Auto Racing Management

Auto Racing is one of the most popular spectator sports in the world. And although many individuals dream of hunkering down behind the wheel of a Formula 1 or NASCAR, just as many men and women dream of being behind the scenes as well. An Auto Racing Management course may be just the thing to get you started on the road to a career in auto racing!

Typical courses in auto racing management will provide and introduction and foundation into a variety of auto racing disciplines including spotter, crew chief, race director and team manager. While nothing can substitute for actually being on the race track, a course in auto racing management can present the strategies and skills necessary to get the best results when you lead or are part of a racing team.

There are many courses in auto racing management available online. There are others that take place on-site. Do they work? Can they help? No school can guarantee a job. But with a background in auto racing marketing and endorsements, auto racing event organization, driver image and media relations and agents and contracts in auto racing, prospective students of the sport will at least have the skills necessary to get their foot in the door of auto racing.

Now You Can Learn to be an Auto Race Car Driver

Who wouldn’t envy the opportunity to slip behind the wheel of a Formula 1 or NASCAR race car? Who hasn’t dreamed of what it actually feels like to break out of a curve and hit the straightaway at speeds in excess of 250 miles an hour? The Finish Line Racing School aims to do just that. More than just an extreme sport opportunity, the Finish Line Racing School offers a solid introduction and foundation for anyone who has dreamed of a career as a race car driver.

Race car driving is an expensive habit and when it comes to teaching, the Finish Line Racing School is no exception. Two of their most popular courses, the “Competition Driving Course” (2 days, 86 laps) and “Race to Win/Advanced Course” (3 days, 138 laps) cost just over $3000 and $4000 dollars respectively.

You’re not going to become a professional driver in just a few days, but with this introduction to the sport you’ll soon realize whether your race car fantasy is something that’s actually attainable or whether it’s better to relegate your racing from a comfortable position on the living room couch.

Contact the Finish Line Racing School online for more information.

Auto Racing in Italy

Sleek, red race cars that zip around hair pin turns. The Italian Grand Prix is a nerve-racking test of speed and endurance at Monza in Lake Como, Italy is truly unrivaled by any other stop on the Formula One trail. The locals call it “la pista magica” — the magic race track. You may opt for a simpler term: awesome.

These days in Italy at Lake Como may be better as a hang out for George Clooney, but each September everyone’s attention is focused on this 3.585-mile road course – where drivers attack the Grand Prix and spit in face of the grim reaper.

There may be no other sport in history where the unspoken desire is to see if the drivers will make it through the course in one piece. They’ll be jubilation if they escape death and hushed tones of despair if the worst occurs. And believe me, there have been some tremendous accidents during the Monza weekend.

Up until the mid 1950′s, Monza is the place where racing’s worst accident had occurred, Emilio Materassi crashed his Talbot opposite the pits in 1928, killing himself and 27 spectators. In 1961, Wolfgang von Trips cart wheeled into the crowd after a brush with Jim Clark killing himself and 13 others. In 1933, top drivers Giuseppe Campari, his protege Baconin Borzacchini and the Czech aristocrat Stanislas Czaykowski all died on the same weekend.

And each year the stories grow.

The Monza track has been rebuilt on several occasions, but the basic design is much as it was in the course’s heyday in the 1920′s. The original flat banking has replaced by the not-to-be-believed high banking that can still be seen today. While standing on that banking you will know why some of the most fearless drivers in the world lost their nerve.

The Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The cars, the drivers, and their ever-present dance-with-death.

Auto Racing Events

A1 Grand Prix

A1 Grand Prix is a new international motor racing series that conducted its first full season in 2005. Although open-wheel cars somewhat similar to those used in Formula One and Indy car racing are used, there are significant differences between A1 racing and other types of auto racing. The main difference is that drivers compete for their nation instead of for a private team or constructor. Each competing nation uses identical cars, with the hope that this will provide a level playing field for drivers to compete in. The main points of A1 racing are that driver skill should be the determining factor for success, and that one of the participating nations will be awarded the championship at the end of each racing season.

A1 racecars are identical mechanically, each comprising a Lola-designed chassis weighing 600kg and shod with Cooper 370/660R13 racing slicks. The engine, built by Zytek, is a 3.4 litre V8 engine with performance limitations that can be circumvented by the driver by pushing a “boost button” on the steering wheel. Although 30 franchises were made available before the first season of A1 racing in 2005-06, 25 nations ended up taking part. Each team has 2 drivers and teams are free to change their drivers from race to race. The top 10 placed teams in each race are awarded points, on a decreasing scale, with the winning team receiving 10 points, second place 9 points, and so on down to tenth place which receives a single point. In addition, one extra point is awarded to the team that sets the fastest lap of race day. These points are awarded to the nation, not the driver. Prize money awarded ranges from $10,000 to $300,000.

