I've been looking at various rally cross threads and curious if there is a movement where I live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Travis Pastrana is a local and was looking to build a facility recently which got squished by the community. That would have been about 25 minutes from me.
Son of a gun.
but it has me thinking. I pull about 8 hours to VIR and 3.5 to Summit Point. Some local endorphin release would be nice.
In reply to jh36 :
Unfortunately the DC SCCA events at Summit Point may be the closest for you, unless there's a group out there that I don't know about. Would the Susquehanna region events in Harrisburg be any closer?
Agreed that Circuit 199 not happening is a bummer, I was hopeful that that would bring some european style wheel to wheel rallycross into the mix.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Thanks...but yeah, all of those are outside of my desired range.
so many fields over here. Seems like something could happen, if even privately. Being a complete novice, what is the typical acreage needed for an event?
You need enough room to grid a bunch of cars and have the course be interesting and safe, you can see Susquehanna region's relatively compact course here on google maps (turn on satellite if it doesn't open that way) for an idea of how much room that takes up- they grid the cars near the small road where the start/finish are.
A bigger problem can be the neighboring properties, you need to be somewhere that people won't freak out about dust and engine noises.
Story time...probably 10 years ago (or at least before the GrandAm/ALMS merger) Chris Cobetto called me up recruiting drivers for a @sim race" at a grand am event at vir. VW was sponsoring the event and wanted to put vip's in the passenger seats of r32's while we simulated racing around the track between actual races.
I got a sweet t-shirt and $50 I think but the real score was...all us drivers chipped in and bought a $500 Ford Escort and talked VIr management into giving us a bush hog and the right to mess up some grass. Chris and I carved out a course and what followed was the very best part of the weekend.
Johan Schwartz was one of the gang and he taught me the Scandinavian Flick, for which I will be eternally thankful.
I'd like to try that some more please.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
That's a great help...thank you. My gears are turning. This seems to happen to me on Saturday mornings. It's a problem.
Another way to make the long haul to rallycross events worth it is to only do doubleheaders- I'm much more likely to go 3.5hrs to Summit when I can race Saturday, camp overnight, then race again Sunday.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:Another way to make the long haul to rallycross events worth it is to only do doubleheaders- I'm much more likely to go 3.5hrs to Summit when I can race Saturday, camp overnight, then race again Sunday.
Yep, and that's what I do on race weekends every time. I'm looking/hoping something can be done local (within an hour or so) so I can play without the full commitment of a weekend. Doesn't look like it's there right now...but still looking.
Every movement has a beginning!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:You need enough room to grid a bunch of cars and have the course be interesting and safe, you can see Susquehanna region's relatively compact course here on google maps (turn on satellite if it doesn't open that way) for an idea of how much room that takes up- they grid the cars near the small road where the start/finish are.
A bigger problem can be the neighboring properties, you need to be somewhere that people won't freak out about dust and engine noises.
Thanks for that link. If the scale is accurate, that's somewhere between 8-10 acres which holds water with the buildings nearby.
10-15 acres seems doable.
As someone who lives just outside DC and takes 50/301 through the eastern shore and into Delaware with some frequency, now that you mention it, there does seem to be a huge amount of land there that would be easily "converted" into a rallycross space. Much of that corridor is so sparsely populated that it's hard to believe you couldn't find somewhere that you could make some noise and dust on once a month and not rile up any neighbors (of which there would be like 3!).
IMO, the key would be to get it in the eastern shore of VA. And to attempt to attract the popular of the Hampden Roads area to come up 13 for it.
The mindset people tend to go for is Delaware or northern MD eastern shore, but Philly and Wilmington already head to the Susquehanna region events.
The other issue is for some reason all of Virginia and Maryland's Eastern Shore is part of WDCR, and there's no reason for that. They do have a western Maryland "chapter" within the region, but it's long past time for national to splinter the DC region up.
That would put it about the same distance from Summit Point from me.
Salisbury is about 2 hours south from me...then another 45 or so to get to the land of which you speak.
If I was actually going to instigate something, it would be Queen Anne's, Talbot or Caroline Counties. And there may not be enough interest unless folks from Annapolis etc found it worthy.
But maybe something not entirely organized is possible.
Pipe dream maybe, but a fun one.
I picked up my bus from my son's shop today. I have this sitting there. How much fun this would be with just a frame, skid plates and dirt stocker Hoosiers. 
In reply to jh36 :
Yeah the issue with anything north of Salisbury is that you would have to pull people from either across the bridge or Philly or Wilmington and they already have other places that are going to be as close to them.
NASA is working with Dominion on setting something up so that way at least Central Virginia will no longer need to trek roughly 2 hours without traffic. That will harken back to the Orange, VA days for them.
As someone that currently drives 90 minutes one way to rallycross, I'd drive 3 hours for it too.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:As someone that currently drives 90 minutes one way to rallycross, I'd drive 3 hours for it too.
The problem for me ( it's just me...this is a very self-centered thread I know!) is that I already travel 3.5-8 (sometimes 10) hours to race on asphalt. I was originally hoping to find something super local to satisfy my desire to play in the dirt. That doesn't take out an entire weekend.
It looks like nothing exists, and there is no compelling reason to start something by many more people than .... me.
RIP pipe dream.
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