The people that are racing VTA are alot of the same people that race USGT.
With VTA racing inside when there is only enough for a A main the slower and Newbies usually feel they are just in the way. I spend way more money racing VTA then GT.
Windy City usually has a sportsman class if there are Enough of them. Leisure Hours, Timewarp HT, Orland HT usually dont.
The Euro Truck are mostly established racers too , very few new people, some are people that race VTA, GT outside but dont like those classes on carpet. Race Euro Truck inside.

21stI have seen newer people start out slow maybe coming in last mostly. I have seen them after they get the hang of it start to not be last and beat some of those guys racing for 10 years. Then you can be like me racing for Thirty years and hang out just below where the pros and super enthusiasts race

I have been of been in the hobby for 33 years. I have raced since the first place I found that had races. It was an outdoor track in Arlington Heights, Illinois. In 1984 I bought a RC10 when they first came out. Now I'm retired and 73 years old. I have 13 cars that are a mix of modern on and off road types. I would love to race as I can still wheel them pretty decent. HOWEVER, both my knees are shot and I need a cane to walk. Stairs are painful but doable. Marshaling is not. So what do I do? The way I look at it if you can't marshal then you can't race. This is something I want to do so bad because the competition is what fueled my interest in this hobby for all these years. I'm not looking for any sympathy here. The reason for posting this is because I wonder about all the guys I raced with over the years. They are around my current age. So I what do they do, give up the hobby and find a different one or, like I do, just build and paint and find another shelf to put it on?

Take a look at the new facility Windy City just opened. No stairs. It’s a low drivers stand.
If you have bad knees I don’t believe anyone will force you to marshal. Seems like they have plenty of people that can.

Thanks Billy, do you know Jim Oliva? I use to race with him back in the day. He raves about Windy City. I've only seen pictures but the place looks amazing. I have lived in Cancun Mexico for 10 years since I retired but......we are moving back to the USA but most likely the gulf side of Florida. So I'm hoping that there are some tracks in the Sarasota area that I can check out and see if maybe they have an "Old Fart" class with marshals???? LOL.

Welcome back to the USA, Tom!

I've never raced with a group of guys who couldn't find a way to cover marshaling for someone who had mobility issues. And dare I say that the VTA guys are even more accommodating than average!

No I don’t. I only know the group a raced with last summer. They do race at Windy City. I haven’t been able to make it there for few reasons.

Tracks have been forced to make changes in past few years to drivers stand access. They are now required to be accessible for those with disabilities.

Not gonna come back to the lovely Midwest, didn’t you miss winter time?

Banana racetrack in Richardson, Tx uses their daughters for hire as turn marshalls. What a great way for the kids to earn some cash and allow some drivers in multi classes some time to wrench on their vehicles and for guys like me with mobility issues to do our requirement to marshall indirectly. It's a win - win.

Thank you Billy, Howard and Mediumquick

Did you race at Metrofast? I met Mr Oliva there years ago.

Try to focus on just being consistent on each lap. Even if slow. It wasn’t till after that I really looked back at just how inconsistent my lap times were. I made a big jump from race 1 to 14. But could have been even better.
If practice runs in same time frame as what they race. If it’s 5 or 6 minutes per heat. Try that. Helps get a internal clock in your head. 6 minutes doesn’t seem long but at first it feels like it.
Just some suggestions I’ve been using this winter. I’ll find out in couple months if it helped.

It's interesting that you mentioned this. Now that I've decided to abandon any more ill advised attempts to uhm, 'tune' my car and have decided to pick a setup and stick with it, I've also decided to reduce the time I spend on each practice run. I've gone from originally planning to run till the battery dies, (LiPo technology put an end to that idea), to staying out as long as I can till I get tired, and now to do roughly 10 minute stints. I'll take a break, think about what I need to change about my driving style/transmitter settings/setup and head back out for another 10 and so on.

One thing that has surprised me is what it's like to be on the drivers stand. I'm 57 and wear glasses, my vision has been challenged to get used to the change in the distance that the car is from me at any given time. Also, that you can't see certain parts of the track around other drivers and unfortunately, I'm just the wrong height so that the railing is exactly in the way of where I hold my transmitter. Yeah, it sounds silly to even talk about but those are just additional factors to overcome while you're trying to focus on staying out of the way of others, learning to drive, and just plain having some fun. Thanks!

Maybe you raced with US in the old Leisure Hours parking lot or Carpet track , maybe Radio Active, McHenry hobby town??? Way Before the days of VTA.

If you wear bi-focals then you need to consider a pair of single vision glasses just for the distance part. That will help a ton. I'm 71 and 5'6" and our stand has a 4' high rail and the back stretch is 100 feet from the stand so I know what you mean about rail height. Pick up one of those vinyl 8-10" single step kitchen stools and take it with you to the stand. Don't leave it there though cause it tends to annoy the drivers that don't need them. I think you will find that most of the other drivers won't have any trouble with your current skill set as long as you consistently hold your line and basically don't do anything stupid like back out into traffic or dive for the outer rail at the last second. If you talk to most of the hot shoes up front and ask them how you can help them get around you I think you will find that they will tell you the same thing. Your problems will lie with the wanna be posers that think they are the stars. Since they effectively would b!tch if you hung them with a new rope just take them with a grain of salt. Don't get cross or mean to them though as they are an excellent source for high dollar motors and stuff at bargain basement prices cause they have to buy something more expensive in order to be as good or fast as the actual stars.

About the "set up". Rule of thumb states for any vehicle large or small is that if the car won't turn you either soften the front or stiffen the rear. If the opposite happens then reverse the process. It goes deeper than that, much deeper but it is a starting point. You can drive yourself slap crazy with suspension dynamics so keep it simple until you figure out where the bathroom is. AND as I said in an earlier post your priority should be having a good time. Once that begins the rest will start to fall into place.

Just wanted to share pics of my wife’s VTA and also my VTA.