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Aug. 20, 2008 2:17 p.m. Capt Slow New Reader

My wife has not been terribly enthusiastic about my "new" hobby of autocrossing. I have been trying in vain to drag her out to an event and watch, ride, or drive.

In an attempt at employing peer pressure, I have tried dragging her friends out to the local events (they were only slightly less sceptical than she was) and they ultimately refused.

I also tried bringing our 7 year old daughter to a club that will occasionally allow children to ride along on a fun runs, our daughter had a blast (and will be getting a kart soon) but she was unable to nag her mom into coming.

She would often equate a day autocrossing with a day of torture (sorta like a day at the mall for me)

Well I think I inadvertently stumbled into something that worked. I took my sisters friend to an autoX and she had a fantastic time. She put together a Video of her experience and I had my wife watch it. The very next weekend my wife agreed to come autocrossing with me.

She is a proud woman and hates to admit to being wrong, but despite her predictions of being miserable, she said she had fun and would like to do it again. Which is as close to a victory as a husband can hope for.

EDIT : hmm for some reason the video link is not working as expected... aha! fixed it. thanks salanis!
Aug. 20, 2008 2:37 p.m. Salanis Dork

Capt Slow wrote:

She is a -- woman and hates to admit to being wrong...

Fixed.
Aug. 20, 2008 2:41 p.m. sachilles New Reader

My advice.....get her involved in the organization aspect of the sport. Workers are always needed. From there, she feel needed. The enthusiasm will catch her from that point, if she wants to drive after that, great. Things not to do. Don't "fix" your brakes before her first ever ride along at the track. When you screw it up and your brakes nearly fail at the end of long straight....that tends to leave a sour taste in their mouth.
Aug. 20, 2008 2:49 p.m. Capt Slow New Reader

LOL I can imagine that it would...

The thing that surprised me most is that she admitted to having fun. I knew she was because I was working the field when she was driving and every time she came around "my" corner she had this huge e36 M3 eating grin on her face...
Aug. 20, 2008 3:11 p.m. confuZion3 HalfDork

I want my girlfriend to come to an event. She seems unenthusiastic. I feel like I'd be responsible for keeping her entertained while she is there. Therefore, it ain't gonna happen. I'd rather go alone.

She is beginning to learn to drive a car with a manual tranny though. Thank you Miata!
Aug. 20, 2008 3:13 p.m. slefain Dork

Show her a picture of Milka Duno and say she's a local autocross instructor who has offered to give you free lessons. I guarantee your wife will come to the autocross now....
Aug. 20, 2008 3:27 p.m. jikelly New Reader

I've been trying to get my wife involved as well. My plan was working until my region went dead for a while and then came back but only had races 150 miles away.

After that she said it cost too much.

Then there was my stupid brain telling her I didn't want to go to Florida on vacation because it cost too much, and I'd rather just go car racing.
Aug. 20, 2008 3:37 p.m. Salanis Dork

Maybe try getting her feet wet in another venue will help her catch the general bug. My own girlfriend did not have an especially great time at her first Auto-X. However, the next event I got her to join me at was a low-key drift day at T-Hill. She loved it so much riding for the first half of the day, she drove the second half and loved it. That got her excited about trying open-track and doing more auto-x.

At least with my girlfriend, the key to getting her engaged at an autosport event has been the overall vibe and management of an event. How friendly, relaxed, available, and empathetic the organizers are matter a lot.

Her first Auto-X was huge and pretty frantic. The drift was really laid back and the organizer was really chill and did a fantastic job encouraging her to try things at her own pace and was totally encouraging her after each run despite any mistakes she made. The track day organizer was a woman who completely understood when she was feeling pressured or having a hard time with things (there were some issues with the instructor, and our little Miata was woefully outclassed by the other vehicles there).

Try getting her networked with a person already involved who she can relate to and will encourage her.
Aug. 20, 2008 3:44 p.m. Capt Slow New Reader

confuZion3 I know what you mean, I think a lot of what made this work for her was the way the club was structured. The club we ran with has a first come first serve signup system for each rungroup. I managed to get us signed up for the first two run groups so we started at 10:00 and were done by 12:30. there was no sitting around we were either working or driving.

