Why can't our autocross be this cool?

http://calekernhotrods.com/batb/register.php

$1000 to win, money for placing all the way down to 16th. 100MPH speeds on the banks/straight. The Pro Touring guys have made autocross actually cool.

Ours could if the oval track we use had a paved infield.

Having run an autox on a half mile oval before, I would recommend against bringing any car that you could not afford (financially or mentally) to have kiss the wall. If you like your atuox courses to have virtually no runoff room and numerous 'close calls' thoughout the event, then you'll love this concept.

Aren't scca solo safety standards supposed to keep vehicles from exceeding 75mph(or something close to that range)

Driven5 wrote: Having run an autox on a half mile oval before, I would recommend against bringing any car that you could not afford (financially or mentally) to have kiss the wall. If you like your atuox courses to have virtually no runoff room and numerous 'close calls' thoughout the event, then you'll love this concept.

I do.

Wasn't there a thread about the guy who spun during a slalom on one of these things and hit (or almost hit) the wall?

yamaha wrote: Aren't scca solo safety standards supposed to keep vehicles from exceeding 75mph(or something close to that range)

This event isn't SCCA sanctioned, it's an independent pro-touring organization event so SCCA standards don't apply.

I've done SCCA autocross on the Flatrock Michigan 1/4 mile oval using the cross over. I remember having a mondo spin that I had to wait for the dust to settle to figure out which way I was facing before I could continue. Only time I got standing applause at an autocross

I might be able to beat a civic on that course!

Bobzilla wrote: I might be able to beat a civic on that course!

But not a Sentra!

SCCA rules limit straight line speeds to not exceed 55-60 mph BTW

mtownneon wrote: SCCA rules limit straight line speeds to not exceed 55-60 mph BTW

Which is why this independent event is so much cooler.

I once went to a drift event that used a layout something like that. I can't remember if anyone hit the wall that evening, but we did see some close calls.

K&K autocross insurance specifies a max speed of 70 mph, if memory serves. Otherwise you have to insure it as a high speed event.

This looks like the old Car & Driver Supertuner Challenge. That started with a 1/4 mile drag down the pit lane, through an infield road course, then up on the banking for a run up to 130 mph. As soon as you hit 130* mph, you hit the brakes and came to a full stop. The winner was the one that had the lowest elapsed time.

*The top speed varied between different events. It was 150 for a couple of iterations and I think there was a 140 mph run.

Pretty cool to watch. I got in trouble with Csaba Csere (sp?), though. There was a cone chicane just after the transition from the infield to the banking. It was there to slow the cars and prevent them from hitting the max speed mid-corner, which would have led to some interesting braking. But the cones were only a 2 second penalty, and I figured we could probably blast straight through and only hit one, maybe two. It would have easily taken 10 seconds off the total time. Apparently this was not correct thinking, and the rules were shortly changed before we had the opportunity to obliterate a cone at 100 mph.

I don't see the concern with walls on this. You're not doing autocross hijinks or drifting on the oval, just driving around the big corner as it is designed to be driven. The braking for the infield transition is on the straight, and blowing that would just put you through cones. The only weird thing is that you're accelerating through the corner, but that's certainly manageable.

In reply to Keith:

It was all of the speeds. They were different for each "class". V8's had 150, Turbo-4's and 6's had 140, and N/A 4's had 130 IIRC. I still have that issue somewhere.

mtownneon wrote:

yamaha wrote: Aren't scca solo safety standards supposed to keep vehicles from exceeding 75mph(or something close to that range)

This event isn't SCCA sanctioned, it's an independent pro-touring organization event so SCCA standards don't apply.

The question the OP put forth was why SCCA autocrosses aren't this "cool" The reason is explained above, not too mention the safety aspects of the cars potentially impacting the outside walls.

turboswede wrote:

mtownneon wrote:

yamaha wrote: Aren't scca solo safety standards supposed to keep vehicles from exceeding 75mph(or something close to that range)

This event isn't SCCA sanctioned, it's an independent pro-touring organization event so SCCA standards don't apply.

The question the OP put forth was why SCCA autocrosses aren't this "cool" The reason is explained above, not too mention the safety aspects of the cars potentially impacting the outside walls.

