Autocross is dying

In reply to SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) :

For me that's how it should be done; find something cheap and go have fun.

I Auto cross for the competition.  I realize it is not a single event, but a year long series. I read the rules and embrace the nuance of different cars grouped together by weight and horsepower.  I assume that all the competitors are fudging something.  No one protest the results on a regional basis, do they?

I have run National events that a car has not been running on the second day,  but if you are winning on day one you had better be sure your car is not obliviously out of class.  At this level, protesting the obvious will happen.

When I have run at track events I am not racing, but I still have a good time.  I will admit driving to a corner is not as much fun as driving in a corner.  That's why I Auto cross.  Completing school to earn my competition license and being taught by the group I would race with was very inciteful.  Taking a close look at the condition of the sheet metal of their cars was a tell.  Funny, I still look at the adds for cars that would run this class.  But very nice, just completed cars that come up for sale that have never raced, might be available because the builders can not stomach righting off all that money.  Part of our class time was spent on taking reasonability for opportunistic passing that goes bad and when you should be offer to buy sheet metal. 

Our Auto cross sites are smaller, I'm driving a smaller car and the consumables are lasting longer.   This is going to be a good year.  

camopaint0707 said:

In reply to dps214 :

Idk, I have my doubts.

Just to clear up the rumors...the Toledo press release wasn't quite right. The real issue for the pro is the airport potentially being used for vehicle storage again. The airport still wants to work with the club, they just can't commit to knowing if the lot will be available that far out. The next few local events there are still on, and there's a decent chance the later events will be too, since those don't need nearly as much lead time as a national event does.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

You might be looking for more seat time, but a 6 hour commute, or having to get up at 4 in the morning to make an 8 am start time starts to get old after awhile.  A 3 hour ride home after standing in the sun all day is one thing at 20 years old, another thing entirely at Social Security age.

In reply to dps214 :

That's fair, call me pessimistic if you want but I've seen it too many times once you lose a lot how difficult it is to get it back.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm just trying to explain why you used to have 200 car events 10 years ago and now they have trouble filling the grid...

Another reason is that cars used to be easier to modify. Back in the old days - 1980s-90s - people bought cheap used cars and did the modifications themselves. I think part of the decrease in interest is how cars have become far more integrated, to the point that they become difficult or impossible to modify. I see signs of this at car shows, where modifications seem much more superficial than before. Sure, people load tunes, but manufacturers are getting wise to that and set a flag to tell them - and likely emissions shops - that it was messed with. I think people are deciding it's just not worth it.

Be happy you get to use Toledo Express at all. The season before I did my first auto-x, so early 80's, I heard my neighbor talking about a guy putting a car through a hanger wall. I think it was a Rabbit. I was active in NWOR through the mid 90's and we never got back on the property in that time.

As I've probably stated somewhere; our local autocross has gone from 25-35 entries in the late 80s to 100-125 now.

Our local PCA Chapter used to have a regular autocross series. They stopped doing it a few years ago. Nobody wanted to volunteer to organize it anymore. I remember it used to be a bunch of 914s and old 911s with 944s sprinkled in. You even saw a 356 once in a while. I think it was a bunch of older guys who probably aged out and sold their cars to collectors. Older Porsches aren't competitive in the PCA road racing events now. They charge $2,000 to run a weekend at COTA now and it is all younger guys with more money driving newer cars.

Different people. Different cars. Different club.

Things change.

car39 said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

You might be looking for more seat time, but a 6 hour commute, or having to get up at 4 in the morning to make an 8 am start time starts to get old after awhile.  A 3 hour ride home after standing in the sun all day is one thing at 20 years old, another thing entirely at Social Security age.

On the one hand, I agree.

On the other hand, I have 150-250mi drives to the sites I compete at.  I treat it as part of the experience.

Beats me the berk up.  I wear headphones while driving, now, which is illegal but it also helps me stay alert, especially when it is hour four of the drive home.

This thread brings up the question of demographics, and what it is for the autocross crowd. What age group contains the largest number of participants? Younger, older, or a total mix?

kb58 said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm just trying to explain why you used to have 200 car events 10 years ago and now they have trouble filling the grid...

Another reason is that cars used to be easier to modify. Back in the old days - 1980s-90s - people bought cheap used cars and did the modifications themselves. I think part of the decrease in interest is how cars have become far more integrated, to the point that they become difficult or impossible to modify. I see signs of this at car shows, where modifications seem much more superficial than before. Sure, people load tunes, but manufacturers are getting wise to that and set a flag to tell them - and likely emissions shops - that it was messed with. I think people are deciding it's just not worth it.

That's just power. All the really fun stuff for autox is in the wheelwells, and you can still mess with that :) Most modern production cars are not going to benefit from a big power increase on the autox course anyhow, we're not in the era of 185 hp 350s anymore.

Keith Tanner said:

kb58 said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm just trying to explain why you used to have 200 car events 10 years ago and now they have trouble filling the grid...

Another reason is that cars used to be easier to modify. Back in the old days - 1980s-90s - people bought cheap used cars and did the modifications themselves. I think part of the decrease in interest is how cars have become far more integrated, to the point that they become difficult or impossible to modify. I see signs of this at car shows, where modifications seem much more superficial than before. Sure, people load tunes, but manufacturers are getting wise to that and set a flag to tell them - and likely emissions shops - that it was messed with. I think people are deciding it's just not worth it.

