Champcar runs three races in Texas, CotA, and two at Harris Hill. Lemons runs at MSR-H, and WRL runs there, and will have races at CotA and Cresson as well.
Champcar runs three races in Texas, CotA, and two at Harris Hill. Lemons runs at MSR-H, and WRL runs there, and will have races at CotA and Cresson as well.
Snowdoggie said:L5wolvesf said:Snowdoggie said:L5wolvesf said:Snowdoggie said:When I lived in California as a kid the racing they did on Mullholland Drive was all done late at night. The locals knew not to go driving there late.
I was born in Los Angeles and lived about 10 - 15 minutes from Benedict Canyon Dr and Mulholland. I spent quite a few nights up there from about ’73 to 80-ish I also cruised Van Nuys Blvd in the early part of that time. I also raced both.
On Mulholland a couple/few of the people who lived up there were participants. Others called LAPD. Since the area was inhabited by fairly wealthy people a number of them were away or out on the weekends. But a few got caught up in the middle of a run.
There was a spot where people congregated (“Grandstands”) but not like on that video – it was an open lot. I don’t recall Mulholland ever being blocked like that – that is just stupid.
Van Nuys Blvd was different but similar. Neither races nor cruisers blocked the street but races were a bit dangerous.
Angeles Crest Hwy and Whittier Blvd were also in SoCal and of a similar nature.
My Aunt lived off of Van Nuys Blvd. There were some amazing cars there on Saturday night. I remember one guy who had a 'street legal' Lola T-70 that he was running on Mullholand. At least he said it was street legal. He could have pulled the plates off of something else.
Your Aunt must have hated us. I lived on the other side of the hill. I ate a lot of Bob's Big Boy burgers. My Van Nuys car was not as high profile it was a sleeper 64 Impala SS lightened by about 700lbs and with a Traco motor. It surprised the crap (and $$) out of a number of Camaro guys.
I remember Bob's Big Boy. Are they all gone now? My college roommate from Glendale was one of the Camaro guys who frequented that area. I will have to ask him about getting beat by an Impala.
I just googled - there are a few left but the one on Van Nuys is gone as is the other one I went to in Culver City. It was a white 2dr SS. I usually ran for $100 - I didn't always win ya know. It was either run on Oxnard St or up by the GM plant.
Slideshows. Nothing a fully loaded GMC TopKick and a V plow wouldn't cure.
In reply to spacecadet (Forum Supporter) :
$5,900 annual, not counting any actual track time, is a hefty cost. Go once a month and you're over 6k before you factor in a car and consumables. I would not be willing or able to pay that even if I had a track next door and I'm doing alright for myself. If that's the state of 'affordable' track time in the area, I don't entirely (just 99%) blame them for acting out. Although, it's probably just fools being fools but if they don't have accessible alternatives....
Also I do not condone the cited activities, particularly when it comes to involving/endangering unwilling participants.
Interesting thread. Starts out with old folks complaining about young folks acting like dicks. Then everyone reminiscing about being dicks when they were young. This is not news just another form of asshattery that is updated for the times.
In reply to GTwannaB :
Standing within a foot of a spinning car holding up a phone to take video goes beyond asshattery. That is insanity.
Error404 said:$5,900 annual, not counting any actual track time, is a hefty cost. Go once a month and you're over 6k before you factor in a car and consumables. I would not be willing or able to pay that even if I had a track next door and I'm doing alright for myself. If that's the state of 'affordable' track time in the area, I don't entirely (just 99%) blame them for acting out. Although, it's probably just fools being fools but if they don't have accessible alternatives....
Adding it up gives me $4900, not $5900? It also sounded to me like the $3700 was a one-time fee, not annual.
If you assume you go once a month for 5 years and do 5 sessions each day then it works out about the same as paying $300 per event for the same length of time. That's a fairly hefty up-front commitment to get to the break-even point, so yeah, I don't think I'd want to go that way unless it came with a bunch of extra perks.