The very first A1 Grand Prix race was the A1 Grand Prix of Nations Great Britain, which took place on September 25, 2005 at the historic Brands Hatch circuit in Kent. The A1 format calls for “race weekends” comprising two individual races to be held in a total of 12 rounds, making up 24 races in total. The first A1 Grand Prix world championship was awarded to A1 Team France.

In the inaugural 2005-06 racing season, A1 Grand Prix races took place at racetracks including the Dubai Autodrome in the United Arab Emirates, the Shanghai International Circuit in China, EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Germany and Laguna Seca raceway in the USA.

Formula One Grand Prix

Formula One auto racing is one of the longest running series of auto racing. What is considered to be the World Drivers Championship and World Constructors Championship was organized in the late 1940s with the first formal F1 race being run in 1950. Argentine driver Juan Manuel Fangio was the dominant driver in F1′s first decade, winning the championship 5 times. The decade of the 1960s belonged to British and Commonwealth drivers. Team Lotus featured legendary drivers such as Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Jack Brabham and Graham Hill. As F1 cars continued to improve technologically, safety issues began to become a source of concern. Various restrictions were put on features of the cars’ design, for example the banning of turbocharged engines in 1989 and of various traction and suspension aids in 1994. Formula One racing is known to be the most expensive form of auto racing. This is due to the requirement that each team construct the chassis for its cars. Only then can engines made by manufactures such as BMW, Honda or Ford Cosworth be added to complete the cars. Another major expense is the deposit new F1 teams must place with FIA, the sport’s organizing body. This $50 million fee is gradually repaid over the course of the racing season, but as an “entry fee” it’s some chunk of change! These days, Formula One events are run in countries around the world. Even China and Bahrain have hosted recent races. Drivers such as Fernando Alonso, Kimi R�ikk�nen and Juan Pablo Montoya vie to become the next legendary Formula One champion, succeeding the modern era’s most successful driver, Germany’s Michael Schumacher.

The 2006 Formula One season contains 18 races beginning with the Bahrain Grand Prix on March 12 and ending with the Brazilian Grand Prix on October 22.

The 2007 Formula One season is scheduled to contain 21 races beginning with the Australian Grand Prix in March and winding up with the Brazilian Grand Prix in October. Some of the notable “non-country” races on the schedule include the European Grand Prix and the Pacific Grand Prix. Grand Prix races will also be held in San Marino and Monaco.

Rally

Rally racing is an immensely popular form of automobile racing that takes place on public roads, off-road trails and in some cases uncharted desert wastes. Rallying is done with customized production cars specifically modified to handle anything and everything that could happen on any sort of surface.

This exceptional motorsport is very different than the NASCAR or Formula One-style circuit racing many people are familiar with. The participants in a rally race compete in a point-to-point format where drivers and their co-drivers (or navigators) “rally” to a set of points, leaving in regular intervals from set starting points. Rally is also unique in that races take place on all types of road surfaces and in all weather or climate conditions. Asphalt (tarmac), gravel, sand, snow & ice; all surfaces are valid and sometimes rally racers encounter more than one on a single rally. You can find rallies being run in every month of the year and in every climate, from bitter arctic cold to drenching monsoon rain to scorching desert heat.

A typical rally course consists of a sequence of relatively short (up to about 50 kilometers) timed “special stages” where the actual competition takes place, and un-timed “transport stages” where the rally cars must be driven under their own power to the next competitive stage within a generous time limit. The need for the cars to be driven on public roads in the un-timed stages means that they must be “street legal”, and this factor adds to their popularity with rally fans. Generally a rally will have 20 drivers and 20 co-drivers competing. Rally racing is also a great entry-level sport for amateur racers, as few modifications need to be made to most production cars in order for them to compete in a car rally.

Dozens of Rally Racing events take place around the world. Some of the more notable car rallies are the Monte Carlo Rally, the Acropolis Rally, the Paris Dakar Rally, the Carrera Panamericana and of course the World Rally Championship.

IndyCar

IndyCar is most often used as a generic term for open-wheel auto racing in the United States National Championship, and comes from the name of the Indianapolis 500, the best known and long most-popular open-wheel auto race in North America. There are many drivers competing in a single race and can be up to 50. Points awarded range form 50 points to the winner and scales down to 10 points to the one in 33rd place. Prize money ranges from about $3 000 to about $300 000.