Do Computer Geeks and Gearheads Overlap?

Johnath asks: "One of the great things about finally owning a place with a garage is that it's given me a chance to start taking apart my car and putting it back together. I'm certain I'm not the only one here who does so. The analogies between custom cars and custom computers are as obvious as they are numerous: the quest for higher performance, the analysis of detailed benchmarking and comparison studies, the fanatical brand loyalty -- a nitrous tank on an inline-4 is materially identical in my mind to a 4" heatsink on an overclocked duron. How much overlap is there between these groups, how many people here are car geeks? My preference is to optimize for efficiency and mileage over power gains, but I'm interested in car-hackers of all persuasions. Where do you go for geek-level treatments of oil brands, exhaust options, and dyno results? Is there a gearhead Slashdot hiding out there, or only the brand-specific boards like myfordfocus.com?"

Comments

Yes, they overlap.

[Logic]

I grew up as a geek in a small rural town. That meant two things: first, any money I had went into my computer, meaning the truck I drove was a POS; and second, the teasing you took by being a geek in the lower grades turned into the teasing you take having a slow POS when your low-GPA, V8-loving classmates are getting their licenses.

Karma's a bitch, though. Being a geek today means a lifestyle that those same knuckle-draggers can only envy (assuming, of course, that you're working right now), and their "old-n-busted" will have a tough time keeping up with my "new hotness".

Seriously, while I might have gotten a bit of satisfaction out of the way things played out, I just sort of naturally gravitated towards import modification after finally coming up for air after immersing myself in technology for so long. Racing (autocross is my primary interest right now, although I make it to the drag strip every so often) and performance tuning makes the time and effort you put in "real" to others around you in a way that an elegant hack can never be. Go ahead, tell a non-geek friend or family member that you're entering the International Obfuscated C Code Contest this year, and compare that reaction to the one you get when you say you ran your car at Real Street Drags last week and smoked a few V8s with your little four-banger.

Still, I don't see automotive performance being a mainstream geek thing. Sites like DSMtuners are filled with /. readers, but whenever I mention that my car is up on jackstands again, most of the folks I work with give me that "why wouldn't you just have your mechanic do that?" look.