Imsa Placement Test: Fill & Download for Free

The hard part about answering this question is to discern what you’re trying to learn. In many or even most professional racing, in series below F1 and Sprint Cup, we have different types of drivers.1 - Factory or full time pro.2 - Pro/semi-pro.3 - Gentleman driver.Let’s go in reverse, since race drivers go too fast when we’re going forward. =-)A gentleman driver is someone who has a lot of money, or even a family member with a lot of money who’s willing to put up the cost of the race weekend for them. If they’re driving for a team in TCB in the Pirelli World Challenge, the slowest and least expensive class, they’re writing a check in the neighborhood of $10,000 for the weekend. If they’re driving in IMSA’s Continental Tire series in the Street Touring (ST) class, as of 2017 they’re writing a check to the team owner for somewhere around $15,000 up to as much as $20,000 to be one of the two drivers in the car. Going up to a GT car in either IMSA or World Challenge, the pricing can vary. To get into a GTD car for the Daytona 24 Hours, that amount has six figures in it. $100,000 would be a good deal for a gentleman driver to be part of a four driver team. A regular weekend is going to be a little over half that. World Challenge is going to be a little more, but not much, but there’s one driver taking on the whole cost of the car instead of it being split across two. The race time is shorter, so the costs for fuel, tires, and other wear items is less over the weekend.The professional or semi-professional driver has an interesting role to play. A lot of time is spent being a master salesperson, working on developing relationships with sponsors, making deals to cover the costs associated with racing, and coaching amateur drivers at regional and national club level events. Where a gentleman driver might write a check for $15,000, the professional driver can get the same seat for as little as $8,000, but typically closer to $12,000. The team owner does this because the pro can typically drive a little faster and more consistently, thereby hopefully getting more television time and podium placements. It can help draw gentleman drivers to the team, and those gentleman drivers will get coaching during the race weekend from the pro. The pro typically doesn’t charge the team owner for this time as it is a form of payment for the discounted rate. To earn a living, this driver primarily coaches amateur drivers, and might even have a “day job” in a motorsports related position, e.g. selling safety equipment at a race gear store.The factory or full time pro driver is a different animal altogether. This person doesn’t pay. They’re either given a salary by the factory, or paid for the weekend by the team or even one of the other two classes of drivers. The full time pro would earn anywhere from $5000 on up for a weekend. A semi-pro would get a little extra sponsorship to cover the fee of the full time pro. The gentleman driver would pay roughly double the typical cost for the seat, basically covering what the pro would have paid for the seat, plus a bit more for their time. The full time pro drives pretty much every weekend in a series somewhere around the world. The factory driver is driving something every week, too, but they’re limited to the cars the factory tells them to drive, and sometimes it’s mid-week testing for a factory customer, the factory team, or even the test engineers for road cars. The factory driver typically doesn’t mind being limited to a particular car, since they’re getting a salary to do nothing but drive. BMW, GM, Porsche, Audi, and others all have strong factory driver programs. People like John Edwards or Pat Long are factory drivers, and people like Ryan Dalziel or Andy Lally are full time pros, although Andy might be an Acura factory driver now. I haven’t talked to him in a few weeks to find out what his current status is with the new car/team.I wish I knew more about the driver structure in WTCC, DTM, and other similar programs, but I’ve been focusing on my pro career in IMSA and World Challenge for the past few years and have really lost touch with the intricacies of those programs. I’m guessing they’re similarly structured with everything from factory drivers to gentleman drivers.It’s important to note, just because someone is a gentleman driver, doesn’t always mean they’re slower, or not as good in other ways as a pro. An excellent example is Jeff Mosing. He’s technically a gentleman driver, but he’s able to turn a lap time just as fast as Eric Foss, his coach/pro. Eric might be a little better in traffic, or have a little more finesse in attacking or defending, but Jeff has developed as an amazingly talented driver who can hold his own against just about any pro on the track.