Looking forward to watching your experience in the future. I enjoy watching what other people are doing and trying to learn from it--since I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be doing myself, hah.

Thanks man, I'm looking forward to it!

Good luck on the bike search man. Looking forward to seeing you out there!

Thanks man. Watching videos of Pitt just freaked me out enough to get a stabilizer and I'm glad I have it. Ugh, sorry to hear about the plate and screws... Nothing about that sounds fun at all. Looking forward to seeing you as well out at Blackhawk. It's such a different beast and there are some parts of it I just don't understand how to be quick at yet despite having far more laps there than anywhere else. I'll see you in June!

Hah, thanks man. I need to start hustling more before tires start becoming the limiting factor. Jealous of seeing how quick some of you lunatics are out there! Congrats on your 2023 season, and good luck in 2024.

Like when I saw you mowing the lawn at Pitt because your clipon fell off in T13? hah Being so close to Blackhawk brings my costs down pretty substantially compared to other places. $185 vs $260 for the practice day alone plus very little fuel for me to get there. I'd say your estimates sound pretty inline with mine if I added one or two more classes. My Pitt weekends are definitely closer to $1500+. And I'll likely run an extra class there to make the journey more worth it. True I didn't count the engine. I'm not sure what it's going to cost in total to refresh/rebuild it. The replacement I got was $100 though. If I find out it runs strong... may not be in a hurry to rebuild the other one.

I see way sketchier and dangerous dumb shit at track days. It's the multiple classes and and usually 1-2 egos that cause issues. I just start in the "relaxed" lane now so I generally don't have to worry about it.

Depends how you look at it. It's not a few grand a month--it's about $1,100 a month after I own the bike and gear. My riding season is short, so I have 5 race weekends in a year. $1,100 per month is a hell of a lot less expensive than childcare per month, and I don't have kids. I also don't have a dog or a cat. It's also going to vary significantly depending on where in the world you are. I didn't want to sugar coat it. This is why a lot of people stop racing when they have kids. It's an expensive hobby. And kids are really expensive. So it prices people out. But it's not that much more money than doing track days if you're not competing for expert level championships.