About
Racing has been in my family's blood for a long time.
My dad, both my uncles, and now me. I'm Chuck, and I make these track maps and workbooks to keep that tradition alive, and to help everyone else out there get better on track.
That's my dad's car, the #32. I grew up learning about racing from him, and he was inspired by his dad. My dad and both of my uncles, Robbie and Doug, raced Modified series cars, and they loved NASCAR.
The roof says "Mike Hammer". My dad's name was Charles Earl Hammer, and mine is Charles Michael Hammer. That photo was taken just before I was born, so I figured the name was already picked out. Not sure, to be honest.
Early on, my dad got into a wreck. He got boxed in by competitors, and they forced him into the wall. It damaged his car very badly, and he never fixed it. I was at that wreck, I just didn't see it, but it's one of my first memories.
I have a lot of race memories with my dad: the drag strip, the racetrack, go-kart tracks, Florida. He would always talk about VIR, Virginia International Raceway, and how he wanted to get me into go-karts, but my mom would never allow it. I never drove them, just watched.
I remember as a kid playing in the backyard with the big slick tires that came off his car. We were always playing racing games and just bonding over anything car related. I learned all sorts of racing stuff from him, like how to adjust your suspension, and I took that and ran with it.
That dragster wasn't ours, by the way. It was one of the show cars at the drag strip my dad took me to.
Bikes
My first motorcycle was a yellow 2003 Honda CBR600F4i. I sold it before I moved to Boston, and in Boston I got another 2003 F4i, silver and red at first, then Repsol painted fairings with a white tank. I brought that one back to Illinois. That's the one I wrecked, lol.
By then I had a ton of riding experience. One of my best friends got me into the motorcycle track scene, and that's when I got my first taste.
On my very first track day they were about to promote me from novice to intermediate, which was crazy. Unfortunately, coming out of turn 7 on Autobahn North, I gassed it before I was supposed to. The bike low-sided on me, slid out from under me, hit the grass, rolled, and broke into a bunch of different pieces. That bike was done. I sold it for scrap.
My dad never went back after his wreck. After mine, I got another motorcycle.
The splatter bike
That's the one I have now, a 2008 Honda CBR600RR. Full Öhlins suspension, a race tune, a straight pipe, all that good stuff. It doesn't go on the street and it doesn't have headlights. It's a full-blown racetrack build.
That's also my favorite photo, lol. I have a canvas of it. Evan Salzman of Salzman Performance Images (Facebook (opens in a new tab), SmugMug (opens in a new tab)) edited that one. Thanks, Evan.
It used to be white and black.
A couple seasons back I wrecked and destroyed the fairing, so over the winter I needed new fairings and a paint scheme. Shunhax is the name I went with for all my motorcycle stuff, so I tried to stick to the theme and do something technical, glitchy, kind of thing. Turns out painting glitches is extremely difficult.
So, okay, what's the next best thing I could do? I've always liked the idea of a sticker bomb, purposefully messy but clean at the same time. That's when I came across paint splatter, and I'm like, "That could be really cool." I found this dark gray metallic with a sheen to it, almost like candy paint, but gray and silver. I painted the base coat and absolutely loved it. Then I said, "You know what would make this really pop on the racetrack? What would make it identifiable?" Paint splatter would. It's very easy to see, very easy to identify.
I went to the store, grabbed a bunch of spray paint, and just started spraying directly into the cap and whipping the cap at the bike. It started to come together, and I fell in love, so I kept doing it. Eventually I clear-coated over it.
The way I look at it now, it's a track bike. If I wreck it, it's not a huge deal, and it's easy to hide scars from the track. You scratch it and you can't really tell. It's almost like camouflage for the bike. Everyone that has seen it loves it.
On the tail, between two checkered flags, it says "In loving memory, Charles Earl Hammer, 1955 to 2016." That's my dad.
