Autocross is dying

I amortized the cost of everything; autocross costs me $150 per event (entry fees, tire wear, fuel) for 6 minutes of run time versus $1100 for a race weekend.

I don't show up to autocross for just the compition; I show up to hang out with friends........playing with cars is only half the equation.

I'll agree with several of you. The friends that I've made have been the bonus to autocross. 

I don't mind working the events, in fact I enjoy it. They're volunteer run and helping out wherever I'm needed is part of the fun. I think I've had nine different work assignments since I started. 

It's true that I could spend a lot more and do track days, but if that was the only option I would be priced out. 

docwyte said:

I gotta point out that auto-x doesn't exactly leave parking lots as they were found as well, plus the perceived and sometimes real liability for the owners.  As a participant, I enjoy the driving part of it but the time breakdown doesn't make sense for me and my life. It doesn't make sense to spend 10 hours for under 6 minutes of driving time

You hit the nail on the head for me...and for many I suspect.  Time.  As docwyte said, spending an entire day just for a small handful of minutes driving is a complete non-starter.  Sure, it's a social event but even looking at it from that perspective it just doesn't make sense for me.  If I wanted to spend 10 hours of my day socializing there are other ways I'd prefer to do it.  Standing in a parking lot shagging cones while it's 90 degrees out, or 20 degrees, or pouring rain just isn't how I want to spend my social time.  I grant you it's been a long time since I've done autox, but the years of experience I did have with it seem to confirm that theory.  After a little while, only the most hard-core devoted fans of it stick around.  Those just looking for casual fun come to see the cost vs time analysis the same way and stop attending.

I would go back to autox if they could find a way to make it a 3 hour event tops.  I know that's a very difficult task, but for me that's what it would take.

The social aspect only works if you are a) not an introvert and 2) aren't a newbie and already have a circle of car friends. My first few experiences (decades ago now, but I doubt it's changed much) were that there are some people who take the sport way too seriously. Pity the fool who is in their class and doesn't know enough yet. It's driving cars around orange cones in a parking lot. Get over yourself.

Seat time vs time investment has always been an issue.

SCCA membership fees seem to be geared toward the road race crowd. I'd recommend a lower cost membership for autocrossers, workers and the like.

I can't really compete in my local autocross series because they are oversubscribed. Have to purchase a number before the season and sign up way early or you can't get in. After awhile, you stop trying.

I thought autocross was the greatest thing ever when I first did it. But the realities of sunburn, entire days consumed and the increasing fees brought a reality check.  And when I compared seat time to cost after discovering HPDE, that was it for me.

Which led to road racing, a rich man's sport that drained my bank account, but that is another thread.

We just lost our most popular venue, an Ag center parking lot that the club had been using for almost 30 years. The events would be sold out every time - we'd have 80 cars and more people on a waitlist. So now our only remaining venue is a training center about an hour and a half from where I live, instead of the 20 minute drive to the previous site. I'll be honest, it's going to be hard to make it out there, but there are fewer events overall so the required drive is going to be less frequent. In light of what's happened, I'm planning to replace some of those lost autocrosses with track days this year. I haven't been on track yet, and I've always wanted to go, so this seems like as good an excuse as any.

I'm real tired of the "seat time" comparison.  It's simply a different animal, but in the Olympics people want to see the sprints not the marathon.  People lose their collective E36 M3 to see the Kentucky Derby, not the 100 mile endurance race.  The SCCA (secret car club of america) has steadfastly refused to promote autocross and everyone says "that can't possibly be entertaining" but look what the Discovery Channel did with 1/8th mile drag racers from the middle of nowhere USA.  It got huge and revitalized drag racing.  No-Prep racing is bigger that the NHRA, and it took a midsized cable network getting the sport in front of eyeballs.

Locally, our venues are a challenge as well.  Our primary site is a local governments training pad that was paved for police and sanitation workers to practice driving on and we use on sundays.  I've suggested for a while that this model be sold to nearly all municipalities, if every town had 20-30 paved acres somewhere that the city used for official purposes during the week and motorsports folks could use on weekends it could serve the public good of getting the drift kids off the public streets and encouraging some level of responsibility among enthusiasts.   Like having a dedicated range for firearms enthusiasts instead of letting everyone shoot in whatever direction they desire.  

