How do you decide if an autocross is organized safely enough?

I haven’t tried it yet, but I have been thinking about it and gone to some to watch, but I recently saw an accident which seemed like it could have been avoided with a better course design, and even after it happened they restarted the event and pretty much just said "hey guys, lets not do that again", and the same thing came close to happening a couple more times. In a situation like that would the right thing to do be to leave/not participate? Or if something looks like a bad idea just do what you need to do to avoid it and not worry about it.

That sounds like time to say, ”hey, designated safety steward, x looks to be happening because of y." If they still don't fix it, it might be time to protect yourself.

Yes, the organizers have a reasonable level of responsibility to keep a safe situation but ultimately your personal responsibility should still be your deciding factor on weather you continue.

I race sailboats which can inherently be dangerous and every race references Rule #4 of the International Sailing Federation's Racing Rules of Sailing:

4 DECISION TO RACE. The responsibility for a boat’s decision to participate in a race or to continue racing is hers alone.

As a Solo Safety Steward for my region I have to "sign off" on our course designers' layout before each event. There are a set of guidelines that I follow and things are usually good because we hate paperwork and try to err on the side of caution.

That said, things happen. Not often and thankfully not serious but cars at speed wil do "interesting" things that can't always be predicted. Autocross is generally about the safest form of motorsport so if you are interested you definitely should go out and try it. Just remember, the person ultimately responsible for your safety is you.

Never feel bad about asking questions related to safety. Particularly if something has happened, or there have been close calls. If the questions aren't being answered to your satisfaction, and you don't feel safe, then stepping away is a perfectly valid option.

Was the autocross run under the rules of a sanctioning body, and did they adhere to those rules? If you saw a repeatable issue, that would be my first questions to ask. Follow up by asking what they are going to do to fix it in the future. Sometimes things happen. But an isolated incident is one thing, repeated incidents are another beast entirely.

I have seen some bad courses over the years. One club around here almost seems to specialize in them.

It comes down to you. You've a brain and judgement, use them.

Sure, you could sue if you crash, might even win. But better still, run the course slower, or perhaps just don't run it at all.

You can talk to the club and such, but it seems generally to be a waste of time. Bad groups are pretty committed to their mistakes.

In reply to Travis_K:

Ive come across that kind of thing before. At a PCA event where there is no specific safety steward type position and the organizers dont want to hear about it, i elected not to run. Oh well, only $40. That particular group does not host autocrosses any more.

There has also been a small-region scca event that had the course way too close to numerous light poles, same attitude problem of not wanting to hear about it from region outsiders, some of which were SSS's themselves. The solution that time was "oh well, just take it easy and enjoy the day out with some cool cars."

Only two instances of this in 6 years of frequent autocrossing.

Rallycross is much stronger on pointing out that it is YOUR decision how hard you drive and you may not be able to run at 10/10ths and have the car survive. This mindset should be applied to autocross like the sailing comment above, with the exception that if you find yourself backing off for safety more than a couple of events....find another region to race with.

I've been at it for 6 or 7 years now. Honestly, I'd say 80-90% of the incidents I've seen boil down to this: don't try to save a lost run. Even a basically safe course won't stand up to people on the throttle while their car fishtails back and forth a half dozen times. Miss a gate or spin, shut it down.

RedGT wrote: Rallycross is much stronger on pointing out that it is YOUR decision how hard you drive and you may not be able to run at 10/10ths and have the car survive. This mindset should be applied to autocross like the sailing comment above, with the exception that if you find yourself backing off for safety more than a couple of events....find another region to race with.

I agree with this thought. Based on my rallycross experience, it seems like any given course will be good for most of the cars, but sometimes you have a vehicle that doesn't get along well with a certain aspect of a course and you just have to back off a little for safety in those areas.

Autocross safety is challenged because for the last 20 years, every damn industrial architect thinks they need a bunch lighting and green space instead of wide open expanses of asphalt.

Oh, and a new car isn't quick if it doesn't have at least 250-300hp.

So now you have less venues, more obstacles, and 2x the power in many cars. (Yes, I know there are still legions of Miatas and STX Civic Si, but it just takes the one guy in a Z06 or GT500 with the traction control off.)

It's should be easy to point out where safety issues occur after an incident. The prediction part is much harder. Every SCCA sanctioned autocross I've attended has taken the greatest reasonable precaution for course design and safety.

I have been to a couple events that I have actually butted in and tried to fix a couple of things. Course design is an art and making the course safe is a big part of that art.