Autobahn has always been and always will be my home track, but I absolutely love traveling to different tracks. The bike gets thrown in the bed of my F-150, and it's been everywhere from Palmer Motorsports Park to Barber down in Alabama to Putnam in Indiana. I'm planning on doing more.
The Miata
The Miata is more recent. Honestly, I had no idea I wanted a Miata. I had no idea they were this fun.
At the time I was driving a clunker, a daily, if you will, a $1,000 Jetta that had finally rusted through. I was looking at Honda Fits, trying to spend less than $10,000, and all of a sudden I come across this Miata, a 2000. I'm like, "No, that's got to be expensive, right? It's a sports car." They wanted $8,000. It was all the way out in Iowa, so I drove to Iowa to go get it, and I immediately fell in love. I don't think I've ever loved a car as much.
It wasn't a rusty car, but it had a lot of mishaps done to it, like wood screws holding the quarter panels in. It's slowly been brought back to life, and I just did a full brake refresh.
I took it out on track at Autobahn and loved it. I'm glad I did that first track day on little to no upgrades, because it really let me see where the car struggled. Now I know the trajectory I need to go in.
Its first track day: Autobahn, July 2025.
Anyway, let's not get too off track.
Why maps
Maps are one of the major tools that let me develop the skills I have. A lot of it is feeling it out on the track, but studying your own sessions and taking notes on what's working and what's not is a massive help. Even between sessions: "Hey, novice had an oil slick here on track. Watch out. Go this line instead."
I ride in the advanced class on the bike now, and eventually I'll get there with the Miata too. I believe part of how I got here was very heavily tied to access to track maps that aren't there anymore, and websites that have shut down.
Helping people
Talking with a friend about how to improve, I learned that I like helping other people too. When novices would come up and say, "How do you get that fast?" I'd say, "Well, hey, when you're coming down the front straight, you need to put yourself here, brake at this point, and progressively brake deeper until you start to get a feel for it."
I believe in raising everyone up around me that I care about, truly care about. It's a very caring community. We want everybody to enjoy themselves and get better, and I try to live by that.
Why free
In my opinion, you don't need to have money to succeed in this sport, and money is a massive barrier for a lot of people. You look at other track maps online and they're all paywalled, right? Sometimes you pay per track or per layout or whatever it might be. I think that's wrong.
“This isn't rocket science. This is a track map.”
It should be available to everyone at all times. To me, it's almost like donating back to the community.
As for my day job, I work in legal technology and specialize in AI, which has helped me build this tool and everything here.
Your first track day
What I tell somebody before their first track day:
“Watch out for the bug, because it will bite, and it bites hard.”
Don't worry about getting faster, that comes with time. Just worry about doing things clean and safe. You can get into a lot of danger very quickly with these motorcycles and cars. They should not be treated like toys. They should be treated like weapons, because they effectively are weapons.
Have fun, enjoy it. Don't try to shove it all down at once, otherwise you'll end up like me, low-siding in a corner. You have nothing to prove. You are not faster than a whole lot of people there, so stop trying to be a show-off. If somebody's faster, try to figure out why they're faster.
If the maps helped you
The maps are free. But if you never ask, you'll never get it, so I'm asking: if they helped you, throw a few bucks my way, whatever it was worth to you, on Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee or GitHub Sponsors.
The Miata is on AnikiRoadster (YouTube (opens in a new tab), Instagram (opens in a new tab)) and the bike is on Shunhax (YouTube (opens in a new tab), Instagram (opens in a new tab)). If a map is wrong, email me at [email protected]. If there's a track you want, ask for it on the roadmap page.
The racer's prayer
At my dad's funeral, and at both of my uncles' funerals, they read the traditional racer's prayer. I'm not generally religious, but that really stuck with me, big time.
"Lord, I pray as I race today, keep me safe along the way. Not only me, but others too, as they perform the jobs they do. I know, God, that in a race the driver must set the pace, but in the race of life, I pray: help me, Lord, along the way. Although I know I am a sinner, help me to believe that with God, you are always a winner."
Chuck