i am a GAtech student and few friends and i want to start a auto-racing club, but we are lack of place to practice in atlanat, anyone knows some place or some big park lot that we can rent for half day in the weekend?? thanks a lot

Bo

 

What are you going to practice in a parking lot? Since you're in Atlanta, aren't you close to Road Atlanta? I would look for track days there.

 

Or with the local SCCA club http://www.atl-scca.org (Auto-x would be a good bang for the buck on a college student 'salary')

 

Autocross courses take a lot of tiem and effort to setup and manage. You have insurance concerns to worry about and you will probably want timing equipment to get times, all of that costs a lot of money, not to mention cones aren't cheap. Your best bet is to try and arrange something with your local SCCA group where you guys use their timing equipment and setup courses and then manage a practice day before an event that they can attend then they can just use everything that is all setup. Or you could develop a new local club. At any rate in order to have a successful club expect to require at least 35 or so people that regularily show up, usually that equates to having about 60-70 club members at least every year. If you can rent a lot for $300 a weekend, to cover insurance and other expenses you will need at least 30 people at 20$ each day racing two days to cover your expenses. A big problem is going to be the $3000-$4000 starting costs you will need for cones, a way to transport them, timing equipment, timing lights, and a laptop. In the northwest we have a thing called the WWSCC, western washington sports car council. Each event or weekend is put on by a club in the council, so we get a 10 event series with 5 or 6 different autocrossing clubs that all use the same timing equipment and a lot of the same people all show up to each one, but it isn't all the same people getting burned out from running each event.

 

Nice! You totaly peed in his kool aid

 

the problem is there is no place really suitable in Atlanta that doesn't cost a lot of money to rent, and then you have to come up with liability insurance to protect your group and the property owners. The SCCA typically provides $5mil coverage and has an extensive safety program, all the equipment, etc.

I'm not trying to pee in your koolaid, but you'd be better off just running with a local established group. The Atlanta Region SCCA group will be the largest and typically runs at the best available sites. The chances of you and your buddies throwing something together for a few bucks is slim to none unless you can somehow get the university to play along by allowing use of their parking lot, etc. as a school-sponsored student activity

 

pee in koolaid... classic!!!