HPDE got me into driving. Not commuting, not owning fun cars, and not talking about what I might do someday. It put me on a racetrack, gave me an instructor, and began the long process of showing me how much I did not know.
Like most things in my world, getting comfortable did not make me want to stop. It made me ask the question I always ask when I begin to understand something:
WHAT’S NEXT?
For me, the next answer was time trials. After that came wheel-to-wheel racing. The path has not been a clean promotion from one level to another, and I am still not sure where I will ultimately land. That uncertainty is part of what makes the journey interesting.
HPDE Gave Me the Foundation
HPDE was where I learned the basic language of track driving: flags, point-bys, vision, braking zones, the line, traffic awareness, and the humility to listen to an instructor who could see the mistakes I could not yet feel.
The early goal was simple—be safe, be predictable, and come back from each session able to explain at least one thing I had learned. Speed arrived as a consequence of repetition. So did the realization that there would always be another corner, another technique, and another layer of the hobby waiting for me.
Open-track sessions also gave me room to make mistakes without turning every lap into a result. That mattered. Before competition could be useful, I needed enough comfort in the car that a timer would expose my habits rather than overwhelm me.
Time Trials Felt Like the Natural Next Step
Time trials felt like the advanced session of HPDE with just enough competition added to change the emotional weight of the lap.
I was still trying to create space, manage traffic, and build one clean lap. No one was fighting me for the same piece of pavement. But now the clock and the results sheet were waiting. A session could feel fast and still produce a disappointing time. One excellent corner could not rescue a lap assembled from several rushed decisions.
That made time trials a natural bridge. The environment still felt familiar, but the timer demanded accountability. I had to prepare the car, choose a plan, understand the tires and brakes, review the data and then actually connect the useful pieces into a completed lap.
At Texas SCCA Regional Time Trials Event #6 at Motorsport Ranch Cresson, Golf Ball and I finished second in T3 with a 1:23.49. The Garmin Catalyst calculated an optimal lap in the 1:21 range, but the important word was calculated. I never drove that complete lap. The speed existed in pieces; the result only counted what I managed to connect.
The Garmin remains the easy button for reviewing an opportunity between sessions. Golf Ball’s AIM MXL2 and SmartyCam support deeper analysis, and I still run both systems. Once a driver has moved beyond the novice group and is ready to use lap data constructively, I recommend the Catalyst because it makes the next assignment easy to find without pretending that data replaces instruction.
My First Real Season
Time trials became my primary competition goal for 2026—my first real season. It gave every event a purpose without requiring me to abandon the HPDE habits that got me there.
I learned how differently pressure changes a session. I learned that chasing the lap usually made the lap worse. I learned to reset after traffic, to respect an imperfect tire window and to accept that the timing sheet records the completed work rather than the lap I believed I was capable of driving.
I plan to carry time trials forward into 2027. I am not graduating from it. There is still too much to learn about consistency, qualifying pace, data and the discipline required to deliver one complete lap when the opportunity appears.
TIME TRIALS DID NOT REPLACE HPDE. THEY GAVE THE SAME LESSONS A SCOREBOARD.
Wheel-to-Wheel Was Not Just Another Registration
Wheel-to-wheel racing has many possible pathways, but all of them require more work than simply selecting a faster run group.
The car needs more preparation—and rightfully so. Safety requirements become more serious because contact, close traffic and the consequences of a mistake are different. Buying Cheese Ball gave me a Spec Miata platform that could lead toward sprint racing, endurance racing, rentals and shared team seat time, but buying the car did not make it race-ready forever. Inspection, safety equipment, reliability and ongoing maintenance are part of the entry fee.
The driver needs more preparation too. Depending on the organization and license path, that can include a medical evaluation, classroom work, driver school, observed races, provisional status and eventually a competition license. Then there is the practical question of where to race and which organization, class and schedule fit the life around the hobby.
That was the first major difference. Time trials asked whether I could complete the lap. Wheel-to-wheel racing asked whether the car, the driver and the entire plan were ready to share that lap with other people.
