Now that I am the co-founder of a new start-up, WolkeWerks, I have the challenge of maintaining that delicate work / race balance. Some people may ask, so you mean work / life balance? Of course, if you are the co-founder of a start-up and spend your spare time flying across the country to race cars, you have no “life” left to balance. But I digress.
A number of years ago I wrote a blog post about maintaining work / race balance. I was in DC just starting as an executive for AOL. Starting a new job can be overwhelming with the learning curve and wanting to make a great impression. This is especially hard when one is learning an intense new hobby such as auto racing at the same time.
The Land of the Free, Home of the Brave
Mostly I am still amazed almost ten years later than the common terrible driver can take their car out to a PDX on a real race track! Yes, that pimple-faced teenager that cut you off on the way to the grocery store is bombing around some race track in his mom’s station wagon. Quite soon they become a common reasonable driver. Some go on to be rookie and then an accomplished race car driver. Hey – this is America!
I must admit, back in 2009 when I decided I was going to get my racing license and go compete, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought I was going to race my 2001 Z06 Corvette that I had used at a couple of PDX events. Not so much. A PDX allows street cars (which now kind of scares me). But real race cars have roll cages and safety equipment. The fact that “instructors” for the novice and intermediate PDX drivers get into cars with no safety equipment and unskilled drivers makes them very BRAVE. Or something else. But I do not want to discourage them or be negative in this blog…
Mike Collins to the rescue
Balancing my work / race world was really only made possible at that time by a guy named Mike Collins. Mike explained what I needed to do, rented me a car for the “driver’s school”, and helped convince the instructors to pass me even though I made some material mistakes.
Mike Collins runs Meathead Racing. He also is an SCCA rules expert and has appeared on RacingTV and other outlets. He is a long-time, experienced, SCCA racer. He is also one of the early SM class competitors.
I still race with Meathead Racing to this day and still get track support and great advice from my fellow “Meathead” racers. Mike Collins won both the Saturday and Sunday races last weekend. He also set the track record. So it makes sense to continue to listen to his advice.
Cahall Racing Work / Race in 2018
The plan is for Ted Cahall and Cahall Racing to make it to all of the MARRS events in 2018. That means VIR and a couple of events at NJMP. Meathead Racing will be there to help make that possible. They will allow me to maintain that delicate work / race balance.
Now back to the start-up, I’m burning daylight!
