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Message text written by Darren Madams
"The lesson: I hate quote Dennis Grant, but he said in a post that this
Import thing is _HUGE_ and if we could even tap a tiny percentage of it
we would be doing well. He's absolutely right, I've been in "the scene"
since I bought my Integra 6 years ago now and I've watched it grow. Every
person in that theater could/should be interested in autocross. I don't
want to start a debate about whether we want them, or whether we could
even possibly handle them all... but it's ignorant to ignore them."
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In some screwy kind of way, is this why you run a go-kart rather than your
Integra. Maybe you don't want to socialize with "those people" either?
Dennis Grant has a point, sort of.
And yes, he does have some personal problems that HE needs to deal
with.
Obviously there's this market for rice rockets. Most of the buyers are very
young and just not sure of themselves . . . yet.
Drag racing has a very broad appeal. However, unlike the glory days
of the '60s, there aren't many drag strips in California any more. I count
three (maybe four) today in Northern California: Sears Point, but only on
Wednseday nights; Sacramento Raceway; the Samoa strip in Eureka, and
Redding (and I'm not sure if this one is operating).
Plus the guy who wanted to build a strip next to Thunderhill in
Willows has switched his effort to an airport at Orland about 30 miles
north of Willows. It's a "paper" track at this point.
Southern California begins with the Famoso strip 18 miles north of
Bakersfield and includes Carlsbad; 1/8th mile Drag City in Banning;
Holtville; Inyokern; 1/8th mile at Irwindale Speedway; L.A. County Raceway
at Palmdale; Pomona (only runs twice a year). That's eight tracks but most
don't run that often.
As for autocrossing: We have seen numerous people come into the
sport and disappear. It's a constant. It ain't simple like drag racing
APPEARS to be. Early last year we had some behavior problems at 3 Com. With
membership required, most of that stuff has disappeared. Plus we are better
able to absorb new people at the current rate. As I recall there were 39
new people at our previous GGF event.
It's also good to note we all are volunteers.
The three full-time paid employees of San Francisco Region and its
Properties subsidiary are associated with road racing and the operation of
Thunderhill.
In sum, the logical outlet for rice rockets in Northern California
is street racing.
--John Kelly
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