Here we are, as promised, a site that you can check as often (or not) as you like. There will probably be significant updates monthly (aligning with our race schedule) but I may decide to rant about other things as spare time allows. My main goal with this site is to entertain. Not you, me. I enjoy writing this cr@p and even if I deleted it after I finished my mission would be accomplished (i.e. entertaining myself). As I’ve mentioned to my very patient wife after quoting some movie for the 10000th time and giggling, “You think I’m trying to make you laugh.” The off chance a few people will enjoy these ramblings has prompted me to put this site together. My other assumption in creating this site is that you’re looking to waste time. If I post short and sweet little notes, while better then nothing, it hasn’t really helped distract you from your daily concerns and obligations so I’ll try to be as verbose as I can while maintaining a coherent point or storyline. A few housekeeping items to explain and to further set expectations.

Don’t Tread On Me Racing? Huh? Where did this come from? Well, I have a diverse group looking at this site. Relatives, friends, fellow racers, etc. Many of my initial ideas and suggestions didn’t pass the ‘corporate sponsors’ test. So I tired to think of something that would do a good job describing me, as well as not offending everyone. I think it is clear to anyone that has known me for more than 2 weeks I have a problem with authority. I hate rules, and I hate people telling me what to do. In my experience the people telling me what to do are either a) drunk on power and self interested, b) following rules themselves that they’ve never given any thought to, and/or c) outright stupid – a very distant d) is more experienced and genuinely concerned with safety, order, etc. I believe (perhaps naively) that our founding fathers intended that common sense, personal accountability, and a decent work ethic were to be the foundation of this country. As time has passed I think we’ve gotten farther and farther away from that vision and tried to replace many of these judgment items with rules or laws. I don’t think we’ve been very successful at legislating common sense. The Gadsen flag from which this little logo, and site name come from symbolize that along with the resistance to authority that I think most racers exhibit. You can wiki that to learn more! Stick it to the man.

Okay, so what does this have to do with racing again? Racing demands rules. Lots and lots of them. Our class is defined as a ‘spec’ class. What does that mean? Everything is attempted to be specified. This limits the amount of changes you can make to the car, attempts to control the cost, and places the emphasis on driver talent while creating close competitive racing. We’ve recently had a lot of discussion on what needs to be specified in the rules. We have some blanket terms, but as with any written word many places are subject to interpretation or in some cases contradict each other. Our series has fallen into two camps with this ‘gray’ area. The first camp are those that believe in carefully reading the rules and attempting to find ‘loopholes’ and exploit them for any possible performance advantage. The other camp says ‘common sense’ and self policing are the orders of the day. This is typically called the ‘spirit of the rules’. Unfortunately once you introduce competition the founding fathers get thrown out the window along with high minded principles. I haven’t decided on which camp I’m closer to yet. I love a good sneaky fix ala Smokey Yunick (look him up) as much as the next guy, I temper that with a desire to know that I’m a better driver then the next guy and the fact that I’m cheap (most gray areas require $$$ or the willingness to throw your ‘enhancement’ out if it is deemed illegal).

Now that I’ve tied that all together I can be honest and say that all of this really came together from a conversation over beers in Alabama and trying to work a snake into the logo. Jason races ‘cobra style’ and that phrase has made me laugh quite a bit, so I wanted to make sure that whatever logo I eventually settled on had a cobra in it. I happen to have a pretty strange (and yet remarkable) memory for useless stuff and all of these things came together at once. Shazam! – Don’t Tread On Me Racing or DTOMRacing.com. Also ‘cobra style’ racing is very ambiguous at this time. I’ve been told that I resemble more Kung Fu Panda style racing, I thought that was mean though and it hurt my feelings. Cobra style sounds much cooler.

Since I make the rules here, I’ll be breaking grammar rules, spelling and punctuation rules, and pretty much doing whatever I feel like. I’m not going to try to sell you anything, and I don’t foresee anything more flashy or interactive then the occasional picture or race video. I’ll mostly talk about my racing experiences since that is what makes me interesting, but I reserve the right to talk about my crazy dogs, politics, work, or anything else I can think of. I’m also considering leaving comments on so that you can tell me when I’m wrong or call me names. We’re going old school website where content is king. You’ll have to read to be entertained instead of watching your computer like a TV screen.

Thanks for stopping by! Shoot me a note if you have suggestions.