A sad day for autocross - Packwood (NT site) sold

One of the premier destinations for autocross for multiple clubs closed a sale today. The former mill in Packwood, Washington hosted SCCA National Tour and ProSolo, hosted the only regional ProSolo schedule, and premier events for the PCA and a dozen other local clubs. 

There is no further information at this time, including who bought it, what their plans are, or if it will be available this season if at all. The two local regions with property on the site we're told today that they have 45 days to move it.

If autocross ends there, it's going to be a huge death nell for the sport in the Pacific Northwest.

Bonus bad because the JIBC pad in Pitt Meadows BC (Home to most of the Vancouver area AXing) is in a similar spot, new management not giving any solid indication that they'll continue allowing access.  

Two reasons I'm looking towards a (more) dedicated track car.

It's a problem in a lot of places. Very sorry to see this. 

One of our sites in Myrtle Beach, sold last year. It's still sitting empty but we can no longer use it. 

There hasn't been a decent autocross site in Charleston in years and with parking lots getting chopped up for green space, I have my doubts about there ever being another one. 

The people with decent sites have zero interest in renting them out. They don't want the liability. 

My local club had two venues - one was Ebensburg airport in Ebensburg, PA.  It was a great venue - easily the best and most enjoyable I've run at.  The club (AHR-SCCA) has just announced the dates/venues for 2020 and Ebensburg is not on the list at all - no idea why.

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to find places willing to host Autocross events.

One of the Detroit TV stations did a story a couple of weeks ago about sideshows shutting down freeways and people riding 4 wheelers on the streets.  They talked with the chief of police and he says that they are working with the organizers of the sideshows to come up with a legitimate location for people to go and do donuts legally and safely instead of doing it on the streets. They're trying to get the big 3 involved for support and hope to have it running this summer.

So my suggestion is to start blocking off freeways and run your autocross there and the police will come up with a replacement venue for you.

This has always been the biggest difficulty in event organization. It is neccessary to keep site searching all the time, even when your site seems secure.

Well that sucks. This is going to be my first season getting back into any type of driving events in a decade, and I'll never have gotten to run Packwood. 

On the other hand, it's a long drive out into the middle of nowhere for just a few minutes of 'track' time. So if these clubs can band together to identify and secure more local sites, rather than just withering away in 'defeat', the silver lining is that there is the potential for this to even be an overall (long run) boon for the sport in the PNW. I have seen autox run at enough random-ass sites that I find it hard to believe that every other current possibility has already been exhausted. There is almost always another option, people typically just need to have a reason that is enough of a motivator to make them leave their comfort zone and seek it out.

We've had to resort to begging the local ski resorts for summer use. The fairgrounds helped us one time, but they chip sealed the lot right before our event. That was a disaster. 

There is another autocross venue in WA state. Evergreen Speedway in Monroe WA has autocross pretty regularly. It's a bit different than SCCA in that Evergreen Speedway provides staff for everything, including shagging cones. You just need to show up and drive. I haven't participated yet, but I've seen people get as many as 12-13 runs in a full day.  https://evergreenspeedway.com/category/autocross/

They also have crap-can racing in their Hornet division, running a pseudo road course, but you better be prepared for the "rubbin' is racin'" NASCAR mentality. It is fun, though. I did it for a couple years and will be back.

In reply to Cadman5 :

That is a great idea. If I'm shagging cones, I wouldn't mind getting paid to do it. If I had the option of paying a little extra to have someone else do it, I would. Not a bad idea at all. 

In reply to Cadman5 :

I'm excited to be trying out the Evergreen events this year too, but looking at some of the vids it's definitely higher risk (primarily to the car) than most parking lot events.

Aw man, that sucks. Hopefully something else turns up. Like a third of our events are there. 

thatsnowinnebago said:

Aw man, that sucks. Hopefully something else turns up. Like a third of our events are there. 

Half. This season 8 of 16 events are scheduled in Packwood.

