I've wondered this. Why are they on Sundays? Saturdays are much more convenient for lots of people.
I know there's a significant number of non-church goers that autocross, but I feel like there's a significant number of people who would autocross if only it weren't on Sunday mornings when they go to church.
Discuss.
Some clubs offer events on Saturday AND Sunday. I'm lucky to live in a region that does it when they can.
Holding events on a Sunday gives me the chance to do last minute fixes/upgrades and wash the car beforehand. Also, Sunday is pretty traditional as a race day across all motorsports.
I've never met the guy/gal who said "I'd love to autocross, if only it didn't happen on Sunday" but I'm sure they exist. The question is, how many of them are there?
mndsm
SuperDork
9/21/11 1:09 p.m.
I figure god wants me to be happy. Consider auto-x my church, if you will.
Duke
SuperDork
9/21/11 1:09 p.m.
It depends on the region, and even the date. My local club has events at 1 location on Saturdays, and our other location on Sundays, because that's the most convenient time to use each lot.
Having the event on Sunday gives you Saturday to get the car ready and saddle up, instead of having to do that on weeknights.
EvanB
SuperDork
9/21/11 1:10 p.m.
That is why you do rallycross instead...they are held on Saturday.
It's nice to know I'm not the only one who has wondered this. My wife and I are pretty involved in our church, so skipping it for auto-x is not something I am going to do. I have been wanting to get into auto-x for years, but the local SCCA region and the Tidewater Sports Car Club do all of their stuff on Sundays, so I have never had the opportunity to get involved. If it was on Saturdays I would be heavily involved.
Maybe I will have to look into Rallycross...
JoeyM
SuperDork
9/21/11 1:17 p.m.
1) Many people use it as a chance to NOT be dragged to church by SWMBO.
2) No matter what day you hold it, someone will be inconvenienced. (There are also people who follow judiasm, seventh-day adventism, etc. who go to church stuff on Saturday.)
3) Some clubs do different days, anyway. MSCC is usually on Sunday, but they occasionally do Friday night and Saturday events.
4) Tim Suddard devoted part of his GRM column recently (i.e. within the past few years) to "fixing autocross." We, here on the board, really got into that topic, and there were some good ideas
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/tims-editorial/23980/page1/
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/fix-autocrossing-pt-2/23486/page1/
One issue he - and many others - mentioned is that you need to devote an entire day to a typical event. Go read those threads to find some ideas for other ways to run an event. Nobody does it, but it IS possible to run events where people could choose to go to church and still race in the afternoon.
The catholics around here seem to have services a couple times every day and all day on weekends. If you are the sort who thinks god takes attendance... you can pre-load a couple helpings of the jebus on Saturday to absolve you of a little tire smoke on the sabbath
Raze
Dork
9/21/11 1:21 p.m.
I'm starting to be bothered by this actually as my wife and I are looking to get more involved in local affairs and the church is an excellent way to be involved with your community. Down here in the SE I can only imagine it's due to College Football. Personally, I'd enjoy Saturdays much more because if the car blows up I'm not trying to get it home late Sunday night (Atlanta SCCA is notorious for running late). That and Caffeine and Octane happens early mornings (before church) the first Sunday of every month and invariably conflicts several times with AutoX. I can't really complain though, as I'm not a regional volunteer, nor on any of the committees.
as for the run early church late, or church early, run late, in Atlanta, since usually mornings run late (this last points we were 2 hours behind) so blam, miss church. Afternoon people have to tech by a certain time, which is usually during church hours, and blam, you miss it. I'm just saying the size would almost need to be limited, which increases costs, pisses more people off because they get turned away, etc, etc, etc. Hard problem to try and fix...
I work on sundays and get paid extra. Between entry fees and loss of pay I will lose up to $120.
I'm fortunate that I have options (Catholic! Go Jesus!) to go on Saturday evening, but the normal Mass we go to is on Sunday morning, which we prefer.
Ian F
SuperDork
9/21/11 1:30 p.m.
Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:
The catholics around here seem to have services a couple times every day and all day on weekends. If you are the sort who thinks god takes attendance... you can pre-load a couple helpings of the jebus on Saturday to absolve you of a little tire smoke on the sabbath
The Catholic chruch around the corner from me is usually packed to the rafters for Sat evening mass... Sunday morning is less so.
Perhaps some locations are more available on Sundays?
I know here in the NW, they'll do both days. In fact, due to the weather most weekends of the summer are packed with some sort of car event. Sort of the Gear-head version of Spring's bloom eruption.
It is less of a benefit now, but stores and malls used to close on Sundays, so the parking lot was available. Also, nobody used to work Sunday, so...
Duke
SuperDork
9/21/11 1:53 p.m.
I can't believe we're this far into this topic without combining the two subjects:
The Paved Church of the Holy Cone.
The Bible thereof.
For the last two years, our autox's have been on saturday, largely because the site has events on Sunday.
I think a lot of it is historical. With the old blue laws, many places with big parking lots were closed on Sundays. So it made sense to hold the event on the day the lot was empty.
Although I'm pretty involved with my church, I also don't mind missing an occaisional service to do an autoX (or bike ride, or vacation) but then our congregation is pretty laid back about stuff too.
I would love to see some events on Saturdays though ,just for variety in my busy schedule, but I suspect it's much harder to find a big open parking lot that's not in use on saturday by those who paid to have it built.
As mentioned, Central Florida region holds some events on Saturday. In fact, there's one this weekend at Daytona Speedway. I'm only going to the Sunday event. One of those historical reasons was that people who worked retail often worked on Saturday. When we do hold two-day events, the Sunday event is most often the more heavily attended one.
God loves screeching r-comps.
Since going SCCA Club Racing I've learned lots about investing time in my motorsports. Comp license school for example begins on a Thursday evening - after having gotten the car ready and driven to the track. Then it's Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7:15am to 5:00pm.
Regular races are all day Saturday and Sunday, plus promoter practice on Friday. The Labor Day Double was all day Friday-Monday.
Fortunately, I'm a Pastafarian. There's no real set schedule for worship.
tuna55
SuperDork
9/21/11 2:23 p.m.
The local dragstrip runs on Saturday for this very reason.
Our events are on Saturdays, with one full weekend/year that's a friendly competition between us and the local PCA chapter that uses the same grounds (they run the event Saturday, we run it Sunday).
I'd actually prefer that we ran on Sundays. There's a lot more other things going on on Saturdays that I'd like the flexibility to attend.
Honestly, though, and I'm sure this will sound harsh, but I have no sympathy. It's your life and your priorities. If church and AX overlap, it's you alone that makes the decision as to which you're going to do. I don't see any legit reason why some one can't do one one weekend a month and the other the other three, but I guess some Gods are less forgiving than others
from what I understand the sunday racing thing goes back to the fact that dealers would be open on sat...
Trick question: autocrossing IS church