Auto Racing Becomes a Favorite Hobby for Tech Elite | Hacker News Reader

Auto Racing Becomes a Favorite Hobby for Tech Elite

nytimes.com

Because auto racing has been for the regular Joe?

Auto racing (and really any motorsport) is extremely expensive and you need to pay to play. This is just another way to hate on people with money.

That's not quite true. I have friends who do racing with used, cheaply modified street cars. You can get into go-carts fairly cheaply. There are a huge number of leagues in the US and many of them are for hobbyists.

Many forms of auto racing are for the regular Joe and lately Jane.

Club racing isn't that expensive (SCCA, NASA, etc). The most popularly raced car in the US is the Miata.

24 Hours of LeMons is huge and the car (not including safety equipment) has to be $500 or less. Call it $10k for the car total. A team of four people can probably do that?

When I was in college, I raced SCCA style with an late-60s MG Midget I picked up for $900 and put maybe another $2k in (engine rebuild, Weber carbs and other assorted tweaks). Great fun.

  At some point during every conversation I had with a tech guy who 
  is interested in racing, there would come an awkward moment in 
  which he would ask me not to paint him as an extravagant, sexist 
  cretin. Mr. Schachter told me, “Try to tone down the rich guy 
  hobby thing.”

Too late.

Yeah, I talked about a lot more about club racing and LeMons and it didn't get included.

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