Autocross is dying

In reply to mr2peak :

How do you like what they built for time trials? https://timetrials.scca.com/pages/classmycar

I started in autocross almost (oh crap) 20 years ago.  The group I started with has gone tango uniform on autocross and nothing is happening at the venue they ran at (Cumberland Airport). Then I moved and went up to being an organizer with another club, some organizational issues arose shortly before the pandemic and it is looking like they may not be coming back. Even if they were, out of the 3 venues we were running, one was probably lost, at least for awhile, another was under threat due to noise/neighbor proximity, and another was a postage stamp of a lot.   This year I am going to be running with DCR SCCA and I think they arent doing fedex field anymore largely due to price of lot. Last year they were out at Summit Point, but many dont like the surface (and I dont like a 2 hour each way drive), and this year they are at the same lot the old org ran at that was under threat due to neighbors/noise (but at least its a 5 minute drive from me). 

The thing I have to admit is, after so long, autocross is getting less entertaining for me and its really the social aspect that is a driver. I moved to FM to up the thrill level and it helps (even if its more labor intensive at an event to get out of the trail and get to grid/etc). But, that all said, I am starting to eyeball moving on to track stuff. Its getting harder to justify the day away from my kids just to autocross and if I am putting in the effort, I might as well make it more worthwhile on the driving side.  So, this year might be my last autocross centric season. 

I wish there was more in the way of track days or time trials for open wheel cars. I found a few and will be doing that to toe the waters regarding higher speed stuff and possibly doing a racing school in a year or two and moving towards mostly doing W2W with perhaps an autox or two a year, mostly to socialize with friends.

In reply to Apexcarver :

If you have the wherewithal to convert your F500/600 to a "sports racer" (i.e. put a sports racer body on it) that may open up more track days.

I must admit that if autocross were 2 hours from my house I wouldn't attend.  Availability is a prime factor in my choice of the events I do. This is part of the reason I only do 2 vintage races a year; they are 300 miles away and it's hard to justify being away from home more than that.

docwyte said:

I gotta point out that auto-x doesn't exactly leave parking lots as they were found as well, plus the perceived and sometimes real liability for the owners.  As a participant, I enjoy the driving part of it but the time breakdown doesn't make sense for me and my life. It doesn't make sense to spend 10 hours for under 6 minutes of driving time

This plus having to "work" half the day is why I never bothered to try it. And when I was still doing HPDE, Hallett was also much cheaper. $105 for 5 sessions on track vs $60 for two classes and working half the day. Didn't make sense. The price differential is much greater, but still not that interested. 

In reply to docwyte :

damn, what solitary autox are you at?  By the end of an autox I am losing my voice from talking all day.

In reply to AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) :

i hear amazing things from north texas rallyx

In reply to Apexcarver :

your region in particular is one of the ones I personally have seen faltering with their venues in the last 5 years.  It's a shame.

My main complaint about autocross is seat time versus work time. It's otherwise a fun way to spend a day.

Venues are the issue in every region. 

ojannen said:

In reply to mr2peak :

How do you like what they built for time trials? https://timetrials.scca.com/pages/classmycar

That's way better than going through the ever-changing autocross classing trying to find out where you fit. Every time I look at autocross classes it's like "yeah but that was last year, this year if your car is yellow and you are wearing sneakers you're running with the modified GT3's, sorry bro you should have worn your rabbit slippers". Seriously it's a mess.

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Apexcarver :

If you have the wherewithal to convert your F500/600 to a "sports racer" (i.e. put a sports racer body on it) that may open up more track days.

I must admit that if autocross were 2 hours from my house I wouldn't attend.  Availably is a prime factor in my choice of the events I do. This is part of the reason I only do 2 vintage races a year; they are 300 miles away and it's hard to justify being away from home more than that.

Thing is, combining the amount of work for that with the safety concerns of that chassis mixing it up with cars that I would be looking up at the door handles on...  it would be better to either take my mustang or get a cheap semi-disposable track missile.  

Primary goal is getting comfortable with the track working towards wheel to wheel in the F500.  I have a few events a year I can target that allow the F500 to transistion, so I'll manage I think. 

Apexcarver said:

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Apexcarver :

If you have the wherewithal to convert your F500/600 to a "sports racer" (i.e. put a sports racer body on it) that may open up more track days.

