sjfehr

Autocross is as much a social event as it is competition; it would be rather miserable if you didn't like the people you run with. Once you get competitive, there's very little down-time between walking the course, getting your r-comps on, and then poring over your data acquisition in between runs, making adjustments, and watching your competitors. Dollar-for-dollar, you can't beat a local autocross club's test & tune for seat time, though! And lets face it- whether it's DE or autocross, seat time is what really matters and seat time in one will help you with the other.

Autocross venues vary greatly. Our local club lost our favorite venue, a massive expanse of aircraft-quality concrete Navy operates hovercrafts off of, to increased security posture, and have been using an old WWII airfield. The courses tend to be tight and technical, but it's still loads of fun. Typical:

If you value seat time above all else and don't like course working, the best seat time per $ I've seen is with a local drift club that rents out a track and had basically zero structure beyond initially separating grip and drift drivers on different segments of the track before a combined run in the afternoon- $115 and drive all you want, whenever you want. Was crowded in the AM, but all you had to do was wait until all the drifters broke their cars or shredded through all their tires and you had the entire track to yourself, to drive and drive until you got sick of driving. Since most tend to average an off-course excursion every couple hundred yards while practicing, though, they coat the track in dirt and gravel, which sucks.

DEs are fun, but intentionally going sideways in a fast sweeper at speeds illegal on any US highway is quite an adrenaline rush above that. I'm not really into drifting, but don't knock it based on preconceptions; these guys are serious motorsports enthusiasts, too, and it takes an incredible amount of skill to do it well. If you want to talk about car control, those kids have it. One of the more skilled local drifters:

And for a quick plug: another local club is holding a time trial @ NCCAR tomorrow (off 95 in North Carolina just south of the VA border). Still some slots open for walk-up registration if anyone here is interested. Will be novice-friendly, and judging by the sign-ups, will be 10+ runs. (FYI: BYO helmet) I'm signed up and really looking forward to it As a competitive event, it will be 10/10 autocross driving at DE speeds: best of both worlds!

Edit: added my in-car video from NCCAR. Quite fun (and also quite scary) taking 1g corners at the limit of traction (all 4 tires squeaking merrily) at 95mph with my foot still firmly planted to the floor. It's not rote speed that thrills me, it's speed while cornering. Honestly, I get the same rush on a well-designed autocross course at 50mph as 100 on the track.

Aquary

I've done a fair amount of both... autox and DE. I started out autoxing (actually started out drag racing, then moved to autox!), then got into DE for the increased seat time. But I am a very competitive person, and found that in DE if I was not as fast as someone else, it was the car's fault... so I'd spend more on the car. And not really fix the real problem... which was the driver.

Then I got back into autoxing, and kept it in a stock class, so there's limited changes you can make to the car and winning really comes down to driving (if you're in a car that's competitive in class). I've also found that I really like the mental aspect of autox.... having to learn the "fast line" immediately, and having to be 10/10ths, clean, from the get go. Yes, it's only a few minutes of driving, but the day is fun, as I also enjoy the social aspects and watching the rest of the cars run.

Recently I haven't had the time to do either autox or DE .... one of those life stage things. But when I get back to being able to take a Sunday off, I'll definitely do some more autoxing.

Devil Boy

I used to auto-x a "lesser" vehicle pretty regularly years ago and trophied a couple seasons. I haven't been able to do it for a while now due to career stuff and travel. I've been wanting to auto-x my 911 but I'm in the middle of weird job transitions and moving too so I haven't been able yet.