Here in the Melbourne area, we haven't had a good site to run in several years. I attended a PCA event in the beginning of last year at a site that we used a couple of decades ago because I was to be the course designer at the same site the next month. The site has become considerably worse since we last used it (not that it was ever very good), having sprouted numerous stop signs and light poles. This, in addition to the curbs around the perimeter that it always had, makes safe course design quite a challenge. I worked for quite some time to develop a safe course, and we ran two events at the site last year without incident.

https://youtu.be/1hHGY-j4tXI

(still haven't figured out how to embed video)

The same can't be said of the PCA club. They've had several accidents at the site, and now I heard a rumor that the site owner is considering shutting them down, which would probably exclude us by association. Fortunately, new opportunities for sites have recently presented themselves to us (see my post about Valkaria Airport from a week ago), giving us some good local options.

Tyler H wrote: Autocross safety is challenged because for the last 20 years, every damn industrial architect thinks they need a bunch lighting and green space instead of wide open expanses of asphalt.

I just have to say A) it's civil engineers that design parking lots, and B) it's typically the local zoning ordinance, DNR, or other regulatory authority that dictates the landscaping, stormwater management, and lighting requirements.

That being said, I do most of the course design for our club. I've made mistakes. I had 2 incidents at the same place on 1 course where I didn't put a large enough offset in the run toward the finish. 2 over-aggressive cars spun there, 1 making minor contact with the fence and 1 actually going through it. Both probably could have been avoided if the drivers had just gone both feet in and come to a stop. But the trouble spot was in sight of the finish and neither driver realized how far out of shape they were until they lost it 50 yards down the line. I blame myself for the issue and have tried to limit straights and make sure there are lots of low-speed elements. I also make sure the course never passes less than 30 feet from a light pole and never points directly at one (no matter how briefly) within 100 feet.

Those are the only incidents I've had in 3 years of running the program. I take suggestions and I have made course adjustments for safety between morning and afternoon heats (we run 3 groups with an AM and PM heat for each).

In 3 years I have had 1 guy decline to run with us after watching the first group. He wasn't happy with the flagging response when a car got off course. I thanked him for his input and cheerfully refunded his money. It wasn't an insult to me - he was making the decision he was comfortable with.

It is the responsibility of a participant to report safety concerns.

It is the responsibility of officials to respond properly to any concerns.

It is your choice to run or not.

kazoospec wrote: I've been at it for 6 or 7 years now. Honestly, I'd say 80-90% of the incidents I've seen boil down to this: don't try to save a lost run. Even a basically safe course won't stand up to people on the throttle while their car fishtails back and forth a half dozen times. Miss a gate or spin, shut it down.

Seen that before. First autocross I ever went to, they had a pretty conservative course set up. It was a brand-new location so they played it safe around obstacles. Some guy running N/CS (Also his first event ever) in a friend's FR-S tried to lay down a hero run on his very first pass of the day (Pavement still a little cold and sandy, tires cold, no rubber built up on the pavement), got it all sorts of sideways on one corner, tried to go full Tokyo Drift and botched it and hit a light post that nobody else even came close to for the rest of the day.

I attended a few events hosted by the DC chapter BMWCCA which were unimpressive at best and downright dangerous to the degree I left w/o running. The first time they were seriously behind schedule and after setting the course the organizers were taking run after run after run when the entrants were directed to form a sign-in line on the racing surface about 50' from the U-turn at the end of a fast slalom. Right in an impact zone.

And, as the organizers had arrived after many entrants, no one had signed the waiver yet. I was astonished by this breach of the most basic of club insurance/safety protocol that I wrote a letter to both the chapter officials, and when they declined to respond the national club. Also without response. I swore of using their events to test after this.

A couple years later a friend was running this group's "Chapterfest" event autocross and asked if I'd come to give him some coaching, and with some reservation I agreed. We were both in the early run group, so after 5-something alarm, I arrived in the dark to find an endless line of cars waiting to get into the site. It seems someone had forgotten the sign-in materials, so we waited. And waited, and waited some more. Eventually we gained entrance and parked, and perhaps 1.5 hours after our start time were registered. Then it became apparent that the laptop with the timing software had been forgotten by someone else. As I needed to be someplace by noon absolute latest - a 7-something start time would have done this with hours to spare - I left at 11:15, again having not run.

And when the do manage to actually be timing cars on a course, they use a small lower section of the lot no other club uses due to it's only being accessible through 25' wide gaps bordered by square curbs. One time prior when I ran they set a cone wall parallel to and about 15' off the long dimension of one of these islands so you had to run along the cone wall and take a 90 degree off camber left though the gap...