That's just power. All the really fun stuff for autox is in the wheelwells, and you can still mess with that :) Most modern production cars are not going to benefit from a big power increase on the autox course anyhow, we're not in the era of 185 hp 350s anymore.

Also cars are better than they used to be. Most 70s/80s cars needed to be basically totally re-engineered to drive well. 90s cars generally need at least a pretty comprehensive suspension overhaul to drive well. Lots of modern cars just need an alignment and maybe a swaybar or two.

That said, I don't think that really has an impact on people showing up to events, just the vehicles they're showing up with.

The S550 Mustang that I drive to work every day and occasionally autocross has more horsepower and actually handles better than my 1970 Toyota Corolla ITC race car or my F Production MG Midget, both of which I used to bring to the track or the autocross course on a trailer many years ago. But bringing a car to the track on a trailer with sticky race tires is a more intense experience. The Midget really did seem a whole lot faster than my current Mustang even though the numbers state otherwise. And with the Mustang I can actually listen to Spotify through my iPhone while I race and listen to the news on Sirius Satellite Radio while I am on the grid.

Tom1200 said:

As I've probably stated somewhere; our local autocross has gone from 25-35 entries in the late 80s to 100-125 now.

I started autocrossing with the club I'm now president of in 2007. We typically had 35-40 cars per event, about 30 of which were always the same folks. Now we're up to our 100 car cap every event. Saturday is our next event and we've been on waitlist status for a week, with about 15 cars still hoping for a slot.

Autocross isn't dying everywhere.

We basically have 3 sites in Chicago that half a dozen clubs use. The best one I understand is at risk. If that happens It'll be 2 smaller sites that can only handle 30-40 second runs. Unless Autobahn country club decides to build a skidpad to rent out It'll be rough. There are a couple other that see occasional use- Tirerack HQ and Peru, but those are long drives. Sites are a real problem.

The biggest problem with autox for me personally is just the seat time to work time ratio. I really wish they'd just split the day by class and have all one class run in the morning, work and then you go home. Another set comes in after and does their runs. It would make paddock space on smaller sites a lot simpler as well. I know I'd be a lot more excited about half day events. However that'd probably ruffle feathers of people looking for FTD awards, etc.

In reply to theruleslawyer :

We used to have a local club in SW Florida (FAST) that would do this - 2 events in 1 day.  It was wonderful!  They would do a lot of unique things that I really liked (much simplified classing etc).  I miss those guys.

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

FAST was active when I started autocross. I was lucky to get to a few of their events. I really miss them. 
 

Brooksville:

Ten hour day, six minutes of seat time.

Gosh. Why won't people commit?  Sure, the same three people win every weekend, but hey, at least you burned up a thousand dollers worth of tires....

Oh and that one dude, whose an engineer, with the hundred thousand dollar bmw is gunna make you feel small....

I was doing autocross until Covid and despite is easily being made a contactless event all our local events were canceled. Haven't gone back. 

In reply to theruleslawyer :

I am probably moving back to Chicago soon and this is sad to hear. I was thinking that "for sure" the track at Joliet would have something like that. Am planning on getting back into it when I get there. 

Where I am in Las Vegas when I was doing it they had 3 locations but most of the events I went to were at the Speedway and they had a few areas that were good paddocks for autocross there. 

 I really wish they'd just split the day by class and have all one class run in the morning, work and then you go home.

I'm betting a lot of people, who are the more casuals, would sneak away at the end. That's probably why they do things the way they do. Here I saw that commonly happen if people had no more runs. 

I wish there were half-day events. I did half-day myself a lot anyways. 

It's been a while since I've been to one (seeing as I've moved states) but the once local go kart track, Adams Motorsports Park, hosted (I think they still do?) "Time Attack" nights on their track. Full size car on a go-kart sized track meant autocross speeds. $40/session bought you quite a few laps, IIRC you'd get 9 laps total per session (1x out lap, 2x hot laps, 3x total). They had a total of 3 sessions per night, so for $120 you'd get quite a bit of low risk seat time. The best part? No work sessions and each session lasted ~2 hours each. You could easily hit the first session after work, get the same seat time as an autocross, and be home for dinner.

If I ever moved back, I'd probably attend these as often as they came up. If more autocrosses were run like this, I'd go to them more often. 

There's an autocross series up where I'm at now that runs on the quarter oval, which also has no work sessions, and also has a solid amount of seat time, but the course designers insist on putting incredibly tight slaloms and corners in, and because I drive a pigfat AWD boat I have to crawl through the corners which I do not find fun. 

EricM said:

Oh and that one dude, whose an engineer, with the hundred thousand dollar bmw is gunna make you feel small....

Not in our region; we have Karts and F-mod cars. LOL

EricM said:

Oh and that one dude, whose an engineer, with the hundred thousand dollar bmw is gunna make you feel small....

I drive a 27-year-old Miata I paid 5 grand for, plus a set of tires about every 3 years.

That One Dude is definitely NOT going to make me feel small.

In reply to Duke :

are you the BMC duke?

camopaint0707 said:

In reply to Duke :

are you the BMC duke?

One and the same.  Do you run with us?