Cal Club Autocross Forums

This is sort of a link to the blast from the past thread, but why does CalClub no longer run solo 1 events at buttonwillow?

This is on my mind right now, with Qualcomm near the end of its life, and the Irvine folks not wanting an Airstrip in town, it seems that AutoX in socal is really getting bottlenecked to a handful of sites. Are there plans to use alternate sites aside from Fontana if El Toro goes away?

Solo1 has been gone for years, replaced by club racing time trials or something like that.

Buttonwillow ... seems too far away for local Auto Crossing ... although I say we compromise and use part of Streets of Willow along with The Pad. But, some folks don't seem to want to have to overnight for a local AX. So ... it Would seem that holding The Regionals at Buttonwillow might find favor with our Northern cousins?

Solo 1 was mostly killed by track days. Track days and HPDE events had very limited safety requirements compared to Solo 1 which required both full driver safety equipment and vehicle safety (cage, fire protection, etc.) just like club racing. Was pretty popular at one time, I ran events in CalClub, San Diego and Las Vegas. Was originally under the Solo Department, then moved to club racing with name changes.

Our Divisional Solo Safety Steward at the time said we had to line the entire road course with cones. That was pretty much the death siren on us ever running Buttonwillow or Willow again. We tend to blame costs and attendence and other important realities. But the safety restrictions placed on running courses, are really what tilted the balance in my mind. It was a "rule" that was created with the intent of preventing us from being able to run tracks. It served no legitimate purpose and it was practically impossible to follow.

National staff have since run national events on tracks in other parts of the country and the boundary cone "rule" has somehow magically disappeared. But it should be noted that several of those national events had vehicle to hard object contact incidents. Running on a track has higher risks even when run at solo speeds. In some cases, trying to slow down to solo speed standards can make the chance of an incident greater than at a normal track day. But it should also be noted that at lower speeds the consequences of such an incident are lessened. Many of the elements we introduced to slow cars on a track down are "spin machines" that spit cars out.

What about adams go kart track? While not quite solo2 I don't believe they require roll bars and you could cone the outside (was there any rule about distance between cones?)

Anthony Porta wrote:What about adams go kart track? While not quite solo2 I don't believe they require roll bars and you could cone the outside (was there any rule about distance between cones?)

I assume you are talking about solo/autocross. Too small in my opinion, been there with my kart a few times and didn't care for it that much (except for the banked turn . I've been on every kart track in SoCal and don't think I'd be interested in driving a car on any of them. However, Adams does have Time Attack for cars, and the picture shows Casey Brier's Miata so it can be done I guess. http://www.adamsmotorsportspark.com/rac ... ttackgrip/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Adams runs time attacks most tuesdays for what its worth. $20 usually gets you 3 runs much like a Friday night drag.

I personally think a nighttime T&T or practice would be a fun thing to do at an appropriate site, places like El Toro not so much, I don't think it would work all that well at Fontana either. Thats the one thing I miss about drag racing.

Stanley has the lap record for cars at Adams

Anthony Porta wrote:What about adams go kart track?

Walls are too close to meet SCCA rules. I just did my first Adams time attack. It was good fun, but I can see getting bored with the same 'course' every time. Even if we 'solo-ed it up' with cones, it would pretty much be the same course every time.

Many of the elements we introduced to slow cars on a track down are "spin machines" that spit cars out.

This was very prevelent at the Adams time attack I just mentioned. They put a tire chicane at the end of the home straight away to slow cars down before a big banked turn. Its purpose is to slow the person who wouldn't brake early enough, but its function ends up putting everyone upset and loose into the turn.

Jay W

Steve Ekstrand wrote:Our Divisional Solo Safety Steward at the time said we had to line the entire road course with cones. That was pretty much the death siren on us ever running Buttonwillow or Willow again. We tend to blame costs and attendence and other important realities. But the safety restrictions placed on running courses, are really what tilted the balance in my mind. It was a "rule" that was created with the intent of preventing us from being able to run tracks. It served no legitimate purpose and it was practically impossible to follow.

National staff have since run national events on tracks in other parts of the country and the boundary cone "rule" has somehow magically disappeared. But it should be noted that several of those national events had vehicle to hard object contact incidents. Running on a track has higher risks even when run at solo speeds. In some cases, trying to slow down to solo speed standards can make the chance of an incident greater than at a normal track day. But it should also be noted that at lower speeds the consequences of such an incident are lessened. Many of the elements we introduced to slow cars on a track down are "spin machines" that spit cars out.

There have been a lot of changes to this activity since Solo 1 died in the late 90s. At one time it still fell under Solo, which gave it some odd rules. Now that PDX/TT is under Club Racing it is a bit more open.

Now that PDX/TT is under Club Racing it is a bit more open.

Unfortunately it's now too open, ie. little supervision ... seemingly because of lack of people power, ie. instructors.

But "fortunately" also little participation ... because there is virtually zero marketing. If you don't happen to visit the CalClub site you would never know of an upcoming local SCCA Time Trial. Yet other HPDE organizations like NASA, Extreme Speed and Speed Ventures are thriving ... taking away potential SCCA Club Racing drivers

Mako Koiwai wrote:

Now that PDX/TT is under Club Racing it is a bit more open.

Unfortunately it's now too open, ie. little supervision ... seemingly because of lack of people power, ie. instructors.

But "fortunately" also little participation ... because there is virtually zero marketing. If you don't happen to visit the CalClub site you would never know of an upcoming local SCCA Time Trial. Yet other HPDE organizations like NASA, Extreme Speed and Speed Ventures are thriving ... taking away potential SCCA Club Racing drivers

SCCA TT has about the same, or perhaps slightly more, supervision than most other track day organizations that I've run with.

They only give 3 20-minute sessions a day compared to 5 (often 25-minute) sessions at pretty much every other organization, which is I think the main reason participation is so low.

Sorry, you're correct ... I was thinking of NASA with there very well developed newbie program, ie. EVERY newbie must have an instructor .... NASA racers are encouraged to Instruct. After every session there is a sometimes brutal download session where issues are brought to the table by participants as well as corner workers and the other instructors. Very man power intensive but effective

Yes, some of the other orgs are a bit Wild West.

Mako Koiwai wrote:Sorry, you're correct ... I was thinking of NASA with there very well developed newbie program, ie. EVERY newbie must have an instructor .... NASA racers are encouraged to Instruct. After every session there is a sometimes brutal download session where issues are brought to the table by participants as well as corner workers and the other instructors. Very man power intensive but effective

Yes, some of the other orgs are a bit Wild West.

Pretty much the same for my one time out with SpeedVentures.