Evergreen looks like a blast! I'd totally do that.

Javelin said:

thatsnowinnebago said:

Aw man, that sucks. Hopefully something else turns up. Like a third of our events are there. 

Half. This season 8 of 16 events are scheduled in Packwood.

 

Evergreen looks like a blast! I'd totally do that.

Well E36 M3. 

That sucks. A bunch of car clubs (SCCA, BMWCCA and I think PCA) all got the boot from the local private racetrack/country club that we were running at. Each club had bought a membership and then as part of their membership could throw 2 events a year that were open to the public. Then I guess this fall, the track owner talked to the heads of all the clubs and said they had to bump their entry fees way up, because he felt we were "devaluing the property" and giving people the impression that they could get on the property for less than $100. Our Solo head said there was no way he could charge $100 for people to get to run ony part of the track with it slowed down by cone slaloms. And BMWCCA said they were charging $50 for BMWCCA members and $100 for non-members, and movng to $100 for members and $150 for non-members would be a hard sell. So all the clubs got shown the door. Seems pretty foolish to try and do the exclusive high-end club deal in an economically-depressed area and be booting paying members when you are constantly hard up for money.

But, unlike some regions, we are swimming in site choices (part of that economically-depressed area bit) to the point that we've had one or two sites literally begging us to come autocross there and our Solo head has said to me "We could go back, but we have better sites."

 Seems pretty foolish to try and do the exclusive high-end club deal in an economically-depressed area 

Economically depressed only applies to poor people, though. Wherever you are, all those people's money went somewhere, and the people who it went to seem to ride out 'tough times' just fine. So there's a decent chance you can pull in relatively high-rollers basically anywhere regardless of what all the normal people there look like. Not that that's what's happening there, but i'm just saying it's possible to blow off all the normies and make your entire existence off of a smaller number of much wealthier people. Most of the coolest jobs out there are basically that. "Who's our racetrack guy?"

Losing autox venues sucks. It sort of seems like the inevitable grinding death of the sport. At least it's not being legislated out of existence. Lots of city planners would try to find a way to make motorsports 'walkable'. 

Vigo said:

 Seems pretty foolish to try and do the exclusive high-end club deal in an economically-depressed area 

Economically depressed only applies to poor people, though. Wherever you are, all those people's money went somewhere, and the people who it went to seem to ride out 'tough times' just fine. So there's a decent chance you can pull in relatively high-rollers basically anywhere regardless of what all the normal people there look like. Not that that's what's happening there, but i'm just saying it's possible to blow off all the normies and make your entire existence off of a smaller number of much wealthier people. Most of the coolest jobs out there are basically that. "Who's our racetrack guy?"

Doesn't seem to be working. They were damn near giving away memberships, trying to get more members. Construction on the clubhouse came to a screeching halt this summer. The top coat of asphalt has never been layed down. A friend of a guy I autocross with who is not a car guy but works for an advertising agency, offered to give them a cut rate on some advertising and the owner told him "Well, I don't have the cash to pay you, but I could give you a one year membership", to which the guy pointed out he isn't a car guy and only owns a Honda Odyssey and a Ford Explorer and wasn't interested.

In reply to SnowMongoose :

I was talking to a friend today and he confirmed the sports car guys are out at Pitt.

Doesn't seem to be working. They were damn near giving away memberships, trying to get more members. Construction on the clubhouse came to a screeching halt this summer. The top coat of asphalt has never been layed down. A friend of a guy I autocross with who is not a car guy but works for an advertising agency, offered to give them a cut rate on some advertising and the owner told him "Well, I don't have the cash to pay you, but I could give you a one year membership", to which the guy pointed out he isn't a car guy and only owns a Honda Odyssey and a Ford Explorer and wasn't interested.

Yikes. He should get his dad to loan him $5,000,000. Worked for at least one 'very successful' American. Definitely an insufficient amount of rich people involved here.