You’ve been lurking. You’ve been wanting to jump in. You just haven’t done it yet. And you wonder if you ever will.
In amateur motorsports, that’s a tale as old as time. It’s also the tale of Grassroots Motorsports (GRM) Video Editor Chris Tropea. Thanks to a new GRM video series that involves SCCA® Time Attack competition and SCCA’s Club Spec class, that’s about to change for Tropea – and hopefully come October of this year he’ll be well on his way to earning a trophy at the inaugural Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack National Championship.
The idea is, if Tropea can make the leap into on-track driving, you can too.
The plan is to put Tropea in GRM’s Club Spec Mustang for the season to get him up to speed, so he’ll be ready for the run to glory at Eagles Canyon Raceway for the SCCA Time Attack National Championship.
Tropea isn’t completely new to motorsports, although his first-hand experience is limited. Along with some seat time for another GRM story, Tropea participated in an SCCA Track Night in America® Driven by Tire Rack event at Pitt Race not long ago.
“Going into it, I was nervous never driving on Pitt Race, never driving in a group of cars, but the SCCA made it super easy to get through that process and not be stressed out the entire time,” Tropea explained to GRM’s Tech Editor J.G. Pasterjak about that Track Night experience in the first episode of the new video series entitled “Path to the Podium.”
“With the driver coaches, debriefing every time, the novices had laps to learn the track – it was a very easy progression into it,” he said.
In the video, Pasterjak (who has plenty of experience on track through events like the Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack Challenge) explains to Tropea that the same low-stress atmosphere found at Track Nights will be present at Time Attack events, “it’s just the clocks are running,” he said.
“You have that little bit of extra stress [at a Time Attack Challenge event] from the fact that it’s a timed competition, and the fact that you’re out there with other people who are working against the clock as well, so you have to work on that extra level of driver courtesy of situational awareness,” Pasterjak added.
The first episode of the “Path to the Podium” video series is now available on GRM’s YouTube channel:
“Path to the Podium” will continue all year long, with the final installment coming after the Oct. 22-25, 2026, Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack National Championship. Be sure to subscribe to GRM’s YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of the videos in this series.
Learn more about the Tire Rack SCCA Time Attack Challenge and Time Attack National Championship at timetrials.scca.com, then be like Tropea and have #funwithcars for yourself.
Photo courtesy Grassroots Motorsports
