Saw my first ever autocross accident today...

Sigh, that GT3 wreck happened at PIR where I auto-x. I wasn't there that day, but I do know that we have an entirely different Solo II crew in Oregon Region and that the course designs are very, very conservative now.

Case in point, at the last SCCA Oregon event at PIR a highly modded 240SX got a stuck throttle and went off course. He hit a boulder lining the field, not a worker or car in sight. That course was also super short and very, very boring. Usually some 75% of the morning runs stay to run for fun in the afternoon, that day we had ZERO.

I have heard from people who were there that the GT3 never even touched the brakes. Stupid course design still though, especially at PIR where we have the ability to finish courses into non-paddock area.

Varkwso wrote:

maroon92 wrote: At all of our events, the registrar checks for a valid drivers license. I think if you have a seizure you have to wait two years to drive again.

You would have to depend on self reporting....the doctor or hospital are not going to call the state...

Doctor and hospital does report immediately in SC. The wife had a suspected seizure a year or so ago. The doc had her license pulled immediately. After determining it wasn't a seizure he basically wrote a "prescription" so the DMV would re-issue it.

SC law states 6 months with no seizure before re-instating driving privileges.

Travis_K wrote: Here is the article i was talking about. http://actionalameda.org/actionalamedanewsblog/2009/03/04/tonight-alameda-city-council-considers-expanded-autocross-events-at-alameda-point/ Its pretty obvious that the person who write it hasnt ever seen a real autocross.

I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I left a comment anyway. I attempted to remind the author that without an organized outlet for motorsport, there would be people going nuts on the street all the time.

You can wreck your care autocrossing?

Cayman wrote: I was at both of those events, and the young guys with the Miata were real champs about it. I google'd my way here because I'm still a little freaked out about our safety record, and I'm wondering if it's normal.

Hey, welcome. Sorry I missed this post earlier. Since the Miata spin we've had two incident-free events (other than a spin or two), even at the tight Keene site. At the drivers meetings I always try to add a comment or two about safety and when I'm working I try to pay serious attention. I'm looking forward to the October event and I hope we get the larger venue.

I'm the blue BMW in D Stock, by the way.

friedgreencorrado wrote:

Travis_K wrote: Here is the article i was talking about. http://actionalameda.org/actionalamedanewsblog/2009/03/04/tonight-alameda-city-council-considers-expanded-autocross-events-at-alameda-point/ Its pretty obvious that the person who write it hasnt ever seen a real autocross.

I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I left a comment anyway. I attempted to remind the author that without an organized outlet for motorsport, there would be people going nuts on the street *all* the time.

Crap I should have known this was alameda. The local american autoX club just went through hell getting aprovale to use that site only to have it abritrarily yanked away from them after only one event. Then to see this sort of gross misrepresntation, makes me illl ...

Capt Slow wrote:

friedgreencorrado wrote:

Travis_K wrote: Here is the article i was talking about. http://actionalameda.org/actionalamedanewsblog/2009/03/04/tonight-alameda-city-council-considers-expanded-autocross-events-at-alameda-point/ Its pretty obvious that the person who write it hasnt ever seen a real autocross.

I know it's been a couple of weeks, but I left a comment anyway. I attempted to remind the author that without an organized outlet for motorsport, there would be people going nuts on the street *all* the time.

Crap I should have known this was alameda. The local american autoX club just went through hell getting aprovale to use that site only to have it abritrarily yanked away from them after only one event. Then to see this sort of gross misrepresntation, makes me illl ...

When I checked back for updates (admittantly on Goog with just the name of the venue), the same paper/website/whatever seems to have been crowing about the entire deal being made irrelevant due to the presence of an endangered species on the site:

http://actionalameda.org/actionalamedanewsblog/2009/03/11/california-least-tern-upsets-autocross-at-alameda-point/

The author sees this kind of thing as a long term stop-gap measure. It isn't.

I grew up on the North Carolina Outer Banks, and we frequently had these kinds of issues as well, when it came to driving on the beach. In those days (the mid-to-late 1970s), there were still a couple of villages in the north without access to paved roads, and driving on the beach was their only option. We had a strong tradition of "beach driving", and when a couple of "threatned" species were discovered down south near Hatteras in the 1990s (ironically, IIRC the "Least Tern" was among them! ROFL!) there was eventually a compromise created where we could still drive on the beach outside of their nesting season. Yeah, there's still a few old folks who resent the seasonal restrictions, but for the most part we're happy to preseve our old tradition.

http://www.outerbanksbeachguide.com/newsinfo/randr.htm

That link's for tourists, but explains a lot of the technical stuff we learned from our parents/g'parents. I was about 17, and the half-owner of a 1977 Jeep SJ station wagon, a "Cherokee" 2-dr that my father & I had bought new. IIRC, I wanted a Blazer since I knew more about Chevys, but he'd driven Jeeps during the Korean War, and really respected the name, so that's what he/we bought (and now you can tell he was no enthuisast, since he'd obviously missed the changes in the "Jeep" over those 35yr since he'd last driven one )

I ended up loving the thing, though. Only thing that got through the sand a lil' better (the OBX ain't Daytona! The sand is soft) on deflated street tires was a buddy's Subaru BRAT.

Apologies for the hijack...I originallly just meant to say that there are ways around stuff like this for the folks in Alameda. And I still stand by my previous comment over there about this issue...without a facility and an organized sanctioning body of some sort, there will actually be MORE street racing in their community, not less.

Any of you Florida guys have any hard data on how much less street troubles there are since CFRC started doing the 1/8th pulls & the "crooked drags"?

Haha. I just remembered an event where a guy showed up with an Audi or Volkswagon sedan full of his crap. He must have slipped through tech somehow without them noticing, or he put it all back in his car after (maybe they told him he was OK as long as he emptied his car). He had crap on his dash board, he left his floor mat in, and he got a run in like this.

On his second run, the starter noticed all the stuff in his car. When asked by the starter (and then by the event safety steward) to remove it and get back in line, he became really belligerent. It was to the point where they were threatening to get a jack and move his car off the line. He even tried to start on his own anyway.

In the end, he was told to leave and he finally did. Nobody was hurt. But I was quite certain that somebody was going to get the E36 M3 beat out of himself.

In reply to confuZion3:

That's just nuts. Even if it wasn't a rule, who would want to run with all that stuff banging around anyway?

we here in Asheville have one of if not the only remaining public / city street autocrosses in the country... it happens during a downtown street festival called Bele Chere in the last wk of July each yr. It's on a 5 lane city street ( curbs on either side + buildings within 10' of the curbs) and it always rains....

Last year some idiot in a Z06 pulled up to the starting line ( during a heavy down pour) , purged his NOS right in front of the starter , how he got by tech no one knows, needless to say he was pulled out of line and the bottle was removed and placed in the timing trailer....

crazy huh.. ? that much hp in the rain with curbs and buildings, and then trying to use NOS... >shakes head in wonderment<

paul wrote: I was looking over my car at a event last year when I hear someone yell "HOLY SH**!!" I look up at the course and see a mazda 3 five feet into the air doing a gigantic end-over-end tumble; caused by stock suspension, giant r.anti roll bar and big r compounds... Car was totalled, driver walked away with a small cut on his arm.

Installing an anti-roll bar improperly (clamped solid, not pivoting in the middle) especially in the rear WILL act as a spring, and can cause a rollover. FYI