I must admit that if autocross were 2 hours from my house I wouldn't attend.  Availably is a prime factor in my choice of the events I do. This is part of the reason I only do 2 vintage races a year; they are 300 miles away and it's hard to justify being away from home more than that.

Thing is, combining the amount of work for that with the safety concerns of that chassis mixing it up with cars that I would be looking up at the door handles on...  it would be better to either take my mustang or get a cheap semi-disposable track missile.  

 

Primary goal is getting comfortable with the track working towards wheel to wheel in the F500.  I have a few events a year I can target that allow the F500 to transistion, so I'll manage I think. 

I did a track day with the F500. It didn't bother me, but I used to road race motorcycles and so my risk aversion is different than most folks.

If for some reason autocross were no longer local I'd have to rethink the F500. The Datsun is my track day buggy (missile implies velocity of some sort) and I could just use the F500 as my primary vintage race car. 

In reply to camopaint0707 :

Porsche Club, which runs 2 groups.  The grid moves quickly, so there's little time to talk.  Then you're working and can't really talk.  Which means the only time to hang out is lunch.  Which you have to pack since the lot is in the middle of BFE and there's no shade. 

There is also the level of seriousness between participants.

I recall working once, and somebody wiggled a cone. It was still squarely in the box. 

The corner chief told me to reset it, because it *might* have moved a millimeter or two.  I told them to reset it themselves, because it was still in the box, it's ninety degrees and I have a bad knee.

One of the two people in that story is a national champion, and based on that one interaction, they think I'm some kind of filthy casual. Which, I guess in their minds, I am.

 

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

There is also the level of seriousness between participants.

I recall working once, and somebody wiggled a cone. It was still squarely in the box. 

The corner chief told me to reset it, because it *might* have moved a millimeter or two.  I told them to reset it themselves, because it was still in the box, it's ninety degrees and I have a bad knee.

One of the two people in that story is a national champion, and based on that one interaction, they think I'm some kind of filthy casual. Which, I guess in their minds, I am.

 

Some competitors lack the ability to turn it off. I call it little league dad syndrome.

Part of the advertising, if you will, for autocross is it being an entry into motorsports and as such one should expect casual competitors. I find the overly seriousness at local autocross to be silly.................and I have a level of aggression in the car that makes a rabid badger seem calm.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned shifter karts in this thread.  It seems to me that there would be a demand for a shifter kart (using a small 4-stroke motorcycle engine that is NOT tuned to "11" requiring a rebuild every weekend) using comparatively inexpensive and hard tires as an Auto-X vehicle...  Or are they regarded as "unsafe" compared to cars?

In reply to Tom1200 :

Thank you for saying what I feel without cursing. A++ work right there

Karts are surprisingly expensive to run. You can't drive them to the event, tires are small so they don't last, no suspension so running them in a parking lot can be punishing. If you have one you're probably happier going to the kart track for several 10+ minute lapping sessions instead of 2 minutes of driving for the whole day.

An older FSAE car would be super cool, but comes with similiar issues. I can't imagine anyone being unhappy seeing an FSAE car at an autocross event

stroker said:

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned shifter karts in this thread.  It seems to me that there would be a demand for a shifter kart (using a small 4-stroke motorcycle engine that is NOT tuned to "11" requiring a rebuild every weekend) using comparatively inexpensive and hard tires as an Auto-X vehicle...  Or are they regarded as "unsafe" compared to cars?

Inexpensive, easy to maintain, cheap consumables, simple to transport to the venue, not overly loud compared to a full line-up of autocross cars, and probably more fun to drive on a course than most cars. Awesomeness.

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing: "It's not a sports car." "I'd look silly on that thing." "I'm a race car driver and that's a toy."

AAZCD-Jon (Forum Supporter) said:

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing: "It's not a sports car." "I'd look silly on that thing." "I'm a race car driver and that's a toy."

"I'm fat so I'd be uncompetitive"

stroker said:

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned shifter karts in this thread.  It seems to me that there would be a demand for a shifter kart (using a small 4-stroke motorcycle engine that is NOT tuned to "11" requiring a rebuild every weekend) using comparatively inexpensive and hard tires as an Auto-X vehicle...  Or are they regarded as "unsafe" compared to cars?

