Photography Credit: Dave Green
We’re a bit spoiled: The kart track inside Daytona International Speedway serves as our local autocross site. Clean, permanent bathrooms with actual flush toilets sit adjacent to the course.
To find the kart track, drive toward NASCAR Turn 4 and look down. During quiet moments, the kart track seems to get lost in the infield’s vastness …
Our main autocross venue is a police EVOC training site at the Oswego County airport in Fulton, NY, and it is yuge, about eight-tenths of a mile, but the problem is that the roads aren't wide enough to do more than slalom-big sweep-slalom-big sweeper-slalom. Even if you try to do offset gates, by the time you set the outer cone on the edge of the pavement and then make it fiteen feet wide, the other cone ends up in the center of the road. That bottom strip looks extra wide, but there's a huge ditch and a fence along the edge towards the bottom, so you can't take advantage of the full width. I've heard a few people in our region mention "Fulton Fatigue", because no matter how hard you try to make the course feel different, its really difficult.
There is no autox site in the Seattle/Tacoma area, so it's a drive to get to anything. No, I don't love it.
We've had Grissom as a local site for decades now. To run an autox it's a fantastic site. To spend the day at its miserable. No shade, no bathrooms, always windy and either blistering hot or super cold and rainy. It's awesome while running, but the other 7 hours you're there it sucks.
I mean it's home for the national championships so what's not to love.
I live north of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, 13 ish million people just in the LA metro area, I think closer to 30 million for the area (probably more)..... maybe one? And that one is a the California speedway (well east of LA), which is being torn down and rebuilt, and may or may not still have room for an AutoX course(?) There are some in Orange country and San Diego (south of LA), but yeah....
...AutoX on the streets is not really a thing... so I guess street drag racing?
We have had access to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for 25 years now. We have it good.
It a long rectangular lot and the rent isn't cheap but we are blessed with a healthy program.
Yes, because we have one!
BMC runs at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, MD. A local minor league ballpark that's in a great location - we draw from Philly, Baltimore / Washington, and central PA. It's 30-40 minutes from my house, which is awesome.
It's a decent size lot, except that paddock has to be taken out of that space as well. More space would be better. Orange is a safety buffer to civilian traffic.
The real challenge / opportunity is that it changes elevation about 15 feet from upper left to lower right. Those cross aisles have significant backslope that will launch a car if you don't account for them in the design. Courses usually end up being in the mid-upper 30s with no loops; in the mid-upper 40s with a loopback.
They recently built a bunch off apartments just off-frame to the left. So far management has been good about fielding noise complaints, but we'll see what happens next year...
aircooled said:I live north of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, 13 ish million people just in the LA metro area, I think closer to 30 million for the area (probably more)..... maybe one? And that one is a the California speedway (well east of LA), which is being torn down and rebuilt, and may or may not still have room for an AutoX course(?) There are some in Orange country and San Diego (south of LA), but yeah....
...AutoX on the streets is not really a thing... so I guess street drag racing?
Just curious. Are you saying there is no autoX in the greater Los Angeles area?
I ask because it started my driving in the LA area autoX in the late 70s (pre-SCCA). We had a number of lots around there, then. I know a few are no longer there or available - but Nothing?
I'm next to Metlife which is 30 mins away and I love it. Great venue and also, it's just conveniently close to me.
No. It's terrible.
The only other option is at Darlington Raceway and it's less terrible but still not great.
Not to derail the conversation, but does the Miata look good at speed or what? And those are just 6.5-inch wheels.
We're now using an abandoned mall parking lot in Rutland, VT. Once the property gets sold we'll most likely lose that spot. We've used at least 7 different sites in VT in the time I've been a member of the SCCV. All have been less than ideal for a number of reasons. And we've all but been locked out of any place in Chittenden County (home to our biggest city, Burlington) because of noise complaints, or construction regs that require a grass to pavement ratio unfavorable to open parking lots and autocrossing. I'm going to return to doing track events mostly.
David S. Wallens said:Not to derail the conversation, but does the Miata look good at speed or what? And those are just 6.5-inch wheels.
And which 6.5" wheels are they? I need some 6.5" rears for my Spyder and the options are quite limited.
Edit: Oops, just looked, those are Volks, I'm not that money.
In reply to NickD :
Yeah, OG TE37s. Back in the day, 15x6.5 was super popular.
Kil-Kare RAceway in Xenia OH, also has a drag strip we sometimes have to get around big events.
It isn't bad, couple port potties and a real restroom, depending on your walking preference. I wish there was food nearby, or a food stand. I pack a sandwich and chips.
aircooled said:...And that one is a the California speedway (well east of LA), which is being torn down and rebuilt...
Wait, what? Are you talking about Autoclub Speedway in Fontana? That would be rather fitting, because the San Diego stadium, with its Huge parking lot is gone, and now this? Trackday events used the infield and part of the oval, while autocross used the outside parking lot.
[Edit] I looked it up. Yup, being "remodeled." So they're going from a 2-mile super speedway to a half-mile track, selling off the leftover to become an entertainment and hotel complex. That's what SoCal needs, more of that.
I'm out of the autocross game but yeah, between property values, liability, and post 9/11 security changes, big parking lots are vanishing.
I like this years site we have for WDCR, its at a baseball stadium so its a decent surface and nice bathrooms. The problems I have with it is the hour and a half in the morning to get to...and usually 2.5hours to get home due its location placing it just below alot of common very bad DC traffic...with a racing clutch and aHole drivers its really bad. On top of that the roads are absolute crap. I am alarmed my alignment stays intact. Unfortunately there is no real alternative way to get there from where I live.
Another region runs an autoX exactly 1 hour from me which I will likely join full time next year depending on how the chips fall next season.
Also an alternative is running with other groups that autoX at Summit Point...which is about 1:20 from my house but its a lovely drive that leads to going to a real race facility so its worth it. Ive done it a 1000 times by now so the drive is nothing.
Me staring out the window, focusing my gaze on nothing in particular:
"Local. Autocross. Site. Now that is a sentence I have not heard in many years."
They still hold the season opener "icebreaker" event in the back lot of the shopping mall every year but every other event is now a 2+ hour drive almost a mile up a mountain. Makes an autocross event an expensive, weekend out that involves a truck and trailer.
Despite all of our issues regarding sites, yeah, I realize we’re still fairly lucky. In addition to Daytona, we have Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center plus Lake County Tech (Tavares), the FIRM and a few others. Plus we run all year.
I wouldn't mind an autocross site less than 3 hours from my house. Then I might even go participate. But alas
In reply to malibuguy :
whats the other region? I hope not Susquehanna, I hate that lot. The courses are great, the lot is dangerous.
I miss Brooksville, being 30-40 minutes north, grippy runway site and multiple clubs running on any given weekend
David's right, we're lucky here. We're still losing sites though, just like the rest of the country.
I've only been doing this since 2018, and have been to five airports that we've lost access to: Brooksville, Dunellen, St Marys, GA, DeLand (5 miles from my house, don't know if it's permanent), and as of last month, Amelia Island.
We have picked up a new parking lot at the Saint Lucie fairgrounds, about 130 miles away. I'm resigned to having to travel if I want seat time, and I consider anything closer than 2 hours one way to be good. Yesterday I spent just under 8 hours on the road to Moultrie, GA and back.
I need to update my truck and buy a trailer, a subject for a different thread.
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