mikahb

I have an opportunity to relocate from the Nashville, TN area to San Diego, CA. I've done some homework on tracks and there are some good ones out that way. Anybody have any input on the racing scene there and/or how it compares with the Southeast?

Thanks!

Axelrod

Make the trip a few hours North to Infineon. You won't be disappointed. Geographically, you're somewhat limted in SD. You are spoiled where you are at now because you can drive 5 hours and hit a lot of tracks. In SD, you won't have that luxury. Ask me how I know!

joemoia

Send a PM to CF member Oli Thordarson, "Olitho"; He and a number of vette owners are active in the SCCA Calclub region

Cloaked323

Infineon a few hours from S.D. I don't think so

Bimota Guy

SCCA LA Region (Cal Club) races at Cal Speedway, Willow Springs, and mostly at Buttonwillow. I live close to downtown San Diego. It is 110 miles to Cal Speedway (now called Auto Club Speedway), about 200 to Willow Springs, and 260 to Buttonwillow.

The season is short...January through November!

www.calclub.com

And Phoenix Int'l Raceway is about 340 miles from my house. Have not run there.

MJM

Closest track is California Speedway in LA (2 hours)

next is Willow Springs and Buttonwillow north of LA (4 hours)

Couple of tracks in and around Vegas (5 hours)

Couple of tracks in and around Phoenix (6 hours)

Northern California tracks: Thunderhill, Infineon, Laguna Seca (8-9 hours)

Lots of car clubs and track day organizers, you can run almost every weekend if you want. NASA is pretty big out here as well as Cal Club in the SCCA. If you can make it in time there will be lots of Vettes at California Speedway 23 & 24 November.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=2145635

The weather is great too, probably August is the only month that things slow down because many of the tracks are out in the desert.

Matt

Olitho

Hi Micah:

Yeah, it has mostly been covered here. CalClub, region 19, of SCCA runs sanctioned races at the three tracks mentioned, Auto Club Speedway, Willow Springs International and the SCCA owned track of Buttonwillow.

It is worth mentioning that Willow Springs also has another popular track, Streets of Willow Springs. It is a shorter, tighter and slower road course more similar to mountain roads. WSIR is fast. T1 Corvettes average just over 100 MPH on that track vs. SoWS which is around 70 MPH. It is a fun technical track. Unlike WSIR, on SoWS they change directions and it has a couple different configs. You will see SoWS used a lot for magazine and TV show tests as well as shows like Set-Up (where they set-up the rules to determine who they want to win.)

Other tracks at Willow Springs is the short 1.1 mile Horse Thief Mile. An interesting very tight and severe elevation change track. In a T1 car you can break 100 MPH on this track, but just like canyon and mountain roads in California, there are a couple of places you don't want to leave that track. Willow Springs is also home to a kart track, a couple of short ovals, one dirt and one asphalt. And then there is the Balcony where the drifters hang out.

Buttonwillow is a fun track filled with a dozen different configurations up to 3.1 miles or thereabouts. The direction can also be changed there which keeps it interesting during the race season. I think we raced there five times this season and it was a different track each time. The track is relatively flat compare to WSIR, but more technical and it has both higher and slower speeds. On config 18 a month ago we were hitting close to 160 MPH into Star Mazda, a 45 MPH apex corner. That makes for exciting racing and passing. There is an active kart track there, plus a paved drag strip and a sand drag strip, but I have never seen either used. We did race pit vehicles down the front straight Saturday night after the last race. That was fun. Our very own Steve Schmidt, T1 race #46 schooled everyone with his Ford Lightning. I should mention that a few miles down from Buttonwillow a nice short oval is being built, but they just stopped as they ran out of money.

Both Buttonwillow and WSIR don't have much by amenities except fuel and fast food within 10-20 minutes of the track. More robust shopping and lodging is about 30 minutes away.

Auto Club Speedway is the grand daddy of the tracks in terms of facilities and prestige. The facilities are all that you would expect of a NASCAR track that utilizes an infield road course couple with turns 1 and 2 of the oval. Top speeds in T1 cars is just over 150 MPH there. It is hard on brakes with the infield being a couple opportunities to drag race down some long straights connected by a series of very tight, almost autocross tight turns. At this venue you can also run just the 1.5 mile infield course on track days.

When you are not racing, you can do 2, 3 even 4 track days every week if you want at these three tracks. Or you can patronize some other tracks not too far away. All within about 4-8 hours are Spring Mountain (very fun), Las Vegas Motorspeedway, Phoenix and Firebird. An indian reservation is supposedly building a road course down San Diego way.

SCCA NorCal runs at Laguna Seca, Infineon and Thunder Hill. All are great tracks. I have not raced Reno Fernley, yet. That is on my agenda in 2009. Miller Motorsports in Utah is a fantastic facility about 11 hours away.

That covers most of it.

It almost never rains down here and we do race almost all year around. The track days do run 52 weekends though.

I wold love to see you racing T1 with us in SoCal. Regionally you will mostly be racing with me, Steve Schmidt, Craig Dale and Roy Benedetti. Occassionally others show up, plus we have some new guys coming into T1 in 2009.

rustyguns

you should! IT ROCKS! NASA ClubArizona has a full weekend event there on Thanksgiving and ASA ProAutoSports is running big 3 day event the same weekend at the Big track at Firebird. Two very very fast Phoenix AZ tracks. easily do 135+ mph on both I wish I could do both at the same time!

fatbillybob

+1 on everything said. Economy down and could be that way for a little bit. So you may get into realestate on the cheap side and ride the wave up from here. With risk comes big rewards. Could be the best financial move you have ever made plus the race community is very friendly here.

mikahb

Awesome - thanks for all the feedback guys. I would say the range we normally drive for a race weekend is up to 10 hours or so, so there are quite a few tracks in that range for sure. 2009 might have to be a slow year racing for us since it would likely take us some time to sell our house in TN and while we own 2 houses we won't have a lot of play money!

Oli - I have followed your dedicated campaign to grow T1 out in Cali and I'd love the opportunity to come out and run with you guys. Even with all the racing activity here in the SE, T1 fields have remained quite small unfortunately.

BillyBob - you're right, and that's probably the only reason I'm really thinking seriously about picking up my family and moving away from everything we have here in Nashville. Real estate in SD seems to be not quite, but close to the bottom and so I think it's definitely a good time to be looking to buy.

I'm expecting a job offer this week - hopefully it will be strong enough that this becomes a real decision I have to make!

Olitho

What line of work are you in?

mikahb

I've always worked in manufacturing, I started as a Process Engineer and worked my way into IT as a programmer, then IT Manager, then moved into Procurement. So, my skillset is pretty broad.