Good points...especially when the spectators, as far as I know, didn't pay
any admission price, but did buy a lot of stuff from local vendors. The
Vallejo events were zoos, and the Livermore one had a very tightly
constrained course, as I recall, not nearly as loose or as fast as the
Vallejo courses. The Vallejo course(s) had to deal with a significant crown
in the road which made some of the 90 degree corners chancey. Our car
bottomed out on the Botts dots. :)
--Pat K
----------
>From: Dennis Hale <dhale_510@yahoo.com>
>To: autox@autox.team.net
>Subject: Re: Spectators vs autocrossing
>Date: Fri, Jan 4, 2002, 9:00 AM
>
>We have had some experience with spectator events out
>here in SFR land. We held 4 street autocrosses in the
>1986 to 1992 era. 4 in Vallejo, 1 in Livermore. I am
>sure Pat Kelly or Charlie Davis can correct any errors
>I relate.
>The events were a lot of fun for all of us except the
>folks who organized them. We burned out those event
>chairs very thoroughly.
>We got plenty of local spectators. I would guess well
>more than the thousand number being bandied about.
>The events ran very like autocrosses or qualifying
>sessions with no complicated scenarios.
>We had locals complaining about blocking their
>streets.
>We had local tv coverage.
>We had to restrict the events to invitational status.
>We had threats of law suits from folks not invited to
>attend.
>We found the crowds were interested only in the big
>noise cars. Two of us ran the final straight at
>7500rpm+ in V8 cars to standing ovations. Larry Park
>did it with great accomplishment in his magnificent BP
>Corvette. I did it in the slowest, most incompetent
>car in the field. An attempt at an EM car. It made no
>difference that the stock class Hondas ran quicker
>times, all the crowd noticed was noise and tire smoke.
>Is this the target audience? For what purpose?
>We made no significant or measureable long term effect
>on the club membership, club finances, site
>availability, community acceptance or rejection, or
>anything else that I have seen as attributes for
>holding such public venues.
>ProSolo was originally billed as an activity aimed at
>the stock classes, I have the flyer around here
>somewhere. The tag line was "make your commuter car
>pay for itself" or something very close to that.
>Nothing has changed in that regard.
>It is an activity that works as planned. Do not be too
>eager to change it into something entirely different.
>Different will only work for others than are well
>served now. Just start something new and let those who
>enjoy the current game make the changes they want.
>Oh yeah, I have never autocrossed stock class [well,
>once in Las Vegas and once in Eureka while on
>vacations in a Miata...] nor participated in a ProSolo
>FWIW.
>
>=====
>Dennis Hale
>
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