Road Racing

 If you’re looking to go racing, there are several rental options on our Prep Shop page. If you’re just wanting to get a taste, show up to an event and you might be able to meet a racer and offer to be on their crew, or this is where our Trackside volunteer program is perfect.

Every position at an SCCA race — from the people who line up cars on grid, to corner workers, to the officials who make the top decisions at a race—are SCCA members who volunteer for those duties. If being in the car isn’t for you, or not what you want to do at this time, you can join in the events to ensure cars are safe (scrutineering), use the flags to signal drivers (corner workers) or operate the event from the tower (Stewards).

For SCCA Road Racing, there are different categories. Spec, Touring, Super Touring®, Production, Grand Touring are for cars that resemble or started life as a car at a dealership, and Formula Cars and Prototypes are for purpose-built race cars that don’t look like street cars at all. From there, cars are put into individual classes in each category based on performance potential and modifications. To give an example, Grand Touring (GT) has six classes, Super Touring (ST) and Production categories have three classes in each. Touring Category has four classes, and Spec Category has six classes. To give an example, a 2012 Mazda MX-5 Miata can run in Spec MX-5 (SMX), Touring 4 (T4), E-Production (EP) and Grand Touring 2 (GT-2) depending on modifications to engine, suspension, chassis, bodywork, etc. By taking this approach, the SCCA is able to create the best potential for competitiveness at multiple levels of budget and desires for each car.

An SCCA Drivers School is a special region-hosted school held over multiple days which can bring a driver from “never have I ever driven a car on track” to “ready to race” in a single event. There are also Accredited Drivers Schools—professional drivers schools accredited by the SCCA to be able to assign school and license credit—and Alternate Drivers Schools, single-day opportunities for a driver with experience elsewhere to get their drivers school credit.

The answer to this is, “it depends.” For events like Drivers School and Race Experience, unless you’re a minor without a driver’s license, a driver’s license and annual SCCA membership are all you need. For our upper levels: Regional, Majors and Super Tour series – those do require various grades of licenses which you can earn by starting out at Drivers School or Race Experience.

There are a few physical items you need to go road racing, you will need all the appropriate driver gear including suit, shoes, gloves, helmet, socks, head & neck restraint device and maybe even fire-resistant base layers and a ski-mask type “head sock” all meeting specific certification, as well as a vehicle meeting specific safety requirements including roll cage, race seat, racing belts, window nets, etc.—all also meeting specific requirements for materials, design and certification. Many events also require that your car fits a specific class.