For autocross shifter karts don't need frequent rebuilds. A 125cc motocross engine will go a solid 15 to 20hrs on a top end, on the bikes we typically ran them double that. Given the motors turn 11,000 RPM this is a pretty reasonable maintenance interval. 

If you are running locally shifter they are cheap; tires are cheap and given you're only running 6-10 minutes they will get old before you wear them out. You might use half a gallon of fuel. 

The only reason I don't autocross a shifter kart is I find they beat the death out of me (I'm skinny).

mr2peak said:

Karts are surprisingly expensive to run. You can't drive them to the event, tires are small so they don't last, no suspension so running them in a parking lot can be punishing. If you have one you're probably happier going to the kart track for several 10+ minute lapping sessions instead of 2 minutes of driving for the whole day.

An older FSAE car would be super cool, but comes with similiar issues. I can't imagine anyone being unhappy seeing an FSAE car at an autocross event

Well, you do get some people who get grumpy about anything open wheels. Hell, the small non-scca club (That I was an organizer with!) had some members that wanted my F500 banned. Reasons given were that it would upset the index system they used for the season championship (even though I pointed out that as an organizer, my points didnt count).  Or that its just "too fast", etc. You also get people with the perception that open wheel mod cars break often (in 4 years I have had two failures, only one on course and for the record, it was a $20 part, the other was electrical due to a screw backing out)  Meanwhile, an exocet on race tires is greeted with open arms. 

Of course I also get crap from some people who think it's "autocross cool" to just dump on 2 stroke Fmod cars as being loud (pretty sure I'm far from the loudest at any event I've gone to), annoying sounding, and that it smokes for a minute or two until it warms up. 

Karts look like fun, but they are the most physically punishing thing you can drive. Say what you want about my Fmod, but the ride isnt terrible when you account for the elastomeric "spring" suspension and big tires as soft as marshmellows. You need to wear a rib protector in a kart to keep from breaking bones just driving a kart hard.  Also a lot of tighter lots in the northeast struggle to safely run karts and/or are bumpy for them. 

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

There is also the level of seriousness between participants.

I recall working once, and somebody wiggled a cone. It was still squarely in the box. 

The corner chief told me to reset it, because it *might* have moved a millimeter or two.  I told them to reset it themselves, because it was still in the box, it's ninety degrees and I have a bad knee.

One of the two people in that story is a national champion, and based on that one interaction, they think I'm some kind of filthy casual. Which, I guess in their minds, I am.

Sounds like you shouldn't be a course worker then (and that's fine). But that's the job. If the cone moves (at all), you reset it. I can't tell you how many times I've had that "that cone MIGHT have moved" thought, then went over to check and found it half out of the box. If you're not physically equipped to work course, that's totally fine, but request a different work assignment.

For the right person karts are great. For most people...not so much. They might not be super expensive to maintain but they're not as cheap as you might think. And they're easy to transport but do require transportation, loading and unloading, etc. They might not need big overhauls constantly but there's a ton of minor between event maintenance, constant hardware checks from all the vibrations, always something to tinker with. For the right person that's a positive, but for anyone that wants to just show up to an event and drive, it's not going to be a good experience. Then there's the physical requirement, especially considering most autocross sites are NOT smooth surfaces. Plus you're already spending all day out in the sun, add in having to wear a karting suit while driving and it gets even hotter.

mr2peak said:

I can't imagine anyone being unhappy seeing an FSAE car at an autocross event

I loved seeing the FSAE car at our local events -- the FSAE crew would take your work assignment in exchange for a donation to their program! :)

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

There is also the level of seriousness between participants.

I recall working once, and somebody wiggled a cone. It was still squarely in the box. 

The corner chief told me to reset it, because it *might* have moved a millimeter or two.  I told them to reset it themselves, because it was still in the box, it's ninety degrees and I have a bad knee.

One of the two people in that story is a national champion, and based on that one interaction, they think I'm some kind of filthy casual. Which, I guess in their minds, I am.

 

I got yelled at one time because someone in the timing trailer thought I wasn't running fast enough to a downed cone. At the time, they gave course workers big bulky walki-talkies to carry on one's belt, and I didn't feel I could run fast without risking it. Their comment got me pretty irritated, enough that I offered to trade places so that they could experience the 90-deg heat out on track... no reply.