With a square curb with a cone sitting on top defining the inside. A guy in a V8 Locost impacted one of these square curbs straight on and destroyed his car.

People complain about the 900+ page SCCA General Competition Rules but the club has over it's 70+ years set the benchmark for course design safety.

(The gaps are between the 5 pairs of grass covered islands. The lot slopes down from where the clump of cars is parked, so if you're traveling from right of the photo to left and have to take a sudden, tight left to go between the island to head back uphill to the "top" lot, it's very much off-camber )

I've been at events where I was walking and chalking the course, and told them that an element wasn't safe. Almost always this was due to surface condition. I've also been to one course where they were limited in what they could do. I was on the fence between asking for my money back and leaving, or just telling myself that I wasn't competing and was going to slow down through that area that I wasn't comfortable with. I ultimately ran, and did consciously slow down--but frankly that shouldn't happen. Looking back now, 4 years older, I should have left.

Common sense and taking responsibility for keeping yourself safe does seem like the best plan. The event I mentioned was sanctioned by the normal large organization, and just from looking at the course it seemed like the runoff area after the lights was very short. The design also meant people were going through the lights sideways or backwards if they didn't get the end of the course quite right, and eventually someone proved that the space wasn't sufficient (imagine that video of the white Corvette from a few years ago, if the curb had been a person and almost a row of parked cars too). I was quite surprised that they didn't take any steps to avoid a repeat of the same thing for the rest of the event, so that was why I posted about it.

Been course designing for a little while now with a small club.

Generally, this is treated as the guiding principle and is a good read so that you know what is generally safe http://www.houscca.com/solo/courses/Course_Design_4-1-2.pdf

In the end, no matter how much a designer, or group, try to establish a safe course, it is YOUR call what is safe for you. Some of us are not geared to have to back off during an autocross run for safety (not meaning after spin, but taking an element at a slower than absolute competitive pace) and while (at least in theory) you should never have to, its a tough call to make. It is also tough to make a call to not run because you dont feel safe.

I have seen people catch the wrong pedal after the stop, I have seen people spin completely and then proceed to doughnut almost into hitting a worker, I seen noobs completely not follow a course and drive to a section where another car is running (2 car on course design, safe and acceptable when course is followed, but when people dont...), and I have seen stupid design elements that should never have been coned and chalked on pavement. But with all that, I do take a great amount of solace in the most serious medical issue I have seen being the result of DEHYDRATION and not related to a car losing control (runner ups being a sprained wrist and people burning legs on Cobra side-pipes).

Point is that not everything can be accounted for.

Safety is everyone's job.

Apexcarver wrote: Point is that not everything can be accounted for.

That's true. But a course than incorporates a light pole in the slalom cones or ends the straight away at a concrete wall isn't well laid out.

Similarly, running two cars at a time on a course that has the cars running head on at each other is being operated poorly.

That's not failing to account for everything, that's just dumb and dangerous. Doubly so for refusing to fix it, even after an incident or two.

I haven't been autocrossing for a while now, but I did it for 25 years, most of those were spent designing courses. First thing I do if it is not my course is to inspect spin paths when I walk the course. You can judge where most cars will go if they screw up a corner. If you locate this, make damn sure there is not a corner station there. You'd think this would be common sense, but people still put them in places they shouldn't be.

If I am designing a course, I ususally go out to the site some days before the event and drive very slowly the path I want the car to take, and then design the layout around that. I've also been to too many events where it is almost impossible to drive around the course without trying to defy the laws of physics. It doesn't make for a fun day for participants or workers. A flowing course is always more enjoyable for all but the masochistic among us. After I have laid it out, I usually get someone that knows about course design to "edit" it. Always be willing to change your layout as others may see issues you miss. And of course the safety steward needs to sign off if you have one.

If you are running the course, do not be afraid to speak up if you see something or are uncomfortable. Most people want to put on the best even they can and are willing to listen and address issues.

We ran "high speed" autocross on a less than half mile stock car track. There was lots of run off room except the cement wall on the front strait. We used a couple of close offset gates in the 4th turn to slow things down until they were on the straight and cones kept them a safe distance from the wall. No one ever hit the wall. The slalom was on the back straight.

Found out we couldn't run in the rain.

There are so few sites left too, I would think they would be really careful. If the spectator that got hit decides to sue, I'm sure that will be the end of that site too.

IMHO this famous incident was caused by a very poor course design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Kj2iY3u1k

Ouch! I hadn't seen this one.

aussiesmg wrote: IMHO this famous incident was caused by a very poor course design. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Kj2iY3u1k