There's a new Autocross series in town. The Optima DriveAutoX openly challenges the standard that we've held Autocross to for decades. The focus is on fun, socialization and camaraderie, not just getting around the cones fastest.
From the DriveAutoX website: "We all love competition, but DriveAutoX will keep it friendly and fun. There are classes for all years/makes/models and modifications. …
It's nice to see a new take on the Autocross scene. Hopefully this will bring more people into the sport, who hadn't considered it before.
And that bitchin Gremlin was built by Schwartz Performance---- they produce some incredibly cool builds!
Joe Gearin said:And that bitchin Gremlin was built by Schwartz Performance---- they produce some incredibly cool builds!
I remember about 7 years ago, I got to ride on the LS Fest rod run and Mark(?) was driving their bitchin' '65 Tempest and telling me how he was a closet AMC fan and was building a gnarly autocross Gremmie. Cool to see it finally done.
Off topic- I've seen (and competed with) that Gremlin and it is an absolute BEAST! It absolutely KILLED the competition at the Car Craft Summer Nationals autocross in 2016. I remember seeing pictures of it being built in Muscle Machines magazine back in 2012 and was ecstatic to see it in person at CCSN. Watching that little thing zip through the cones was nothing short of incredible. If I remember right, he was something like 2 seconds faster than everyone else around the short (30-second-ish) autocross course.
Uh, looks awesome. Who's going to the Peru IN one?
Also, anyone have any idea how much it will cost? I jumped though the website quickly but didn't see any numbers.
Robbie said:Also, anyone have any idea how much it will cost? I jumped though the website quickly but didn't see any numbers.
I remember seeing something about ~$150 for the weekend when I looked on the site.
I'm fairly new to the sport, but this sounds like both the autocrosses I've done, where the focus was merely on fun. I think there were small trophies up for grabs, but I wasn't fast enough, as I was severely fatigued from the massive smile on my face from finally getting to really DRIVE the car I'd been building for a few years...
That said, I really didn't mind cone work. Heck, if anything, it gave me good perspective on the course from another angle, seeing how others were going about their faster laps. I learned plenty, just watching them up close.
Robbie said:Also, anyone have any idea how much it will cost? I jumped though the website quickly but didn't see any numbers.
$125 per weekend for 2018. That's no work and they're trying to get a dozen runs or more in per weekend.
pretty excited for the one in mineral wells. I'll probably be in the e46 as long as I don't have something else by then instead
It’d be nice to see one out west.
I don’t even know where the nearest auto cross is to me.
Robbie said:Uh, looks awesome. Who's going to the Peru IN one?
I'm planning to bring the m3 to the Peru one, if you wind up going I'd like to put more forum screen names to faces!
klodkrawler05 said:Robbie said:Uh, looks awesome. Who's going to the Peru IN one?
I'm planning to bring the m3 to the Peru one, if you wind up going I'd like to put more forum screen names to faces!
Nice! I will let you know what ends up happening. I still don't know if I will be there in the saab truck, the XJR, the miata, or something else entirely.
In reply to klodkrawler05 :
Not going to the IN one (obviously since I live in TX) but like you, I'm hoping lots of people go to the mineral wells event because I'm looking forward to actually meeting members of the forum
Registration opened this morning, I signed up for Gateway and Peru!
Hope to see some folks out and put some faces to names!
Are there any comments or feedback from the folks who went to these events this year?
Would you do it again next year?
Was it worth the entry price?
-- Pete
Yes, yes, and yes. I wouldn't do it as a two driver car again though, unless they've figured out grid operation better since then. But that's about the only complaint I can come up with. It really wasn't terrible but introduced just enough stress into the situation to be annoying.
I'd say yes, and echo the two driver thing.
We did Peru and between the 2 of us put in 29 runs over the 2 days, The multi heat each day was great because we could make some morning runs, think about what we as drivers would do different and what we wished the car would do different, make some setup changes then try again.
The two driver thing really didn't go any different than a normal autocross until the Sunday bracketed auto-x, we both wound up making it through the first round and it got to the point where one of us would come off the track and barely have the car stopped and be hopping out of the car and they were already telling us to hurry we needed to get back to the line. That was a bit frustrating as we were hot lapping the car for 6-8 runs in a row with a driver change in between each one.
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