I started out doing track days. I have done a couple autoX now but with a good club. The PCA in my area sets up 45-60 second courses in general. You get maybe 10-12 runs in either in the morning or afternoon. If you run morning you chase cones for the afternoon. For $35 it's a fun day.

Can't imaging getting only a handful of 30 second runs in. That would absolutely suck. SCCA autox just isn't any fun in my book.

HPDE gets the nod from me but autox with a good club can be a fun day occasionally.

I always love this discussion...

Autox is CHEAP and EASY on the car, from an absolute dollars stand point.

When folks start realizing 'I could be running for 4 10 minute sessions for just 4 times the money, and no work!' it SOUNDS great...

But then the 'incidentals' start adding up.

New set of front brake pads and rotors after a 'sprinted' weekend of HPDE
$300 - $500 depending on what you buy
oil change.
extra wear and tear on the transmission
going through 30-40% of the tires on the car for the weekend (say a new set costs you $400, depending on the size and make) thats another $200 for the weekend.
gas

lets not even count food, hotel, or anything else like that.

So by the time you factor in ALL the extra expenses, your ACTUAL expenses are north of $1200 for ~ 120 minutes of seat time...

which works out to about $10 a minute...

autox = 4 to 5 minutes of seat time for $25 + gas + a little tire wear works out to about $8 per minute...

My point is, don't use money to justify what you want to do. HPDEs are a blast, but they require more dollars, and more prep, and they do wear on the car a bit more, owning to the higher speeds and more seat time.

I enjoy both, about equally well, but thats because I have my expectations for autox. I don't expect it to be about dollars per minutes in the seat, I expect it to be a very short term spurt of action, followed by some very specific introspection on my overall driving technique, with a little bit of friendly competition thrown in to make it 'interesting'.

And only takes up half my day, so I can get other things done.

HPDE is for when I want to spend my ENTIRE weekend doing 'car stuff'. For when I want to figure out, by rote memorization the best way around a very specific and static set of corners, and I want to see what the car does when the limits are moved out a bit further.

its also very satisfying to pass the 'mouth' in drivers meeting in a car with half his horsepower and tire.... <GRIN>

Interesting observations. I've never done HPDE and I've been autocrossing for 5 years. One thing I don't understand about HPDE is that there is NO timing (in fact, it's forbidden, from what I understand). Other than the excitement of driving at high speed, there's no way of knowing how you did and how you improve and compare with others -- am I missing something?

imagine getting to hit the same 7 -12 turns 40-60 times...

and maybe twice the speed of an autox...

BTW,
there is nothing stopping you from timing yourself, or having your pit crew time you, but the event isn't going to time you, because then it would be a 'race' and not driving instruction.

Most folks do video, which is probably going to be more helpful to improve your technique, because you can see how you hit turn 5, 10 different times.

ah, and I've been doing autox on and off pretty steady since 1997... :)

Flores, I don't know if your comments were directed at me, but if you read my post, I don't care about the money, I care about the time invested. Of course I know costs are higher. I could care less about that part. It's just killing an entire day for so little return.

In fact, if they did auto x here like I have heard of in other places, I'd do it. They double the cost to $60 and hire course workers. No working, no waiting until there are enough workers on the course, less people at the event because they bitch about the $60, more runs. I'd do that.

My comments were general, and hopefully no one thinks I'm condemning either sport. They are both fun, but the bottom line for most folks is going to be the actual dollar amount they have to spend to participate.

:brain:

I don't know what you're driving but a set of front rotors and race pads costs about $160 for an NA miata, which should last you more than one weekend (depends on driver and HP). I've had a set of RS-2's on the car for about 11 track days (5 weekends) and they still have some tread, they are getting a little long in the tooth though. Definitely not wearing 30-40% of the tire off in one weekend though.

I agree there's more wear costs doing HPDE's but I'm definitely not spending $10/min. My last track weekend was more like $5/min and that included everything, new pads and rotors, sharing a tow vehicle and hotel room, food, etc.

Personally I think track days and HPDE's are a far better deal than Auto-x's but everyone should try them both and find out which fits their wants/desires better.

I know of at least one person who was reimbursed after totaling a 350Z during an HPDE.

I look at my car as a $2000 shell with $X,000 in parts bolted to it. $2k is what it would cost me to get a straight, clean non-running black NA shell, and then it would be the labor of swapping my parts over. If I wad it up, it really isn't a big deal.