What’s up with Autocrossing?

Autocrossing has suddenly become hot! We should have known it was going to be a different year when 85 people showed up at our March event in pouring rain, with temperatures in the mid-30's, insisting that we hold an event. Our second event in June set an all time high for number of participants (110 or so) since I became involved with the club in 1994. The phenomena is apparent around the country: Nationals are being sold out and regular drivers are being excluded if they don’t get their names submitted well in advance. I spoke with a driver at our last event from the Akron area who said that his club’s events are suddenly drawing in the 200's whereas the low 100's was the norm in the past. Except for possibly the access to autocrossing via the Internet, which I am sure has made it available to a greater cross section of the population, I am clueless as to why we are experiencing this sudden burst of interest. It’s nice to see enthusiasm being shown by new drivers and it will be interesting to see if this translates into a surge in interest in road racing in coming years since autocrossing is often a stepping stone to road racing. I must confess, however, that part of me misses the old days when we would have 35-45 drivers, get 6 timed runs and 4-5 fun runs, and the entire enterprise was somewhat more low-key. For now, however, I am strapped in and waiting to see where all of this leads.

Mike Mooney
91 C Street Prepared Miata