Also since I was working when she was driving, I could not ride with her and tell her how to drive. This I think was a good thing...
Aug. 20, 2008 3:49 p.m. sachilles New Reader

Capt Slow wrote:

Also since I was working when she was driving, I could not ride with her and tell her how to drive. This I think was a good thing...

This is a universal truth. Our club has several husband and wife teams. The wives will not take instruction from their husband. Apparently it goes against the natural laws of marriage. We are pretty lucky in that we have a few very talented instructors that can teach the driving side as well as farm the enthusiasm.
Aug. 20, 2008 11:15 p.m. cxhb New Reader

my girlfriend was hesitant at first, now she wants to start driving. surprised me for sure. then she rode in my friends 240sx with an rb20 in it (skyline GTS-T motor) at a drift event. she gets out with a big smile and says "why cant you do that?".... burn. i drive a civic. but its okay, i dont think she realized why i bought my 87 corolla a year ago...
Aug. 21, 2008 6:52 a.m. SoloSonett Reader

Capt Slow wrote:

Also since I was working when she was driving, I could not ride with her and tell her how to drive. This I think was a good thing...

This is a universal truth. Our club has several husband and wife teams. The wives will not take instruction from their husband. Apparently it goes against the natural laws of marriage. We are pretty lucky in that we have a few very talented instructors that can teach the driving side as well as farm the enthusiasm.

VERY good advice. If she has any interest at all, get her in a "driving school event". We are blessed with a large region ( Ohio Valley ) that puts on at least one a year.

She will learn from talented drivers that follow up and love to see "their" students exceed.

My wife was "willing" to just sit and support.. even worked T & S .. until a fun event. When we piled four in an E30 and just threw it around... with the region chief and chief instructor in the back seat screaming and helmet slapping from the back seat.

She then knew it could be FUN. Not all competition.

Other novice women will take her under thier wings... And then one day, she will spin her car...WITHOUT rolling it. And she will be laughing all day .. and be hooked as well
Aug. 21, 2008 7:19 a.m. Per Schroeder Technical Editor/Advertising Director

I was lucky, after 4 years of convincing, I finally got Kim to come out and play. It took both Scott and I giving some serious peer pressure for her to finally relent. Her biggest fear was the "I'm going to be embarrased." but that was quickly replaced with "Holy crap, this is fun." She's now near the top of our index overall regularly and we bought her the MINI which is actually going through it's street tires at a rapid clip (!)

she likes the social aspect a bunch...while she can't autocross again for a bit, she'll be coming out with me to our local event on Sunday to see people.

Kim has also been pretty good about letting me instruct her...to the point where she was in the top 5 on index and suddenly other competitors didn't want her having that advantage
Aug. 21, 2008 7:20 a.m. Per Schroeder Technical Editor/Advertising Director

Oh, and just as some guys don't like autocrossing and prefer track events...she might feel the same way. You might want to try other things (from TSD rally, rallycross, autocross, track days etc) to see if one of those gets the ball really rolling.
Aug. 21, 2008 8:20 a.m. purplepeopleeater New Reader

I guess I'm lucky on this one. I'd been autoxing for a year or so, she'd gone to several but basically watched or read. Then, once as we were finishing a rally that was annoying she said," S---- this, I want to autocross!" So she did & does. She hasn't caught me yet but she's getting closer. Alex
Aug. 21, 2008 8:25 a.m. car39 Reader

Don't bring your wife! I went from "go have fun, if you think I'm going to sit in a parking lot for 8 hours you're crazy!" to "We need a plusher tow vehicle, and when we go to the track, you have to upgrade the hotel and make sure we get there a day early for outlet shopping". The shopping thing also motivated the tow vehicle, so now instead of towing tires behind the Miata at 30 mpg, I'm towing the Miata at 8 mpg. Bad Move
Aug. 21, 2008 9:03 a.m. sachilles New Reader

The key is the fun events. Some autocrosses are competitive to the core, and they can sense that. The fun events are the ones to start with. Had I not knocked up the wife, she was going to try autox this year, but specifically said she didn't want to try with the home club....mostly because she didn't want to be embarrassed if she got lost in the course. I suspect the embarrassment in front of people they know is a big de-motivator for some.
Aug. 21, 2008 9:11 a.m. jikelly New Reader

Why are women not off the bat interested in car racing?
Aug. 21, 2008 10:56 a.m. 93celicaGT2 Reader

jikelly wrote:

Why are women not off the bat interested in car racing?

