I'm an outlier here in that I started racing at 60. Mentoring for me has been almost non-existent; for a while, most of it came from BF in the form of advice from @
shovelhd and @
racerEx, plus my Utah-based coach. The local racing scene is pretty sparse and the local racers looked at me as a Fred with pretentions. (I've since been accepted, and have my own handle - OMC, for "Old Man Chuck".) At my age, most of the pack fodder has filtered out, leaving the guys who are pretty damned good and have 30-40 years of experience to fill the small fields, so there's not much mentoring going on there either. It just it what it is, and I've accepted it. My goals are to do better than last time as opposed to winning. It's still fun to beat myself senseless, just because I can.