I did one 15 years ago at Tire Rack in Indiana off I90 on their little track and skid pad. It was fun for what it was, but I never felt the need to do it again.
It’s kind of fun there. Sorta. I guess. But like you said earlier as an alternative to stupid shit on the street. And if there isn’t a real race track near by (like was mentioned). there used to be a group that did cone “racing” with those Honda rebels and/or those little beginner bike Suzukis down the road. It was an offshoot of one of those companies that did beginners motorcycle classes and was a part of their 200 or 300 level classes. I think it died from the ‘vids.
My guess would be cost. They used to do them a lot at nashville as well. Would see them there all the time when attending trackdays or wera events at the big track. But I could be wrong. Just thinking the track charges a fraction of the cost to use their parking lot vs. the big track. Also probably no need for medical on standby, less stress on motors, less risk of walls and contact with other drivers, less tire wear, etc. You still get to compete, unlike a track day. And if I recall correctly, most auto racing requires roll cages, multi-point harnesses, and probably a plethora of other safety measures, which requires money and for some, potentially modifying your street toy/daily driver into an uncomfortable race car. So I'm assuming most of your autox guys simply do it because they either can't afford to do more or don't want the burden of building an actual race car. But this is all just speculation.
SCCA, NASA, and Gridlife, have competition classes for street cars without cages and harnesses. They typically only require a fire extinguisher, pants, closed toed shoes, and an approved helmet.. A lot of other "non comp" track day orgs are even looser with safety regs. As far as cost; yeah, you'll prolly chew up pads/rotors/ tires a bit faster, but you're getting more time on track and less time to be doing stupid ass nerd shit with your 78 way quadruple adjustable dampers you thought were necessary for cone killing. You'll also get to see what your damn car is capable of, and not just how well you can transfer weight lol Also, I'm not sure why these ding dongs would care about cost when they have these $100K "G-machine" builds or brand new GT4's and ZL1's. I dunno.. Don't think my mind can be changed on this one guys. lol To each their own, but whenever anyone brings up Auto-X I literally want to fly away.
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you at all lol. Just saying I suppose I can see why someone else might feel differently. I considered doing some autocross when we still had a little turbo hatchback just because it seemed like easy, convenient way to have some cheap fun. But totally agree on having a $100k car and then wasting it on autox. That seems looney tunes to me.
Quick suggestion based on experience with this event. Best times to arrive for space, depending on what you are participating in, are as early as possible Thursday or early evening Friday or Saturday. Seems a good chunk of people are only there for the practice day so space opens up after they pack up and leave Friday evening. Then again Saturday evening after many of the endurance guys pack up and leave. Really no point in showing up any earlier on Friday and Saturday I will say that the Sunday WERA attendance was the best I've seen. Buncha ringers hung around Sunday to cherry pick As for you AutoX haters, I used to do it with my WRX and then 135 until about 2010 when I caught this stupid WERA bug. Most AutoX guys aren't trying to hone track skills, they are just trying to drive their sporty cars closer to the limits than they would on the street. It does seem odd to come to an amazing track to drive in the parking lot but that wasn't the normal situation. Mostly SCCA used parking lots of malls and factories in my regions which were much more accessible than a full on race track and much closer and easier to get to. No harm in pushing the limits of man and machine however you can.
I got to start right next to Mesa for the sprint races on big bikes. (I'm pretty sure he just slept in and was like "fuck qualifying") It was absolutely bonkers to see how he just cut through the entire pack like they were sleeping. When I looked at the grid sheet I was like "hell yeah, maybe I can latch on for a tow". What a fucking joke that was. Kid ran 41's and it looked like he was just goofin around. I was mouth breathing to run 50's lmao... (2nd time ever there) I'm pretty sure he didn't even put the bike in gear until the board went sideways..
Didn't have too much control over timing this go around. Bringing the wife and little kids means you get there when you get there Honestly, we enjoyed the spot anyways. Kids had some grass and space away from all the usual bikes in the paddock. I was a row behind him at the start as well in the CSS race. Pretty sure he went from row 3 to first by T1. You sure about 41s though? Race Monitor is not showing his times for some reason, but I didn't see anyone get down that far this weekend. Edit: Looked elsewhere. On the 1000 he hit a 41.6. That's insane.
All you have to do is swing by the tower and ask me I printed one out for the announcer and sent it to JU as well. We don't get enough spectators to justify killing trees on any large scale. Thinking on it, I'll have to figure out a spot on the website to upload something like that. Thanks for the input!
First one I saw was in a college parking lot. While this one was at PIRC it was still just a parking lot - the main thing to remember is the rent is cheap as hell since we paid for the big track.
Race-Monitor is NOT where you go for anything other than live timing while the bikes are on track. And even then it gets screwed up if we have multiple bikes with the same number. It is a very very limited feed of information no different than a scoring tower trackside. For actual uploaded real results always go to our site or here - https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/2030366
Having spent every race weekend with kids running around being away from the crowd and near grass is always the best bet!
Not sure who Petrux was dicing with from AOD but they went at it for quite a few laps,watching them pass smaller slower bikes was amazing,sometimes passing on either side in the esses,totally clinical.