PCA SDR

I'm considering stepping up to PCA Club racing in 07. According to the requirements you need 1)a properly equipped car, of course 2)12 or more track days in the previous 24 months 3)a certification from the Chief Instructor and 4)a physical to apply to a racing school. Upon completion of the racing school a rookie license is issued. This is upgraded to a full license upon completion of 4 incident free events in a two year period.

The PCA 07 schedule shows Phoenix on March 4/6 and California Speedway on March 24-26.

I think it is possible to attend the racing school and run 4 events and become fully licensed in these two weekends.

Anybody interested? I'd also be interested in hearing about the program from club racers

Pete Millikin wrote:I'm considering stepping up to PCA Club racing in 07. According to the requirements you need 1)a properly equipped car, of course 2)12 or more track days in the previous 24 months 3)a certification from the Chief Instructor and 4)a physical to apply to a racing school. Upon completion of the racing school a rookie license is issued. This is upgraded to a full license upon completion of 4 incident free events in a two year period.

The PCA 07 schedule shows Phoenix on March 4/6 and California Speedway on March 24-26.

I think it is possible to attend the racing school and run 4 events and become fully licensed in these two weekends.

Anybody interested? I'd also be interested in hearing about the program from club racers

I am going to be finishing up my POC license at the beginning of December, as long as I pass. So I would be willing to run the California Speedway race but I think I would get into PCA with PCA license since the requirements are more strict, correct?

Kary - The rules say there are two paths to a PCA club license. The first I described above and the second is via an existing competiton license such as SCCA, ALMS, POC etc. This means you can immediately apply for a PCA license given a valid POC license.

After 4 PCA events without incident the full PCA license would be issued.

POC's requirements are fairly similar in time - they require completion of two full racing clinics (2 weekends) but I don't see any mention of a formal rookie period to receive a full license.

I wanna club race in '07!

"Gimme da keys I'll drive..."

POC is a much slower process.
If you want to go wheel-to-wheel racing in 2007, by all means , do the PCA Club race at Fontana, but also do the NASA racing weekends. They race about once a month and they have 2 races per weekend. That's the way to get racing experience sooner. Anybody can enter NASA's entry level HPDE program , High Performance Driving Experience, if they have a helmet and a safe car. You'll get lots of track time, too!

Pete Millikin wrote:I'm considering stepping up to PCA Club racing in 07. According to the requirements you need 1)a properly equipped car, of course 2)12 or more track days in the previous 24 months 3)a certification from the Chief Instructor and 4)a physical to apply to a racing school. Upon completion of the racing school a rookie license is issued. This is upgraded to a full license upon completion of 4 incident free events in a two year period.

The PCA 07 schedule shows Phoenix on March 4/6 and California Speedway on March 24-26.

I think it is possible to attend the racing school and run 4 events and become fully licensed in these two weekends.

Anybody interested? I'd also be interested in hearing about the program from club racers

Recheck your dates for California Speedway. It is planned for March 30, 31 and April 1 of 2007

Greg

Gregg - You're right. The table of dates looked like it was labeled for 07 but was actually 06. Unfortunately, the 07 schedule is not as convenient. Other than Fontana 3/30, in the West you have Portland 6/1, New Mex 9/15 and Utah 9/29.

I'll definitely do Fontana and maybe Utah.

Here the link to the dates:

http://www.pca.org/clubrace/schedule07.htm

I hoping to get the racing license for 07 as well, time allowing. I might see you at both events with the big X on the back

I attended the PCA Club Race School in May 05' at the Las Vegas Club Race. I did this in advance of the POC school the following month. There was a Time Trial requirement that I barely met, and Susan Shire at PCA was extremely helpful with all the paperwork.

The actual class was about 3 hours long on the Friday evening before the race. We did some practice starts on Saturday which were really helpful, then went out and raced in the 1-hour enduro on Saturday afternoon. I remember coming down the straight behind Jack Miller waiting for the green flag to drop and laughing at how lucky/excited I was just to be there. I spun once(4 off), and ran out of gas 4 laps from the finish, typical rookie mistake....

Pete Millikin wrote:I'm considering stepping up to PCA Club racing in 07. According to the requirements you need 1)a properly equipped car, of course 2)12 or more track days in the previous 24 months 3)a certification from the Chief Instructor and 4)a physical to apply to a racing school. Upon completion of the racing school a rookie license is issued. This is upgraded to a full license upon completion of 4 incident free events in a two year period.

The PCA 07 schedule shows Phoenix on March 4/6 and California Speedway on March 24-26.

I think it is possible to attend the racing school and run 4 events and become fully licensed in these two weekends.

Anybody interested? I'd also be interested in hearing about the program from club racers

Pete, I think you are looking at the wrong year for the schedule. 07 isn't so convenient

Pete,

Congratulations on considering "stepping up" to club racing next year. PCA, POC, as well as NASA as Tim suggested, from my experience have all been great personal learning experiences.

I would recommend going to a professional school and completing the required program to obtain a graduation certificate and then a letter of competency. Once you receive the competency letter you mail it off to SCCA and apply for a Competition Racing License. This is the license that will allow you to go in any direction you want to go.

If you decide to go this route, which ever school you decide to go with, the instruction you will receive will be like nothing else you've ever experienced. The schools are essentially the home bases for pro drivers, such as Memo Giddly who taught me how to drive Esses like it's nobodies buisness. Scott Speed who taught me how to over take cars deep in a braking zone. Jim Pace who taught me how minimize my inputs and drive closer to the edge. And Rick McCormick who taught me that "if you ever get lucky enough to drive on a pro team, if you don't wreck'em every once in a while they think you're not driving hard enough." This was just after I t-boned a tire barrier at 100mph . And the list of names, experiences and networking goes on.

Good luck and I hope to see you this Friday at the DE and/or AX on Saturday.

Chris O'

Pete:

You've come a long way since our joint PCA-SDR PDS in 2002. Go get 'em, Dude!

I'd love to join you in the Club Racing arena! I just have a small to-do list to get me there:

1) Give me a 36-hour day to get everything done
2) Give me a couple million $$$$ to afford the estimated $4K weekends
3) Put Monica and my dog Bagus in a coma every weekend so they won't miss me
4) Get a real Porsche
5) Get a Sponsor that doesn't mind me not getting to the podium every race .... or ever, for that matter.

Okay .... I'm all set!

DC

Sounds like there are going to be a few SDans at the POC clinic in Dec. The racer's clinic is a blast and very well organized event leading to licensure. The only rub is POC doesn’t get a lot of track time at PCA events . Go figure!