Ryan Cheek Racing

This weekend the family and I visited Atlanta Motorsports Park to do some shopping at the Discovery Parts store located within the facility. After a warm welcome at the entrance gate, we spotted some sweet cars in the parking lot and made our way to Discovery Parts. 

Inside Discovery Parts, Lane, whom I had chatted on the phone with earlier in the week, was quick to help me find the perfect seat. He was patient with my noob questions and offered his extensive knowledge about racing safety and different brands. Lane also helped me pick out all the mounting equipment needed to go with the racing seat and 6 point harnesses to go with them. My driver's seat and equipment is 100% picked out, I'm still deciding on going with a new passenger seat or a used seat. Safety for my passengers/instructors is important to me, and I'm trying to find that balance of safety and cost efficiency.

Once I noticed the plethora of racing suits I asked about trying some on and was curious if they would even have any to fit me. They had a wide variety of suits, in so many sizes, in the store which really surprised me. I tried on the Alpinestars "women's" Stella GP, first. It fit me in the shoulders, but got bigger and baggier the closer it got to my feet. Race suits are usually too long in the legs, I learned, but it is an easy fix with some hemming. But this suit was too baggie in other areas and Lane called in another staff member to see if it could be tailored to fit. A beautiful lady in heels and a faux fur coat came out and immediately went to cuffing, pinching, and adjusting the suit to see where it needed to be to fit me. She took a step back, looked me up and down, then said, "be right back". When she returned, she had brought out her personal OMP race suit for me to try on! I immediately told myself to stop sweating and I was ever so delicate when I unzipped and slid into the suit. As the zipper slid northward towards the collar and the fabric hugged my hips and waist and gave me plenty of room in the shoulders, I knew this was the suit I wanted. Come to find out this is the "men's" One Pro, straight from the shelf with no alterations.  This suit is about double the cost of the racing suit I had set my eyes on back in October and, at this point, it's just not in the cards. 

As I got my street clothes back on, I was doing some mental math, trying to decide what I was going to be taking home that day. I came to Georgia prepared to spend some serious coin on safety equipment, but I had just been given a ton of information and was still processing it all. Instead of pressuring me to buy that day, Lane set me up with a personal account, loaded all the equipment and clothing I had picked out in to the account, and suggested I go back to NC and think about it. Discovery Parts offers free shipping, so waiting to buy wasn't going to cost me more. I even get 10% off the total with my NASA membership! That 10% really adds up! So this week I will be evaluating my budget and officially ordering safety equipment! 

Once the seat(s) arrive and are mounted in Future Racecar, we can prep the car and get it over to Troy Wilson's shop for the roll cage install. It is important to have the seats in the car to make sure the bar(s) behind the seats are in the correct location for the harnesses to be attached. If those bars are too high or too low, the harnesses, when attached, will be at an improper angle to pass through the racing seat, and will not provide optimal safety. 

The racing seat I picked for me (driver) is a secret, for now! But it is the one I'm sitting in in the picture, can you guess which brand/model it is?

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