasons drivers don’t work out as much as they should: First, it’s a motivation thing, and second, it’s knowing what to do. This week we tackle this second issue: knowing what to do to get as fit as you can. And to do that, Simon Hayes, who runs Performance Physixx is here to share a couple of approaches.

By Ross Bentley | February 04, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Race Planner, Vol. 5 2015

These are the dog days of winter, but just a glance at the calendar says the time for racing has arrived (if it hadn’t already).

By Winding Road Staff | February 02, 2015
Features , Racing
Speed Secrets: The Traction Control Conundrum

I travel around the country doing seminars and talks for various car clubs about performance driving and instructor training, one topic that continually comes up is whether the “driver nannies” – traction and stability control systems – should be turned off or not, and what the pros and cons are of doing so are.David Ray, the founder of Hooked On Driving has a ton of know-how teaching high performance drivers, and putting on well-run events. He’s a well-known, very experienced driver and instructor. And as you’ll see from his article below, David has thought long and hard about the “driver nannies” issue. I’m doubtful that everyone will ever agree 100% on this topic, but I do believe that David makes some very good points.

By Ross Bentley | January 28, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Race Planner, Vol. 4 2015

In our fourth installment of the Worth a Tow race planner, we look at some upcoming events that run the gamut of skill levels, durations, climates and even eras of racing – there’s a little something for everyone here.

By Winding Road Staff | January 26, 2015
Features , Racing
The Seven Steps To Finding Your Perfect Shock Setting

A question that I’ve had asked of me a few times is how to deal with a car that understeers in the early part of a corner, and then snaps to oversteer towards the exit. It’s not an uncommon situation. I like to look at this type of problem from the driver’s perspective, and what the driver can do about it. But what about what can be done to the car?

By Ross Bentley | January 20, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Race Planner, Vol. 3 2015

The days are getting longer and the weather in some parts of the country is showing signs of improvement. Which can only mean one thing: time to go racing again!

By Winding Road Staff | January 19, 2015
Features , Racing
Rally Cross: What You Need to Know

Rallycross is a popular motor sport that is a rousing delight of exhilarating excitement. The sport dates back to 1967, and has since gone on to become one of the most innovative car sports in the motorsport sector. Hundreds and thousands of people across the world revel in the delights of rugged vehicles and stimulating terrain, and it’s an activity that can be enjoyed by everyone including teenagers through to the older generations.

By Guest Contributor | January 15, 2015
Features , Racing
Speed Secrets: How to Make Mistakes

The theme running through this issue is being okay with making mistakes, experimenting with them, and learning from what did and didn’t go so well. In a sport like this one we’re all involved in, it takes an experienced eye to ensure that you make only the “right” mistakes, and experiment only so far.

By Ross Bentley | January 15, 2015
Features , Racing
WRR TV: It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

Ride along with Team Winding Road Racing member Daniel Ibrahim in this SM class race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. After qualifying fifth on the track and in first for the SM class in the race (which included entrants from ITS, GP, ST2 and FP classes), Dan gets boxed in during the start and falls back to 3rd in class during the first lap. Working his way through the pack, Dan eventually finds himself in an epic battle for the lead with Thomas Burt in the #85 car.

By Bradley Iger | January 14, 2015
Features , Racing
Maximizing Your Racing Budget: SM-C Miata

Let’s face it, racing can be expensive, especially compared with something like club soccer. There have however, been several recent efforts to lower the cost of racing. With these in mind, we set out to build a fun, reliable racecar that keeps costs low.

By Tom Martin | January 12, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Racing Planner: 10 Epic Events (Part 2)

This week, we look across all of 2015 and jog your memory with a group of epic events you can enter as an amateur racer. These events often require more preparation than the typical club weekend (bigger team, longer time span, different car set up, entry by invitation, etc.) so we advise planning well in advance. Here are our the second five (click here for the first five on this list).

By Winding Road Staff | January 12, 2015
Features , Racing
Speed Secrets: Six Elements Required to Achieve New Goals

Nothing better than holiday meals. Well, nothing better, other than getting back in the swing of things for the upcoming season by resuming a fitness program. Yep, two days off, then back at it (although I did see a photo of Simon Pagenault working out on Christmas Day…). Ingrid Steffensen, author of the great book, Fast Girl, is back with a little inspiration.

By Ross Bentley | January 08, 2015
Features , Racing
WRR TV: Highlights from Stage 2 and 3 of the 2015 Dakar Rally

Check out the highlights from Stage 2 and Stage 3 of the 37th running of the Dakar Rally, perhaps the most grueling endurance race around, with stages covering more than 500 miles per day in the 9000km race.

By Winding Road Staff | January 07, 2015
Features , Racing
Worth A Tow Racing Planner: 10 Epic Events (Part 1)

This week, we look across all of 2015 and jog your memory with a group of epic events you can enter as an amateur racer. These events often require more preparation than the typical club weekend (bigger team, longer time span, different car set up, entry by invitation, etc.) so we advise planning well in advance. Here are the first five. We’ll be back next week, with five more.

By Tom Martin | January 05, 2015
Features , Racing
WRR TV: Highlights from Stage 1 of the 2015 Dakar Rally

On Sunday the 2015 Dakar Rally kicked off in Buenos Aires, Argentina as 665 competitors sought their place on the podium of the 37th edition of the grueling endurance event.

By Winding Road Staff | January 05, 2015
Features , Racing
A Brief History of Cooper Motorsports

A mechanic by trade, Charles Cooper teamed up with his son John and a young man named Eric Brandon to build a race car in the middle of the 1940s. Designed merely to compete in hill climb events in post-war England, the very first Cooper was a highly experimental racer whose platform was essentially made up of two Fiat Topolino front ends bolted to a simple ladder frame.

By Ronan Glon | January 01, 2015
Features , Racing
The Three Most Common Race Driving Misconceptions

I’m constantly amazed by the opinions that people in motorsport have, many of which are just plain wrong, or at least a bit off-base. That’s why I was so glad that Mazda factory driver, and coach, Tom Long, tackled the topic of misconceptions (a topic that I’ve often thought about writing about). While what Tom writes about may go against what you’ve heard others say, I can assure you that he nails it. -Ross

By Ross Bentley | December 31, 2014

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