Cheese Ball Opened More Than One Door
Cheese Ball can race in endurance events or sprint races, and those formats share a rulebook vocabulary without creating the same experience.
My first wheel-to-wheel weekend came through the Apex Enduro at MSR Cresson. It was not a traditional Spec Miata sprint race, but it gave me a real taste of traffic, starts, position, pit strategy, driver changes and the responsibility to return a healthy car to someone else.
The endurance format was a blast because the team became part of every lap. Strategy mattered. Required stops mattered. Belts, radios, timing, spotting and driver changes mattered. CJ, Lew and I each had a job, and the crew had to make the whole sequence work around us.
Saturday taught us how quickly the plan can change. Sunday started with a communications issue that put us at the back even though we were set to start fifth. CJ immediately began working forward, handed Lew a healthy car, and I closed. We finished P1 in AE4 and P2 overall.
That result belonged to more than the three names on the driver list. Travis, Nick and Andrew answered a social-media request for help and became the pit crew we did not yet have. Endurance racing turned a personal driving project into a shared operation.
Endurance Gave Me a Hint of Wheel-to-Wheel
Endurance racing showed me what it feels like when the cars around me are no longer just traffic to manage. Position matters. A pass matters. A mistake can cost the team more than one lap.
But the long format changes the definition of aggression. People still race hard, but the smartest teams understand that taking care of the car and simply finishing are half the game. Winning one argument in a corner is not useful if the contact ends the stint—or the day.
That made endurance racing an inviting first step. It added starts, passing and race decisions, but it also rewarded patience, mechanical sympathy and consistency. The format gave me enough wheel-to-wheel pressure to learn from without making every corner feel like the last lap of a sprint race.
I also loved the strategy. When to stop, who drives next, how long to extend a stint, what the car needs and how the race is developing all become part of the experience. It scratched a completely different part of my brain than chasing a time-trial lap.
Sprint Racing Is the Next Unknown
My next step is my first Spec Miata sprint race with NASA. That will be another new answer to the same old question.
Sprint racing compresses the problem. There is less time for patience to repair a bad start or for strategy to recover lost ground. Drivers are fighting more directly for position, and the corners can become more contested because everyone knows the race will not last long enough for the field to solve itself.
That is exciting. It is also why I am not pretending the Apex Enduro completed the transition for me. Endurance gave me valuable wheel-to-wheel experience, but a Spec Miata sprint field will ask different questions about starts, side-by-side judgment, passing, defending and composure.
I am excited, but I am still not sure where I will land. Maybe sprint racing becomes the thing that pulls me forward. Maybe endurance remains the format I enjoy most because of the team, strategy and shared result. Maybe time trials continue to be the clearest measure of my development while the other formats make me a more complete driver.
I Am Not Choosing One Identity Yet
The easy way to tell this story would be to present a ladder: HPDE first, time trials second, endurance third and sprint racing at the top. That is not how it feels from inside the helmet.
Each format develops something different. HPDE created the foundation. Time trials taught me to deliver a complete lap under pressure. Endurance racing introduced teamwork, traffic, mechanical survival and strategy. Sprint racing will test whether I can make disciplined decisions when position is immediate and the driver beside me wants the same corner.
None of those lessons makes the previous one obsolete. I still need instruction. I still need open practice. I still need wet days, skid-pad work and sessions where the goal is a skill rather than a result. Competition works because those quieter forms of seat time created something worth testing.
What’s Next? More Than One Thing
For 2027, time trials remain part of the plan. I want another season of learning how to turn potential into completed laps.
At the same time, Cheese Ball gives Ball Pit Motorsports the chance to explore both endurance and sprint racing. One format gives me a team and a long problem to solve. The other promises a sharper, more direct test of racecraft.
I do not need to know the final answer yet. The useful question has always been “What’s next?”—not “What replaces everything that came before?”
Right now, the answer is another time-trial season, a first NASA Spec Miata sprint race and more opportunities to discover which kind of competition makes me want to load the trailer again.
