Four Cylinder Racing
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
About three years ago, the local stock car track added a new class of racing to it's program. This new class called Sunday Drivers brought out a large group of weekend warriors ranging in age from 14 to 55.
The Sunday Drivers class was invented to bring new people into the world of Auto Racing while keeping the investment to a minimum. The average cost of building one of these cars is about $500, more depending on how far you want to go with your car.
The rules basically are that the car is a four cylinder, front wheel drive. The engine is stock for that type of vehicle and non-turbo charged. Suspension modifications are not allowed. To guard against this, the cars are turned around after a caution to race in the opposite direction.
The most common car on the track is a Honda. There are also Toyotas, Dodges, Fords, Saturns, and basically anything you would see on the streets everyday. My brother races a 1987 Honda Civic Hatchback. I am part of the pit crew.
Every summer, between May 24 and September 10, the whole family is forced to live, eat, sleep racing. Maybe force is too strong a word, as we rather enjoy it. Every winter the weekends are spent building and rebuilding the car for the following season and rehashing the previous season to make ourselves more competitive.
A lot of people are surprised to see an attractive female (so I'm told) in the pits changing tires covered in grease. That's what happens when your father is a mechanic. Some men tend to get a little upset when they realize that I can change an alternator in about 5 minutes or that I know what an alternator is and where to find it.
Now that I have inserted this little rant I can return to the topic.
We race on a 1/4 mile oval in Riverglade, New Brunswick. Our class of racing, Sunday Drivers, requires that the driver not have more than 2 years of racing experience. Some of them don't even have a licence yet. After two years of Sunday Drivers, you move up to Sunday Warriors. This class not only includes graduates of the SD class but drivers of 8 cylinder cars that would like a change. We are moving the Warriors class this season.
Even though we race in a beginners class, there is a lot of work that goes into making it to the track every Sunday. I wouldn't miss a minute of it!
The Sunday Drivers class was invented to bring new people into the world of Auto Racing while keeping the investment to a minimum. The average cost of building one of these cars is about $500, more depending on how far you want to go with your car.
The rules basically are that the car is a four cylinder, front wheel drive. The engine is stock for that type of vehicle and non-turbo charged. Suspension modifications are not allowed. To guard against this, the cars are turned around after a caution to race in the opposite direction.
The most common car on the track is a Honda. There are also Toyotas, Dodges, Fords, Saturns, and basically anything you would see on the streets everyday. My brother races a 1987 Honda Civic Hatchback. I am part of the pit crew.
Every summer, between May 24 and September 10, the whole family is forced to live, eat, sleep racing. Maybe force is too strong a word, as we rather enjoy it. Every winter the weekends are spent building and rebuilding the car for the following season and rehashing the previous season to make ourselves more competitive.
A lot of people are surprised to see an attractive female (so I'm told) in the pits changing tires covered in grease. That's what happens when your father is a mechanic. Some men tend to get a little upset when they realize that I can change an alternator in about 5 minutes or that I know what an alternator is and where to find it.
Now that I have inserted this little rant I can return to the topic.
We race on a 1/4 mile oval in Riverglade, New Brunswick. Our class of racing, Sunday Drivers, requires that the driver not have more than 2 years of racing experience. Some of them don't even have a licence yet. After two years of Sunday Drivers, you move up to Sunday Warriors. This class not only includes graduates of the SD class but drivers of 8 cylinder cars that would like a change. We are moving the Warriors class this season.
Even though we race in a beginners class, there is a lot of work that goes into making it to the track every Sunday. I wouldn't miss a minute of it!
