Excuse the long post. I'm going on hour 9 of a 12 hour night shift and i'm bored, so here goes..

I've done 7 autocrosses this winter with the Tidewater Sports Car club and the Beachcombers Corvette Club. While both clubs put on great events, i was wondering if maybe some other locations have been discussed besides Pungo and especially Fentress in these clubs. I know several clubs members read this forum regularly, so i'd be interested if this has been discussed in the past.

Do any forum members have any site suggestions? I know the VMSC does a Shopping mall. Thats sounds cool. Lots more specatators for sure.

oh well, back to work..

jim
www.autocross.us

 

*Also at work*

TSCC tried unsucessfully a few years ago to get the Norfolk Ford Plant lot. I even spoke to the plant manager personally. Turns out they had plans for the lot, and now it is unusable for a solo event.

The Super-K on Holland looks like it may have some potential. There is NEVER any cars on the it's back lot (the one closer to Holland Rd.). Anybody out there w/ some influence???

Ed

 

Ed. TSCC also races at ACU-4. if you haven't been out there you need to go there too. the only reason we haven't been racing is cause its right on the ches. bay and the wind is bone chilling.

on a joking note. we could race at lynnhaven parking lot. we can use the ramp and make the race go up and down. lol

 

i higly doubt k-mart on holland will allow us to use thier parking lot after they kicked people out for various reasons(one being noise)...

lynnhaven would be hot...but i dont like the idea of hitting that ramp at speed...i scrape the hell out of my bumper goin up there when im creepin as it is...lol

 

What about that big ass parking lot on Mercury Blvd. in hampton where the old Circuit city and HQ was? That place is huge!

 

You can thank lawyers that we cant get these big lots. Its all about liability and insurance.

 

Only if I had a Mini Cooper S or an old cooper like in Bourne Identity. Cool thought though...

 

Finding a new place to autocross is an on going saga for everyone. Sure, Fentress and Pungo aren't wonderful, especially compaired to ACU4, BUT, the fact that we have them is good...

I'm always on the lookout for sites. The biggest issue is that now parking lots are almost become architectual features of the building they are in front of. Gone are the huge expanses of concrete, replaced with landscaping and parking islands..

Another issue is the amount of time it takes to get something setup. It took over a year to get ACU4 approved.. TSCC is looking at serveral more venues currently, but it's a slow processes.

 

Back in the dark ages... when that particular parking place was called Mercury Mall, we used to run there. The club that put the events on was called Penninsula Sports Car Club. I think we probably ran 1-2 events there each month from sometime in the '60's up to somewhere around 1980. Back then the malls and stores were all closed on Sundays.

Malls are great for public exposure. They required extra effort from everyone to keep the events safe, because people were always ducking under the ropes and walking across the course. Workers had to be on their toes. Getting sponsors was easier, because there was always a pretty big crowd of spectators.

The mall or shopping center that will usually let you use their lot as an autocross site is typically one where their business is falling off (look for big empty parking lots on Sundays), they are locally owned (don't have to call the legal offices in NYC to get approval), and have an interest. For years we could use Military Circle because the manager was a guy that had a Porsche and a Mustang GT. It was also locally owned. It eventually got sold out and we went along with the local owners.

We can be seen as someting that brings in customers to a sagging Sunday afternoon business in the right situation. The place I would like to see us run again is the Va. Beach Pavillion. Exposure there was great. We used to run there on a weeknight after work, under the lights. It was cool.

 

racing auto-x at night.... that would be great. i'd love to run with my neon's on