RIP 66 Barracuda

[autoxcuda]

That is the risk one takes when driving a classic in any fashion.

That was a situation waiting to happen. There are pics on the web of other wrecks from Good Guys autocrosses.

There are 100's of SCCA regional autocrosses every weekend. This rarely happens to this magnitude at those events. A the frequency of events is a 100 times greater.

Wrecks at poorly designed events like this can effect the insurance and site procurement of other properly run SCCA events. The people that take the racing seriously as apposed to rich guys showing off.

 

[Mattax]

There's also a moderate number of non-SCCA clubs that run autocrosses with very rarely an incident. Most, but not all are marque clubs (BMW, Porsche, Corvair) but generally the same principles will be found in them as well.

How welcoming any event is will depend on the people running it It is true insurance now has pushed the club to require a weekend membership at minumum to drive.. SCCA club events are run by the local club or region. Everyone there is a volunteer and that is the biggest ask being made of the particpants - that you stay and help out.

As far as classing for our cars that have been hot rodded, Street Modified or C Some clubs also have vintage classes. Prepared is pretty much a guarenteed fit unless the suspension points have been altered. In which CAM - Traditional will probably be the class. As Steve wrote, folks will help with that and there's often some version of Novice classing.

 

[crackedback]

The rear tires were kicking up debris as it was under braking. Slow the first video down to .25 speed, pretty clear.

First time I saw/heard the video at speed, I knew it was a hung throttle. That second video, absolutely.

Sucks for the driver that incident occurred.

 

[sccachallenger]

I'm really heartened to hear all the good words about SCCA events. I ran my first one back in 1985, back then my local events were all designed by people driving rabbits, civics, x19s, stuff like that. When I'd ask why courses were so tight, I'd get told "its to slow the big cars down" even though the "big cars" were in different classes? Its great to see more open courses so we all can have fun, and many more ways for us to enjoy our cars.
Now I'm in agreement that good guys, and optima have done a lot to popularize autocross with the average car-show, drag-race fan. Heck, in 1996(I think) the Nats was supposed to have an autocross. I sent in my entry, only to have it refunded when the autoX was cancelled, due to not enough entries. I couldn't believe they were so short sighted as to not see the growing interest in cars that could handle! They weren't interested in losing money to expand what the Nats could be!
The Nats could be where good guys/optima/holley moparfest are today!
I sure hope the '66 gets fixed, and we should always asses every course BEFORE we line up to make a pass.
I'm sure the car owners wish they'd passed on this event.