Road Racing vs Auto Cross

[Nathan]

I've been wondering how many out there feel the same as I do about this issue. Please post the positives and negatives that you feel there are in each.

Road Race Positive: Lots of seat time per event, fast courses, more possibility for sponsors, tracks will be the same each time the event is at that place so it will be easier to remember, the feeling of physically passing someone, winning a race and being able to actually look behind you to see who you beat

Road Race Negative: Costs a lot to enter, costs a lot to keep car, most likely have to trailer car, have to drive a long ways to go to an event, you win could be in someone else’s hands as in someone could wreck you, you car is in someone else’s hands, it's more dangerous

Autocross Positive: Relatively cheap depending on class, can drive car to event most of the time, close community with events being relatively local, safe, fast decisions must be made to win (smaller quick courses with less room for error), cheaper to enter

Autocross Negative: A days worth of driving is 6 min max, slow speeds, courses can be difficult to understand and always change, kids who show up and want to run and don't want to work, very difficult to get much sponsorship, courses can be good or bad depending on the designer whom is seldom a professional course designer, must have the perfect car to win (ex: Mini Cooper S for GS, Mini Cooper for HS, 89 Civic Si for STS......), port-o-potties

I like autocross because I want to do it, and I want my family to do it. I feel like I could actually afford to have my wife and kids run. I don’t think I could for road racing. And I couldn’t allow myself to get hurt and leave my family, nor could I stand the danger of my wife or kids out there on a road race course with at least one idiot who could wreck and hurt them. So, basically its more family and budget oriented to me.

[SeanB]

Both can be expensive, its a matter of how expensive do you want it to be. You can do neither and run track events with your street car, less risk than road racing and more track time for the dollar than autox.

[sts 50]

I think you could do a LOT of autocrossing for the $ it would take to just be a field filler at a Regional road race. I seem to remember a conversation with James and Carol (are you lurking out there, Carol?), who generally run up front, about what they spend on an average weekend to tow to Mid-Ohio and race the SSC Neon for a 2 days - $1500-2000, plus any damage. Ouch! I bet it's a rush, though.

[SeanB]

Autox can be expensive too if you want to run at the top level. Top flight STS cars can be around $20k easily.

[Nathan]

Autox can be expensive too if you want to run at the top level. Top flight STS cars can be around $20k easily.
Yeah, but the same class in road racing you're talking the same money to build a competative car plus the high entree fees and costs of damage.

[Cookie]

Sorry been out of town. For a weekend with the Neon in SSC we would spend gas, about 10 gallons of pump premium, entry fee, around $300 for a double event, hotel room, meals and figure tires if lucky last us about 8 races if we don't flat spot any of them. So not as high as you estimated. Been pretty lucky as far as damage, of course owning a shop helps out on that end too. Will be running in ITA this year so the damage involved with running with these guys might go up. Plus the Neon is not at all competitive with the CRXs running in ITA. Time to build the Miata.

[SeanB]

ITA with what region?

The great thing about ITA is the wide range of potentially winning cars. While the car counts are higher than SS, most of the front running guys are pretty damn good about driving clean.

[johnnytavo]

do you race in the WDCR??

[Cookie]

We usually run at Mid-Ohio due to the great track and close tow. The regions that put on the events we run at Mid-Ohio are in the Great Lakes division. We have run at IRP now known as ORP in Indianapolis with one of the Indy regions, but this year are only going to go to Mid-Ohio. When we don't have to show up to work on Monday mornings we may venture farther from home. Ha.