Why autocross for just 3 minutes of track time?

DrBoost wrote:

irish44j wrote:

DrBoost wrote: You can't say that auto-xing a prepped car is cheaper or the same as W2W. The entry fee for a day of auto-x is, what $25? What did your last track day cost, or the entry fee for any W2W competition? I looked into LeMons and Chump car. A couple grand just to hit the track? Not knocking it, but it's cost-prohibitive to many of us.

A couple grand? Are you racing by yourself? Our Chump team usually has 4-5 drivers splitting costs. I think our last one at VIR (where I got 3 hours of driving time) I paid about $400 for my share of entry fees, tires, brake pads, and gas. They key is to get on a team where someone else owns the car and pays for the safety gear But in terms of the car itself, here I'll compare: My friend's ESP WRX: Cost $25k new. Upgraded turbo. Custom coilovers. 18x9 wheels. Giant hoosiers. Every suspension thing possible. He probably has $40k in the build to be reasonably competitive. Our Chump e30 cost like $1k. $1500 for a cage. $1000 for seat/harness. $1000 for HANS and other safety gear. Maybe $2k in other things. We're racing wheel to wheel in a car that cost probably $6-7k to put together, and then maybe $10k per year total to run 5-6 races. And that car is competitive and frequently finishes in the top 15-20. Sure, you could buy a $1k beater and autocross it to for a lot cheaper. But old cars in near-stock form aren't generally competitive in autocross. I think the point though is that it's all relative. A season of autocross locally here (WDCR) runs about $500-600 for let's say 10 events. So in a season, you're getting maybe an hour of seat time for that $500-600. Run one Chump race and assuming you're paying rental fees + expenses, you're probably looking at $500-600 as well, but getting 3-4 hours on the track. I'm certainly not loaded with cash by any means. I run 2-3 Chump races per year (all fairly "local" ones) because it's all I can afford. The rest of my team runs 6-7 per year, and will go much farther. They're single guys who live in cheap houses, so they can afford it

I sat down and ran the numbers with 4 other people. The car was already owned, so that cost was out. Prepping the car, buying personal safety gear, and the first entry fee was over a grand if I went with the cheapest safety gear possible. I backed out, others pressed on. The car prep was more expensive than they thought it was going to be. If I'd have stayed in it'd have approached $2,000 just to watch the car crash out very early in the first event. So for me, just under $2,000 to spectate. At that point my next option would be to wait 'till next year for that race to come around again, or travel to the next race, adding a few hundred in entry fees, food, fuel, and lodging. So now we're at $3,000+ to maybe get some wheel time. Again, I'm not knocking W2W, but the cost is so high.

True, there's always the possibility that your leadoff guy crashes or something. Our last race ended after 5 hours with our 3rd driver eating a wall backwards, so our 4th driver (who came down from NY) didn't get to drive at all and the rest of us didn't get our second stint. That said, we had 6 raced before that where the car finished the entire race.

And yeah, I didn't count personal safety gear - since you're gonna need a helmet for any motorsport, and a driving suit/shoes/nomex stuff pretty much lasts forever until you decide to get something better.

Travel and lodging obviously costs things too....but people who go to national-level autocross events spend that same money. People travel long distances just to watch car racing too. We have summit point an hour away so I get at least 1 race per year where I don't need a hotel room :)

Car prep expenses vary greatly on the team, their skills, the car's condition, and how fast you want the car to be of course.

Good points both way though. It's all about what you can afford, have time for, or want to do...

I use the same car for track days and for autocross, so I split the cost for both. If I finish the cage (Put in the door bars) it will be legal for W2W as well. I enjoy both, but agree that from a seat time perspective autocross is not as good a deal as a track day. I am doing a Porsche club event on the 16th and 17th. Its $230.00 for two days worth of track time (Probably 2.5 hours ish...) Thats hard to beat.

David S. Wallens wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote: Despite the thread title, this thread wasn't actually about seat time...

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

But how often does a thread actually stay on the intended topic of the OP?

Spoolpigeon wrote: I forgot one negative: I have to deal with evildky. That guy is a shiny happy person.

Spoolpigeon reads Playboy for the article and GRM for the pictures.

There are articles in GRM??

As noted on the bottom of page 2 improving your driving; if you are road racer running at autocross will help your qualifying and opening laps as you'll be very comfortable on cold tires. As an instructor at track days I find that many autocrossers are a bit rough, espeically, letting of the brakes and the track day is a chance to fine tune thier technique. Basically with no stopwatch it gives them a chance to think about what they are doing and why. As mentioned autocross doesn't give you much seat time........which is what makes it such a challenge.

 Tom

David S. Wallens wrote:

DILYSI Dave wrote: Despite the thread title, this thread wasn't actually about seat time...

Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner.

Keeping with the opening post, it does go both ways. I enjoyed being with some of the others, but started to get frustrated with others.

When I was forced to sit out a year, I noticed that the negative vibe apparently out weighed the positive, and I have not been back since.

Which goes for both autocross as well as track days.

In reply to Boost_Crazy:

This is what I tell folks about AutoX. There is a lot of nice rides at our Local Autox. And there old looking police car there sometimes as well.

I like autocrossing for two reasons.

1) The people in my region (NEPA SCCA)are fantastic.

2)I like to rinkerwirh cars and get a thrill from making cars competitive which are not obviously so. This is my I run Street Prepared.

Merely driving fast got old for me more than a decade ago. But playing with cars and car setup and being around and learning from wonderful people make it fun. It also allowed me to teach my kids car control and work on some father/son projects.

Seat time for the sake of seat time is of no interest to me. It only consumes tires. At some of our events, such as Williamsport, we often get 8 runs and have time or post-event fun runs. I often stop after six as my times tend to stop improving and I only wear tires and risk breaking something. I would rather save it for the next event.