Their mothers didn't do it.

But i've got a fairly similar situation. My girlfriend when i met her about 6 months ago drove a Taurus, and was completely happy with it, did everything she wanted it to do, and was UTTERLY. BORING.

She started asking me basic questions about the white celica i was driving at the time. Such as:

"What's that third pedal for?" Apparently she had only been in a manual tranny car once before in her life.

Then i got the black Celica. She watched me and my buddy's wrench on it getting it ready to run The Tail of The Dragon, asking questions about "what's that?"

Took her on the Dragon, and now she wants me to get her her own Celica, so i think i'm just going to take the engine from the 92 when i'm done with it, and plop it in the 91 and give that off to her. She's running the dragon this coming april, so i have to give her some driving lessons. :)

They just have to experience it once.
Aug. 21, 2008 12:09 p.m. Capt Slow New Reader

Getting them to try it seems to be the trick. I have my sisters friend to thank for that, her enthusiasm after her first event was infectious.

She also seems to have mad video editing skills since she put together an autoX videos that is actually intersting (rare)(link at bottom of first post).

93celicaGT2 said:jikelly wrote:

Why are women not off the bat interested in car racing?

Their mothers didn't do it.

I would say about 1/2 the girls out there autocrossing come from a family where they the mom or dad would take them racing as childern or teens. I know that when my daughter is learning to drive she will be required to report to an autocross or two.
Aug. 21, 2008 12:19 p.m. Salanis Dork

Capt Slow wrote:

She also seems to have mad video editing skills since she put together an autoX videos that is actually intersting (rare)(link at bottom of first post). autocross or two.

Link doesn't work. Copying and pasting that URL did though.

Oh, hey, Marina airport. I thought I recognized those hangars.

OT: Do you get out to Thunderhill or Infineon ever? Do you auto-x anywhere farther into the valley? Maybe I'll run into you around somewhere.
Aug. 21, 2008 1:53 p.m. Capt Slow New Reader

Thanks! its fixed and embbedded now. I am definitly a bit of a "club slut" right now. I have been trying to improve my skills so I have been running in SFR SCCA Autocrosses(SF and Berkley), UFO (marina), and the Lockheed Martin Sprots Car Club (sunnyvale). I have toyed with the idea of going out to one of the American AutoX autocrosses at Castle AFB. do you ever run there?

I have been to T hill once with laps unlimited, It was an amazing experence. I will go back some day, but after witnessing a couple of offs and having some guy in a wrx who really didnt want to give a stinking mazda a point by in the straights spin right in front of me. I decided that I would return only when I had a dedicated track car that I could afford to ball up should it ever come to that.

Every time I have a friend or club memeber invite me to an event there it takes all of my will power to make the "responsible" choice and pass it up.
Aug. 21, 2008 2:07 p.m. Jack SuperDork

I've given up on my wife for AutoX. When she did her first one I told her to just drive the course, which she did - Literally, she just drove through the course. Second and third runs too. Nope, I'll wait for my daughter to start driving in the next few months. She enjoyed the heck out of being an AutoX passenger in teh TR3 and she knows that she will be autoXing as part of her driver training. A kids HP driving day will be included too.

Jack
Aug. 21, 2008 2:08 p.m. nickel_dime HalfDork

I met my current girl friend at the local AutoX. she's more into it than I am.

Then I took her to an HPDE event and she's hooked on that now.
Aug. 21, 2008 2:09 p.m. Salanis Dork

I went to school at CSU Monterey for a while but am now in Sacramento. I don't make it out to those locations. Most autocrosses I go to are in Stockton. I've considered hitting some at Golden Gate park, but driving into the city does not appeal to me.

The Golden Gate Lotus Club runs really great track days. Cheapest events around for the most track time. They have an even at T-hill on Sep 10th that I'll hit if I can get off of work. They'll also be having one at Seca in December.

NASA will be running at T-hill fairly regularly, but I'm really looking forward to their HPDE at Infineon in November.

I have noticed similar problems on track, usually perpetuated by Evo or STi drivers.

I'm usually not at SCCA events since I'm still building my skills and not trying to compete. The seat time/money isn't good enough at SCCA events. I like to Auto-X with the Sacto PCA chapter. Plus, my Miata would get classed weird.

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