How safe are autocrosses?

[jstecher]

Originally Posted by kbrew8991

you'll be fine

go and turn off the PSM

Couldn't agree more.

[Lobo6]

AX is about as safe as anything you can do with your car that tests the limits. The only car/driver damage I've heard of where we AX was at an SCCA event last year. Driver had blown a in a solumn (sp?) and instead of giving it up he tried to save the run and ended up with his car on the roof. The yaw of the car kept getting worse. That's just stupid.

[TailWagger]

In general AXing is the safest form of Motorsport you can participate in with a car. That said, just as with DE, much depends on the venue. Not all sites are equal. In five seasons of AXing I've seen one wreck which was a combination of sheer stupidity of what can only be termed epic proportions and the fact that the event was held in a lot which had light poles. Although the poles were nowhere near on line, a novice, who I'd wager had been told if the rear end comes out keep your foot in it, spun, held the throttle down instead of putting both feet in and slammed sideways into a concrete base for one of the light poles.

Every venue is different, some are more dangerous than others, but again in general, if your not an idiot, its an extremely safe way to explore the limits of your car.

[naparsei]

At every venue, there are places to try to "push" and places it is insane to. Some tracks have nowhere to go if you "off" - get through that place with the car in the right place and don't worry about speed as much. With lots of runoff, or nothing to hit, push your car more aggressively.

[billy]

Good advice.
Applies to road tracks also, Road America, the kink (aka Car collector) is a place to beware. Canada is ok (ask me how I know) and turn 1, 2b and a few others.

[Lobo6]

Originally Posted by billy

Good advice.
Applies to road tracks also, Road America, the kink (aka Car collector) is a place to beware. Canada is ok (ask me how I know) and turn 1, 2b and a few others.

Bad advice Billy, the track is not the place to test the limits of your car.

[billy]

To clarify what I said,
I don't mind 'pushing' the car on turns where there is run off and if I do have a problem, the car stays shiny. There are other corners such as the kink etc where a mistake will result in a not so shiny car.

I'm agreeing with the previous poster.

[getfast]

Originally Posted by billy

I heard of another Evo that got whacked at an autocross in MN yesterday. I always figured an autocross was a pretty safe thing and whacking cars was rare. Anyone else seen wrecks? That said, I thought HPDEs were pretty safe but so far, every event I've been to had 1 or more wrecks.

I have been to probably 100+ autocrosses in my life either working or driving or watching, and I can count the incidents on one hand - none of which resulted in injury, rollover, or serious vehicle damage. And ALL of which were a result of driver error.

The course design (distance to hard objects and trajectory) is where you'll find 99% of the responsibility for this. The other 1% can probably never be helped (novices with big balls in fast cars) but the tone set by the event organizers goes a long way toward keeping them from behaving foolishly.

Case in point, my region will use two main autoX course lots for '07. One is 900x400, surrounded by fences/guardrails/gates on all sides, and has ~10 light poles... so courses are slow (first gear and some 2nd, under 40 seconds per run.) The other site is 1200+ x 500+, with nothing but dirt or more pavement for hundreds more feet on three sides, and exactly five light poles... so courses are fast (mostly 2nd gear and sometimes 3rd, 50+ seconds per run.) Guess which lot is "safer"??? The second one, most definitely. Even though speeds are higher and runs are longer, there's much less to hit (and there's plenty of room to do big foolish 360's in the wet, etc.)

The SCCA Solo rules about "50 feet to a hard object" or whatever it is... should be an absolute minimum in a straight section only. At 30mph, a car is traveling 44 feet per second!

Having said that - if you look at number of drivers participating and number of miles traveled "at speed" total per event... HPDE's are safer.

Jon