Q. for Central Indiana (and others in the region) racers

[mtownneon]

I've joined the ranks of those who have decided that it's become too much B.S. to try and continue Club Racing. For me, it is 3 fold: My finances for the last 2 seasons have kept me home except for Soloing, now that I'm back to where I need to be financially, the cost / benefit ratio of racing in this divison (whether it be the "S" club or the "N" club) just isn't making sense, and both club's schedules / venues are long tows and don't work well with my work schedule. Problem is I still want to do some wheel to wheel racing. I have a car I've poured a bunch of time and effort into. I don't want to get rid of it, I don't want to bash the windows out of it and weld the doors shut just to run it in some fwd junk class. I enjoy Soloing it but it's not enough at times, know what I mean?

Now that I've shared my tale of whoa, my question is: How many others are in the same position? Next question is: Who'd be interested in putting something together to do some racing with our current cars as they are without breaking the bank, specifically in central Indiana? Assume for the sake of this conversation that we're talking about IT / small bore Prepared type cars and racers.

I have a couple ideas of how a group of us could make something happen.

Idea #1: If we could get a dozen or more teams to commit, we could approach some of the local short track promotors and see if they'd allow us a class of our own a couple of nights a season. I know that it's roundy-round but it beats nothing and running in our own class, the racing would as clean as we want to make it. It's not like I'm suggesting we be fed to the wolves in a regular class. 2 tracks in particular I think would work well would be Mt Lawn near New Castle and Baerfield in Ft. Wayne. If we could offer 10-12 or more cars, I'm sure promotors would be interested, especially if we tell them we aren't interested in anything more than a couple of trophies if that much. More back gate, the posibility of some more front gate from us being there without having to put more pressure on the purse? I don't see the answer being no.

Idea #2: Quick backstory: In talks with the track manager @ Lucas Oil Raceway (ORP / IRP) he was trying to figure a way to get at least a portion of the road course back up and running. He was thinking of somehow to make the portion of the course from turns 9 to 15 work. Long story short, the cost to make it work would be fairly high without any guarantee that it would generate enough income. I let that rattle around in my head for a while and proposed this:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh311/mtownneon/Short_course_001.jpg

Short Course Road Racing

It's about .6 tenths of a mile long and it would take very little effort to set up and tear down. I presented it to him and he liked the idea but I haven't taken it any further. Obviously it would take a lot more commitment to make it happen but there are a bunch of possibilities too. The downside is that is a pretty heavily used part of their property so any effort to make that happen would have to be profitable for the track. The upside is that an event like that could attract a variety of racers looking for something different than the usual.

Thoughts?
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[RacerBill]

Where would you put sound control? I never did like the area designated as turn 3 on your map (too much variation of throttle position between classes of cars at that part of the track).

[Dano77]

Why would you need sound control. Does the track have a specific noise level? What I think you are proposing is sort of an outlaw type road race. No specific sanction means run what you brung. And from the OP it seems as though you are willing to limit class type to IT ish.

Great way to think outside the box to still be able to enjoy the sport at a reasonable financial level.

Good Luck,hope it works for you

[mtownneon]

Why would you need sound control. Does the track have a specific noise level? What I think you are proposing is sort of an outlaw type road race. No specific sanction means run what you brung. And from the OP it seems as though you are willing to limit class type to IT ish.

Great way to think outside the box to still be able to enjoy the sport at a reasonable financial level.

Good Luck,hope it works for you

Exactly. Now with the short course idea I think it would take more than just one class of "IT ish" cars. But that also opens possibilities to offer the experience to many from road racers to short trackers. Could have classes for anything from road race cars to saturday night short trackers.

[gweatherlow]

Creative ideas! A short track may attract more SOLO racers too.

Using the same logic, there may be other tracks that might be open as well, like Speedrome or Anderson with their figure 8 layouts that could be run? Instead of crossing in the middle, hang a 90 degree turn.

I live in INDY, near ORP, and find it annoying that I have to tow 4 to 5 hours to race any weekend. I would be in favor of any attempts to bring some road course racing back to Indy.

Shame the Brickyard would cost too much. Good place to hold run offs....

[mtownneon]

Creative ideas! A short track may attract more SOLO racers too.

Using the same logic, there may be other tracks that might be open as well, like Speedrome or Anderson with their figure 8 layouts that could be run? Instead of crossing in the middle, hang a 90 degree turn.

I live in INDY, near ORP, and find it annoying that I have to tow 4 to 5 hours to race any weekend. I would be in favor of any attempts to bring some road course racing back to Indy.

Shame the Brickyard would cost too much. Good place to hold run offs....

Like you I thought the same thing about Speedrome and Anderson. The only downside to those 2 tracks are their size. Both those tracks are very small. Contact is almost unavoidable so I don't know how many go for that.

I joke with one of the marketing guys @ IMS about holding a Club Race there. He ignores me every time....

[mtownneon]

One other thing I agree with you on Gary is it's potential attractiveness to Solo folks. It's already sparked conversation amongst several in our area.