That said, I agree with spacecadet that once you do a true accounting of track day costs including consumables the event entry fees tend not to look all that significant. This is not a cheap hobby.
I think a bunch of you are missing the point. This has as much to do with the cost of track days as violent crime has to do with the cost of karate lessons. This is not just kids out having fun with their cars like most of us have done in the past. This isn’t the deserted back road or empty parking lot at 2am, where kids have for decades foolishly and illegally explored the limits of their cars- while trying to attract the least attention possibles. These idiots are trying to inconvenience people on purpose, picking busy freeways to shut down. They have a complete disregard for everyone around them. These aren’t car people being shiny happy people, these are just shiny happy people with cars.
That seemed like a novel way to approach the situation to me, and could certainly be a better way to handle things for everybody involved.
Agreed on most points for sure. In addition Dallas has multiple good racing venues from the autox scene in DFW and Mineral Wells to the Eagles Canyon Road Course just north of town. Doubtful they were wanting for track time though.
Appleseed said:Slideshows. Nothing a fully loaded GMC TopKick and a V plow wouldn't cure.
It's Texas. Those are in short supply.
Boost_Crazy said:I think a bunch of you are missing the point. This has as much to do with the cost of track days as violent crime has to do with the cost of karate lessons. This is not just kids out having fun with their cars like most of us have done in the past. This isn’t the deserted back road or empty parking lot at 2am, where kids have for decades foolishly and illegally explored the limits of their cars- while trying to attract the least attention possibles. These idiots are trying to inconvenience people on purpose, picking busy freeways to shut down. They have a complete disregard for everyone around them. These aren’t car people being shiny happy people, these are just shiny happy people with cars.
There is the You Tube factor too. Lets do something more shocking than the last guy did and post the video online.
84FSP said:Had a group of suberbike guys drop the 275 loop around Cincinnati down to 5mph for a few miles so they could dick around and do wheelies. All the while threatening the rest of the traffic they were stopping...
Oh where is one of those Mad Max vehicles when you need one...?
codrus (Forum Supporter) said:Error404 said:$5,900 annual, not counting any actual track time, is a hefty cost. Go once a month and you're over 6k before you factor in a car and consumables. I would not be willing or able to pay that even if I had a track next door and I'm doing alright for myself. If that's the state of 'affordable' track time in the area, I don't entirely (just 99%) blame them for acting out. Although, it's probably just fools being fools but if they don't have accessible alternatives....
Adding it up gives me $4900, not $5900? It also sounded to me like the $3700 was a one-time fee, not annual.
If you assume you go once a month for 5 years and do 5 sessions each day then it works out about the same as paying $300 per event for the same length of time. That's a fairly hefty up-front commitment to get to the break-even point, so yeah, I don't think I'd want to go that way unless it came with a bunch of extra perks.
That said, I agree with spacecadet that once you do a true accounting of track day costs including consumables the event entry fees tend not to look all that significant. This is not a cheap hobby.
It isn't a cheap hobby. I am always amazed at what I burn up in tires and brake pads alone. Then you get to the point to where the track car is not all that much fun as a street car. Add the cost of another car as a tow vehicle and a trailer. There is also the possibility that you will crash and roll your car up into a little ball. Can you afford to write it off? Can you explain it to your insurance company? If it is your only car, how do you get to work on Monday?
Incoming unpopular opinion - I see these "slideshows" as a positive sign than car enthusiasm is still alive and well. I prefer "slideshows" that shut down streets and freeways compared to actual street racing. The only people here at risk are the ones willingly taking risks, including the spectators and filmers. Much safer to the general public than cars racing through traffic. I would rather sit in traffic for 30 minutes than get surprise T-boned by a street racer.
Also, I think it's kinda cool...
Quick fun in your car isn't easy to find anymore and if it is then it isn't cheap. To be honest the average car enthusiast in their 20s can probably only afford to hit a few auto-x events (boring) and some drag days.
