As a father of four millennials and a car enthusiast, I have (not surprisingly) made some observations concerning that millennial generation, manual transmissions and performance/competition driving in general. While not a compendium of all my many varied and mostly useless observations over the last 24 years, these are my most recent.

Interest and opportunity

My teenage son likes to refer to manual transmissions as "millennial anti-theft devices." Now this may be true, but I also know plenty Gen Xers and baby boomers who have, by their own admission, no interest in qualifying for or participating in the three-pedal club.

This attitude, of course, results in a lack of opportunity for their offspring — i.e. my son's millennial classmates — to experience the challenges and rewards of driving a three-pedal car. My point here is a lack of opportunity can often be misinterpreted as a lack of interest.

Case in point: My son drives my Mazda 3 six-speed with great enthusiasm, which he then shares with his friends. This enthusiasm/salesmanship has resulted in several of his friends requesting "lessons" on how to drive a manual transmission in my Mazda, which they received and not surprisingly enjoyed.

The opportunity to drive one clearly reinforced their interest in learning how.

Performance driving

Last weekend, I took my son to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course for his Honda Teen Defensive Driving School. This was my third time there, and as always I was greatly encouraged by the large number of students in attendance receiving the advanced and comprehensive training in driver control that they truly need.

Beside the driver school, Mid-Ohio was hosting a GridLife TrackBattle event for the weekend. The paddock was full of track-day cars — from the unmodified daily driver to the "Super Unlimited" class track monsters.

What my millennial son noticed and liked was that the participants were primarily young guys/gals (millennials), the cars were stick shift (he is slightly OCD about this) and the format was time trial with controlled passing vs. wheel to wheel combat. Oh yes, he did ask if Mid-Ohio has a class that would get him onto the track.

I also noticed a few things. The model years of the cars ranged from 1964 to 2017. There were 60-plus entries representing a variety of the major OEMs, and clearly there was a fair amount of personal income being spent to make these cars set fast times.

There were even a couple of Porsches at the track — a Cayman GT4 and an air-cooled 911. But there were at least nine Corvettes out on track, including a heavily modified 1965, several C5's, a C6 and a C7, as well as the expected variety of Subarus, Hondas, BMWs and the like. There was a 1964 Plymouth Valiant with an earth-shaking exhaust note. I even saw a Fiat X1/9.

This is grassroots motorsports for the current times and generations — racing the clock, fast lap times on a budget, Porsche not required. Yeah, I know there is nothing new here, but I didn't even have to explain to my son that our 944, while fantastic to drive, would be the wrong tool for the job unless we decided to compete in one of the various Spec series dedicated to the 944.

Actually, he never even considered racing the 944; he believes we should get a WRX to do track days. He's not interested in wheel-to-wheel combat (i.e. Spec944) like I was at his age; he wants to drive hot laps at a racetrack against the clock in a manual transmission performance car without spending big dollars to do it. Four doors are OK; four doors and a stick even better.

So while I don't think there was ever really a doubt that the youngest generation of car/motorsports track-day enthusiasts understands performance, I'm definitely convinced they also understand bang for their performance dollar and where to look for it, or not look for it as the case may be.