Exactly. I wouldn't call this "cool". I call it "rich-man-stupid". If your car means so little to you that you don't care about pushing a wee-bit too far... then have at it... Me? berkeley that. I'll stick to boring-ass parking lots until I can afford a real race car with real safety equipment.

Keith wrote: I don't see the concern with walls on this. You're not doing autocross hijinks or drifting on the oval, just driving around the big corner as it is designed to be driven.

I've saw people hit a wall on an oval that was used for auto-x. Just because people are racing does NOT make them good drivers.

I've also saw someone rip off their front suspension after plowing into a tree that was at least 100 feet from the actual auto-x course, and it wasn't even a fast section.

The track is probably a bit too tight, but could you do continuous laps and run this as an SCCA PDX or other track event?

Ian F wrote:

turboswede wrote:

mtownneon wrote:

yamaha wrote: Aren't scca solo safety standards supposed to keep vehicles from exceeding 75mph(or something close to that range)

This event isn't SCCA sanctioned, it's an independent pro-touring organization event so SCCA standards don't apply.

The question the OP put forth was why SCCA autocrosses aren't this "cool" The reason is explained above, not too mention the safety aspects of the cars potentially impacting the outside walls.

Exactly. I wouldn't call this "cool". I call it "rich-man-stupid". If your car means so little to you that you don't care about pushing a wee-bit too far... then have at it... Me? berkeley that. I'll stick to boring-ass parking lots until I can afford a real race car with real safety equipment.

None of you guys must have ever driven at an HPDE / Open Track day. Wow, never expected whining like that here...

I think the difference is that generally the term autocross implies a wide-open space with no obstacles present. An HPDE/track day is different, of course.

Javelin wrote: In reply to Keith: It was all of the speeds. They were different for each "class". V8's had 150, Turbo-4's and 6's had 140, and N/A 4's had 130 IIRC. I still have that issue somewhere.

There were multiple issues - the first Superfour had 130, the second had 140 if I remember correctly. The big cars ran 150 for the final version, I think they had to drop it to 140 for the original.

We learned at the first Superfour (4-cylinder tooner cars only) that the run up to 130 was a huge portion of the time, so we brought the most slippery car we could to the second running to cut drag. By the end of the day, there was a big pile of body kit parts and wings sitting at the side of the pits as everyone else came to the same conclusion

I can see how you'd be in danger of hitting a wall at an autocross, because at an autocross you're constantly changing direction and you're possibly going perpendicular to the track on a regular basis. But simply driving around a big sweeping curve on a banked corner? That's a different matter. It's no worse than running parallel to a curb in a straight section of an autox.

Of course, some people will crash into an object that's over the visible horizon if you let them. But we can't build every course for them or we'll only be able to autox at Bonneville.

Keith wrote: But we can't build every course for them or we'll only be able to autox at Bonneville.

Pave the Planet! One World - One People - One Slab of Asphalt

Neglecting the first turn to get onto the racing line as probably looking sharper and more directly aimed towards the wall than it actually is due to the lack of scale on the track map...If the cars are traction limited (longitudinal or lateral) when going around the main 1/2 mile oval portion they will have a far higher risk of encountering an unexpected loss of control resulting in vehicle damage than at 'normal' autox venues, as well as in comparison to the the vast majority of road courses. On the other hand if the cars are power/speed limited, as I would expect was the case for Flyin Miata on the 2 mile oval at the supertuner/superfour challenge, then yes it will be like "just driving around a big corner" and will be substantially less likely to require carrying an extra pair of underwear. I'm pretty sure the significantly lower angle banking on the 1/2 mile oval autox I participated in would not be enough to make it such a simple feat for the tire shredding pro-touring cars, but it is possible that this track is specifically used because of the steeper banking which might allow for the cars to accelerate flat out around the corner with minimal drama.

Javelin wrote: None of you guys must have *ever* driven at an HPDE / Open Track day. Wow, never expected whining like that here...

Absolutely, you have to be aware of the limitations and drive within them.

Back when UF had a sports car club we would rent a nearby oval and do something similar to this. A few people (3 I think) hit the wall over the years, but those were the type of people that were going to hit something somewhere anyway. It's better that it was a wall rather than something or somebody on the street. The rest of us had the common sense not to push too hard in certain areas.