But there would need to be a publicity push at a national level to get enough public momentum to prepare the "powers that be" to start encouraging and embracing motorsports instead of simply pushing it out of their backyards. 

ddavidv said:

The social aspect only works if you are a) not an introvert and 2) aren't a newbie and already have a circle of car friends. My first few experiences (decades ago now, but I doubt it's changed much) were that there are some people who take the sport way too seriously. Pity the fool who is in their class and doesn't know enough yet. It's driving cars around orange cones in a parking lot. Get over yourself.

Seat time vs time investment has always been an issue.

SCCA membership fees seem to be geared toward the road race crowd. I'd recommend a lower cost membership for autocrossers, workers and the like.

I can't really compete in my local autocross series because they are oversubscribed. Have to purchase a number before the season and sign up way early or you can't get in. After awhile, you stop trying.

I thought autocross was the greatest thing ever when I first did it. But the realities of sunburn, entire days consumed and the increasing fees brought a reality check.  And when I compared seat time to cost after discovering HPDE, that was it for me.

Which led to road racing, a rich man's sport that drained my bank account, but that is another thread.

+1 to everything said by David. This was exactly my experience attending autocross in Ottawa, back in the late '90's and early 2000's. I never tried road racing though, too afraid of draining the $$. 

This is getting a bit off topic with the seat time to dollar rationale.  That wasn't my original point.  Certainly a valid point but perhaps for another topic.  Eventually there will come a point when you aren't given options for that since you'll have one venue in a state.  Since making my post yesterday I've learned of 3 more long time venues that were lost locally to me.  One being a mall that finally died, and will likely be snatched up and redeveloped with 0 regard for the parking lot.  I can't say I have a solution for the venues dying, but dear god I wish the national office would see this problem beyond just losing tour/pro solo locations.  If they have more resources to help local clubs, I wish they would.  

The site loss thing is real and has impacted my involvement.

In the SF bay, I had to drive almost two hours to the Central Valley to autox due to losses of Alameda air base and a horse track. So it wasn't just the full day of being there it was the commute. Hard to justify all that time when I could go to a local indoor cart track and get more time racing in an hour, plus commute time. 
 

I'll admit that I have changed too. I just don't feel the need to drive fast as much as I did when I was younger.

In reply to CyberEric :

California is a dicey state for racing.  On one hand you've got some of the most restrictive and downright stupid laws, but then you've got some brilliant options for racing (more than just autox) if you are just willing to travel a bit outside of the major cities.  

In reply to camopaint0707 :

The national office is very aware of the problem. What exactly do you want them to do about it? There's no magic bullet to make sites magically reappear. They already do everything they can to suppress incident information and make it look as safe and liability free as possible to site owners.

So, a related question. We know that autocross sites have (always) been a challenge to secure, but are any groups having trouble filling the grids with drivers? 

FWIW, I never thought SCCA was any good at marketing their "product". Back when I was doing autoX (early 80s) much / most of their advertising was aimed at racers and very little outside that. I have no idea if that has changed since, but I don't see anything from them anywhere (except here).

In reply to David S. Wallens :

I see waitlist after waitlist lol.  Locally, nationally.  The drivers are there, the venues aren't.

David S. Wallens said:

So, a related question. We know that autocross sites have (always) been a challenge to secure, but are any groups having trouble filling the grids with drivers? 

It was a combination of site going away and low turn out that killed our local program.

Which is a shame because I liked it. Most cars we ever had was 50, closer to 20 on average. Which meant literally all the runs you wanted to make you could. 

But the local site shut down, next closest venue 90 minutes away with 100+ turnout, so a hard cap of 4 runs. Easily a 12 hour day with travel for 4 passes. And with the way SCCA regions are setup, that was considered the "home site" so none of the surrounding counties could even look into setting one up. "Social aspects" are fine and good but 4 minutes of seat time in a 12 hour day, might as well just go hit back roads.

They're killing themselves, seemingly on purpose. 

I don't know or care about SCCA politics, just that as a weekend warrior they seemed to get more in the way of their own cause than actually helping it. 

