Racing versus running? Do I have the right mindset?

I consider myself where you want to be. 

I take the racing seriously.  I'm organized, our pit stops are fast, our car is prepped to last the race, we run good tires, etc.  All the things that I can control are done to put me in a position to win.  The seriousness stops and humor starts with things I can't control.  If we have contact on track that may not have been our fault, we can't get mad at that.  We had a ball joint remove itself from the car, the team had to laugh at that and we didn't get angry.  If you are in the car and getting frustrated at the car ahead of you for being in the wrong place (perceived or actual) on the track, then other series beckon.  If you can't laugh at yourself and admit your own mistakes and shortcomings when things go wrong, then you are taking yourself too seriously for Lemons. 

BTW, I've found that some of the fastest cars on track are also some of the hardest partyers in paddock.  Some of that is what I mentioned - if your car is prepped good enough, you don't need to work on it in paddock.  In other series, that empties out the paddock as they go out to dinner and back to hotels.  In Lemons, that leads to drinking in paddock.

I think you make an important distinction here; so, I should clarify. I am not frustrated or angry in any way. Just highly competitive. I enjoy both the competition and the paddock culture. I hope to be able to enjoy both, but not if my sense of competition is inappropriate for Lemons.

We are also a mid-B team, although we can often run in the top 25 overall when we are dialed in.  So, maybe another question arises here: when does one driver’s enthusiasm for racing hard make another driver’s racing experience feel less fun? How do we reconcile those two competing interests? Is an attitude adjustment required of an enthusiastic driver? Of the fun driver?

—bb

You can have a good time and still be competitive. I try and mix up class C drives with competing and developing my now-decent Volvo PV544.

Nothing wrong with trying to win B, your team org and prep is more important than raw speed, tho you need to be somewhere in the upper third of your class I think to pull it off.

The People of Lemons™ are why I keep coming back.

12 years and 103 races later it's still a good time.

-Anton

There's literally 3 class winners at every race, Usually they aren't having less fun and they aren't ruining the fun for anyone else (except maybe the team in second if they're unusually close). They do have to spend a lot of money, and a lot of time to do so, but that's their problem.

In a race that's usually determined by tens of laps, not tenths of seconds. You really don't have to be a pain to yourselves or others to win. You just go out there drive Fast and be Quick, and minimize time in and around the pits/penalty box. What WON'T give you a competitive edge like it does in Sprint Road Racing and Circle track racing is "secrets". You're not an F-1 team. Being aloof and secretive won't win you anything, and aside from common interest, nobody cares about someone else's "Game Changer super magic parts" or whatever crap "real racers" use to justify being secretive insular jerks to each other. *cough*ClubNationals*cough*

I'm not sure where this mindset came from that you can't take racing seriously in Lemons. Even when I started like 8 years ago the racing was serious enough, and the cars and pit community was relaxed. Even if the cars and community are a bit on the sillier side, it's still racing, and there  shouldn't be a penalty for wanting to do the best your team can do.

We take the racing seriously in the sense that we always have a goal we're working to for the weekend. Lately it's been finish top 20, top 15 if we do really well. We take our stints seriously, plan our weekend, and overall are trying to meet that goal. But we have the understanding that we're racing with friends and if things go wrong, so be it, we'll laugh it off and try again. Racing for C-class win was a lot of fun, we took it seriously and really tired in our last years in the class. Never got there, but we tried.  And we know there are others out there that are just there to have fun, which is 100% fine. They have the same right to be there, and it's just part of the Lemons challenge to share the track with them.

There is no reason that we can't all have different goals and motivations for showing up on race weekend. If you like the actual racing, great, so do others. If you are just doing it to blow off steam with some friends for the weekend, great, so are others. Either is acceptable and shouldn't be frowned upon by the rest of the community.

I'd say that if one is competing _against_ the other 'racers' then he is taking it too seriously, but you're competing _with_ them then it's the right kind of sportsmanship. 

Let's take Eyesore, for example. If I were 'racing' at that level, I'd _want_ to have other teams around with that type of track awareness and racecraft - and self-deprecating humor-to help pull me along.  If a driver started focusing on those teams as ones to _beat_, rather than to be able to go faster than...then you're starting to go semi-pro.

Remember, for some (most?) of us Lemons was the draw into racing because there were enough (ab)Normal Joes out there that we started to think that we too could also pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get better/faster/funner - and also don't forget that (unlike the other series that i've heard about) the 'competition' here is against the Hand of Fate that lingers around $500 race cars!

I think there's a natural inclination toward being more competitive as you spend more time in the car and Lemons affords you—as long as your crap is running, anyway—A LOT of time in the car to improve your ability. As many others have pointed out, being competitive and having fun aren't mutually exclusive. Cerveza Racing won their 15th Lemons race last weekend; no one would ever accuse their team captain of not being competitive, but he's not cutthroat about it and he knows that once the car is off the track, it's time to hang out and enjoy the weekend with other Lemons people.

I'd like to think there's room in Lemons for everyone except the people who want to drive like Roger Penske or Joe Gibbs has scouts at Lemons races. There are plenty of sandboxes for those racers to crash into.

It could be my complete ignorance here, and this is only roughly analogous, but as someone who loaned a car to a friend to drive, I fully expected it to come back in the same condition I lent it [it didn't, he hit a bag of concrete which fell off a truck driving on a highway. I wish he had collision insurance. Oh, well...].

If I had a business, resources, and scouts like Penske or Gibbs, they'd be looking for the drivers who can:
1. go fast, understanding the capabilities of the car they're driving and the conditions in which they're driving (to include the apparent capabilities of the other cars and drivers also on the track) and,
2. make intelligent passing decisions, so as to ***NOT*** damage the car, or, cause others to lose control avoiding imprudent choices, thereby potentially injuring someone.

But: I don't know anything about racing.

To be clear, what we do, is very slow... and not at all at the edge of anything.   The difference between what we do and what guys do who are paid to drive on TV is about the same as the difference between a guy who plays hoops at the YMCA on the weekend and an NBA player.  Just because you’re beating the crap out of a bunch of schlubs at the Y doesn’t mean you can step on an NBA court.

Keep it fun, keep it safe.  No one is getting a pro-ride from their performance at a Lemons race.

I’m pretty sure even Cerveza isn’t getting approached by anyone to drive their IMSA car.

YEA!

And I started my very first Lemons race with a 2-hour time-out BF penalty even BEFORE the green flag was thrown on Saturday, so what does THAT tell you??!?!???!11?!1?1?>!1?!

Thank you, but you're far too kind.

No racing experience whatsoever - not even digital. I "grew up" on the Schuylkill Expressway near Philly driving my father's car - but I'm sure that's not the same.

I've been reading just about everything in this forum to learn, though, and my previous is my opinion and my driving ethic.

Oh, and I race in the other series very frequently, and the average speeds are significantly higher. I think that can make it feel like the racers are being more competitive. However, I receive point-bys and friendly waves on track much more frequently over there (and the officials are so, so much more friendly, which still seems weird to me, but it is what it is).  Everyone has a different experience, ya know?