Autocross math I like: inexpensive, plenty of runs and done early

I can assume they are getting free lot rent and/or insurance, because my break even costs for venue alone are 50 cars at $50 each.  And that's without insurance, which represents another 20 cars.

So my soft costs per diem mean a minimum field of 70 cars at $50, and that doesn't budget for equipment purchase or replacement.  Add another 5-10 cars per event to cover that.  We do give 6 runs unless something goes wrong.

More power to your local PCA chapter, but our little indie club can't survive on events that small or cheap.  At 75 cars we're just breaking even.

Duke said:

I can assume they are getting free lot rent and/or insurance, because my break even costs for venue alone are 50 cars at $50 each.  And that's without insurance, which represents another 20 cars.

So my soft costs per diem mean a minimum field of 70 cars at $50, and that doesn't budget for equipment purchase or replacement.  Add another 5-10 cars per event to cover that.  We do give 6 runs unless something goes wrong.

More power to your local PCA chapter, but our little indie club can't survive on events that small or cheap.  At 75 cars we're just breaking even.

 

I'm looking forward to driving with your little indie club for the first time this Saturday. I found the $50 price very reasonable. This will be my first Autocross so I am curious how long it takes to get run ~100 cars. 

I feel shorter events are what many people are craving now. Making those numbers work for the organizer can be difficult, but it may pay off dividends in the long run.

In reply to J.A. Ackley :

We usually have about 100 cars, split among 3 run groups, and we give 6 runs.  It's usually about 90-120 minutes per group, including down time for worker switchover.  Drive one group, work one, relax one.

So somebody who just wants to show up, get teched, drive, and skip cleanup / trophy talk will be there about 6 hours.  If their "relax" group happens to be the last group they can split an hour or two earlier.

We could do morning and afternoon heats with 2 run groups each.  25 cars in each group, half in each heat.  That might get it down to 4 hours per heat for drivers.  But it would make a longer day with extra work for our volunteers and the morning group would not get the chance for trophy talk, which doesn't happen until the trailer is mostly packed.

Motojunky said:

I'm looking forward to driving with your little indie club for the first time this Saturday. I found the $50 price very reasonable. This will be my first Autocross so I am curious how long it takes to get run ~100 cars. 

Excellent!  Thanks for coming out.  Drop by the tent and look me up.

For a novice, we recommend you show up about 8:30a for check-in and tech.  There will be a novice course walk around 9:30 (I'll probably lead it).  Driver's meeting around 10:00, and first car off at 10:30.  Roughly 90-100 minutes per group plus downtime between; sometimes people are slow to get on station.  We should finish running somewhere around 4:00p.  It takes 30-45 minutes to pack up all the equipment, and then 15 minutes for results and trophy talk.

Usually we're off site around 5:00p unless there's a hitch.

This hit home for me.

I went to my first autocross in 1989 and we typically had 25-35 cars. We'd get 6 runs and be done by 2 in the afternoon.

Flash forward 10-15 years and our local SCCA got hard core autocrossers running the local region. Along with 15-18 events a year they became all day affairs. Granted you'd get 10 and 12 runs but you'd also be leaving at 4:30 in the afternoon.

These days we typically do 8 runs; I honestly would be content to give up a couple of runs to leave a couple of hours early.

I thoroughly enjoy autocross but I don't always want to spend 8-10 hours at the track.

I love to autocross but I start to lose my cool laid-back vibe if I'm left to roast on a worker station for more than 90 minutes or so... at two hours I'm smokin' hot.  Most of the sites around here - that translates to 25-30 cars per heat... 4 or 5 runs.  Average launch interval + some basic arithmetic tells you that.  I get frustrated when the club leadership forgets to do the math.

I also get frustrated at time wasted, whether it be for heat turnover, timer glitches, general disorder and whatnot.  I'm not talking about "stuff happens" but avoidable delays and 3X30-minute heat turnovers + 2 hour drive home means the difference between home for dinner or home after dark.

On the other hand - I get that we rented the site for the whole day and some people don't care about being done by mid-afternoon.  But a well-run event is a big factor in my enjoyment level.

In reply to bludroptop :

We do our absolute best to start cars at 10:30a, launch a car every 25 seconds (course design permitting).  That gets a 30-car run group on and off course in about 90 minutes.  We'll end up logging somewhere between 550-600 passes during the day.

We try to keep turnovers to <15 minutes by emphasizing at the drivers' meeting that total event time really depends on everyone reporting in promptly and not screwing around.

On top of all this... we need to run friendly, fun events or people won't come back!

The Region I ran off and on for quite a few years would typically do 3 runs per Run Group, sometimes the course was short enough they'd do 4, and it was rare, but I can recall an event or two when we did 5 runs.  But that was super rare.  
The goal was each run group took one hour...which I thought was quite reasonable.  The entire program was done by Noon, so they'd have "time only" groups in the afternoon...for those that wanted or needed the practice.  If you wanted to be home early afternoon, great.  If you wanted to spend the whole day autocrossing, you can do that too.

its not autocross but the Chicago region SCCA has switched to evening track events.  Registration opens at 2, we are on track at 5 and done by 8 /w pizza and bench racing after in the classroom.  People really like it, our events are a bit less expensive than a full day, and since we are not on track until 5pm the track the last few days the track was able to rent the facility to a motorcycle club ensuring the track is able to stay busy all day.