It's in the Shop

Using a prep shop to store, transport and maintain your car is the next best thing to being a pro, and for many it’s the only route to racing.

If you ask Dave Wheeler, the sport of club racing is moving toward being shop based, with more and more club racers using a prep shop to store, prepare and transport their racecars as well as keep them in good shape during the weekend. Of course, he's in the prep shop business, running Advanced Autosports, one of the bigger Spec Miata prep shops in the country. But he says the way his business is growing is a clear indication that things are heading in that direction.The reasons for doing so are fairly obvious. Not only do you need a place to store your racecar, you need a trailer, a tow vehicle and the associated costs of licensing and insurance that go with them. Then you've got to do your own maintenance in between races and during the race weekend."I bet if you go to a big race like the June Sprints, 60 or 70 percent of the cars are running through a prep shop," Wheeler says. "The days of a guy being competitive and working on his own stuff are pretty much gone. People are just too busy to do it themselves and these cars are too complicated to work on, especially as we get into the newer cars where even more stuff is computer controlled."