Closest place to me is Harris Hill. I was super interested, but then I saw this:
These takeovers are getting popular in the Tampa area too, so far at least, it seems to be relegated to idiots going onto private property or retail parking lots and driving their v6 pony car or VQ car in circles while some idiot is on his phone filming the action and a full crowd of people. Always funny when a kid gets hit by a car and he goes flying. The day the George Floyd protests were going on in the Tampa area, a crowd of 500 to 1000 were at a Bass Pro shops at their takeover event doing donuts. Only reason why I remember this, a newish yellow m3 was became infamous locally for doing donuts into a curb and someone filmed it, but I can't find it.
Several car meets that were run successfully for years and approved by the local Quaker Steak and Lube restaurant had to be stopped because of the recent takeover crowd coming in and ruining things. Now the meets aren't weekly and rarely held in the evenings, instead they are held during the day on weekends where none of the takeover kids are awake with a mature crowd.
The meeting point/race in this video is about 1 mile from my house:
I saw the video and said "Hey, that's my Lowes."
I can't lie, the amount of rubber down on the road makes me laugh every time I drive over it - https://www.google.com/maps/@39.3043434,-76.7251616,73m/data=!3m1!1e3
I don't condone street racing, but the recent influx of TV shows have, quite frankly, done the opposite of get people to the track.
STM317 said:
That seemed like a novel way to approach the situation to me, and could certainly be a better way to handle things for everybody involved.
This isn't a bad idea. The kids can hang out and blow off some steam and the police will be there to make sure spectators don't get run over.
Snowdoggie said:STM317 said:
That seemed like a novel way to approach the situation to me, and could certainly be a better way to handle things for everybody involved.
This isn't a bad idea. The kids can hang out and blow off some steam and the police will be there to make sure spectators don't get run over.
Also eliminates the "running from the cops" stuff that is both the most dangerous part of all of it for the general public, and the most costly for tax payers.
In reply to codrus (Forum Supporter) :
It's entirely possible that I was not 100% in my right mind last night and my math was skewed.
I agree that our hobby is not cheap and I understand that in the long run such a membership winds up being cheaper but I stand by it not being cheap. $3,700 up front is a pretty hefty membership cost for the lower income end of track day hobbyists (like me) and I can definitely see it being perceived as gatekeeping. I also agree that these folks likely aren't hobbyists like us that are just lacking a venue but I do think that accessible alternatives would disincline many people from risking arrest for a quick thrill. Less people on public roads and more people at events makes it safer for the public and probably easier to crack down on the hardcases. The Youtube, internet fame factor is something that can also be addressed by having legal, accessible venues. I saw mentioned on another thread, though, that liability and insurance is probably a large factor in the lack of venues in our sue happy society.
It's time for the local Lion's Club to step in as it has done in the past:
I mean, I see this https://www.motorsportreg.com/calendar/?country=US&radius=300&lat=32.78&lng=-96.80&loc=Dallas%2C+TX%2C+USA&types=autocross,hpde-driver-school and there are a ton of events that don't require a membership. So why does someone that doesn't have $3-4k need to buy a membership again?
In reply to bobzilla :
But following rules is BORING
I agree, this has nothing to do with racing. Make racing free and you still won't get those kids off the street. This is just hooning, dicking around with cars, being a public nuisance. I agree this is probably safer all around than actual high speed street racing.
I think the police department doing sanctioned shows is the right path. Start hosting free burnout contests, free drifting events, you might get somewhere. Autocross? Chump races? Drag strips? those aren't interesting or cool enough, and they look boring and stupid on cell phone video.
Run a cheap-entry event with a prize. Wall off a parking lot on Saturday night and charge $10/ car. Give away a trophy to the person with the biggest crowd vote. Run a text based voting system and assign each contestant a tag to make voting easy. If you fail bad enough to damage the wall or other stuff, you have pay for it. Put up some laser lights and LEDs and stuff to make the cars look cool in photos with lots of smoke.
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