By 
It’s Saturday, June 29, 2019, and I sit in the passenger seat of a shiny, vinyl-wrapped 2019 Acura NSX driving up Pikes Peak. My driver is RealTime Racing’s Peter Cunningham. Tomorrow, authorities will close the road, and a wide variety of race cars and drivers will attempt to accomplish the same journey as fast as possible. And Cunningham will win the Open Class in his Acura TLX and finish third overall with a time of 9 minutes, 24.43 seconds.
Today, the 38-year racing veteran drives much slower, telling me about the Pikes Peak experience and answering my mountain of questions about his car and career. It was all straightforward until I asked a seemingly simple question: “What is the best advice you can give younger people that want to go racing?” Cunningham answered, “Quit now and work on getting a real job that can help pay for your racing in a few years.”
Wow. Certainly not what I expected. And I’m sure not what young hopefuls want to hear. “I don’t make the rules,” Cunningham added. “It’s just the ugly reality.” And the ugly reality is that racing is expensive, extremely so. Cunningham puts it this way: “You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. Just know your odds of winning are lower than getting struck by lightning on the way to the store.”
The broader point is racing is not as simple as showing your talent behind the wheel. Even if you have convinced yourself that you’re the next Josef Newgarden, that doesn’t necessarily mean someone will invest in your future. You have to realize, that investment can quickly add up to seven figures. And this isn’t basketball; you need a lot more than a ball and a neighborhood court to practice.
I experienced the ugly truth myself. In my early 20s, I raced karts and formula cars and got as far as the Formula Dodge National Championship. After two years of serious competition, I found myself $65,000 in debt and surrounded by friends with full-time jobs and houses. So, I stopped. To this day, I miss it and want to race again. But it took three years and major penny-pinching to pull myself out of debt. That’s a ride I do not want to take again.
Are you the next Newgarden? Don’t be discouraged by this—be prepared. Think of ways of garnering the right kind of attention in front of the right crowd. It was hard when Cunningham started, and even harder now, but it’s not impossible. Go for it and maybe your picture will make it on Autoweek. Just remember, “No matter what, there’s always going to be someone that has it better than you,” Cunningham said. “Be thankful for what you have. Not just in racing, in life.”
Sage words.