In reply to dps214 :

Just spit balling.  But, create a dedicated venue task force nationwide to help big and small events.  Allocate more national budget money to venue acquistion on the local level.  Remove the current leadership that has failed.  Focus more effort on the sport than policing the internet.  Rebrand themselves.  Work in conjunction with non scca organizers (pca, bmw, etc).  Idk, I'm literally just spouting off whats coming to mind.  Please don't jump down my throat on these lol.  Just laying it all out there.

camopaint0707 said:

In reply to dps214 :

Just spit balling.  But, create a dedicated venue task force nationwide to help big and small events.  Allocate more national budget money to venue acquistion on the local level.  Remove the current leadership that has failed.  Focus more effort on the sport than policing the internet.  Rebrand themselves.  Work in conjunction with non scca organizers (pca, bmw, etc).  Idk, I'm literally just spouting off whats coming to mind.  Please don't jump down my throat on these lol.  Just laying it all out there.

I'm pretty sure they're doing those first two things. The rest might be good ideas, but they're only going to attract more participants, not more sites. Which is only going to make the current situation worse.

In reply to dps214 :

Kind of a double edge sword.  We are gonna end up with a thousand racers and 1 venue by the end of it.  (i'm being dramatic)

In reply to RevRico :

Just for the record, there's nothing stopping regions from sharing sites, just have to get it approved by the other region. Sounds like if anything that was a region leadership issue, not a while club operation issue. For a while the two local rallycross regions would take turns hosting events at the same site, and I think that site may have even technically been in a third region's "territory".

The site problem is also going to get worse because in many locations it is illegal to build parking lots that are suitable for autocross.  The inclusion of things like planters, light poles, etc are mandated by the government.

I live in one of the top 40 metropolitan areas in the country.  We don't have a site in our region anymore.  Attendance was not an issue.  

They don't build parking lots like they used to.  The cars are bigger and faster too, requiring more room.  The size of uninterrupted pavement necessary for a safe event has become larger while parking areas have been broken up and are 30% grass islands now.  Suitable new lots are rarely if ever built anymore due to runoff concerns.

Airports and military bases are the exception and have the facilities we need, but don't want us there and who can blame them?  What's the risk/reward proposition?  Why stick their neck out?  

If the national club could establish a value prop with DOD or FAA, it might give the local airport authority or base commander some justification for approval.  Maybe that's combined with some worthy cause(s).

Otherwise the fancy slide show just falls flat and autocross continues dying.

Just getting permits and the ability to buy and build a sight is crazy hard. Here in MN a guy has been attempting to do just that and has been pushed back by the city and county for 2 years or more. Basically he's be told he can't buy farm land and build a "track" because its close enough to the city limits that it "could" be annexed into the city in at some unforeseen time in the future and therefor the city gets a say too....

Anyway...

Perhaps the answer already exist at Brainerd International Raceway. The Pro paddock (paved area for the Top Fuel/Funny Car Haulers) has evolved into whats been dubbed the Skid Pad. It gets used for both Autocross and Drifting and last year they even doubled its size to be better for all 3 uses. Where this becomes a huge win is during two events a year called MAP Proving Grounds they are able to split up rental of the track. BIR runs the drag strip, while Central Wisconsin Sports Car Club operates the competition course (road course) + AutoX on Friday and Saturday afternoon, and a drifting club operates on the skid pad when its not being used for AutoX. Multiple events going on all at once at the same venue. Costs are a split up (vs renting the entire facility alone) and you now have an event that can draw in more spectators/campers for the weekend while exposing them to several automotive event types.

For reference the AutoX field is capped at around 140 cars on Friday and 120 on Saturday, 3 run groups, 6 runs for everyone in about 4-5hrs. Each group does their 6 runs then it switches groups. So you only need to be there for tech/meeting and then when your group is running.

In reply to Asphalt_Gundam :

You should see the Las Vegas Motorsports Park.  LV recognizes that people like to do stuff so they set aside huge tracts of land for a whole variety of motorsports venues.  Proving that if you build it, they will come.

If this general premise is true, when did autocross peak?

In reply to STM317 :

I don't think it has peaked.  It's still growing.  Depsite losing venues.