Grocery Getter Racing Team @ The Driveway (Dial-up warning)

**TxSwimDad** · 03-26-2007, 10:54 AM

It's been 14 years since my autocross career was put on hold. I had the opportunity to go out with my old auto-x club, The Spokes. http://www.spokes.org/ If you have never autocrossed, you should! You will learn a lot about your cars abilities, which can translate to defensive manuevers on the street.

It was quite challenging to coax that Magnum around the course.

It was the heaviest car out there and it more than doubled the weight of the Shelby Cobra (2000 lbs) I used to race. It was great to have several folks stop by and want to see the car up close. They were often saying that they could not believe how well that huge car was doing. I had some cheering me on as I beat some of the older imports. It was quite humerous. Even some of those import drivers came over to shake my hand. Would I do it again? Oh yeah!!!! Next time I will be in the correct class. The techie/registration selected a different class than I had, but it really didn't make a difference. I left before the results were out, but honestly I doubt if I placed, but I definitely had a lot of fun!

This is just before the tires went up in smoke. I should have practiced without #17 fuse!

On the brakes hard for the slalom before a turn.

Turn 3 was turned into a decreasing redius for the autocross. The Hotchkis did it's job balancing the car.

At the end of the back straight as I pass a few speed scrubbing gates.

The autocross took place at a 3/4 mile private practice track here in Austin by the name of The Driveway. It is truely less than 10 minutes from the airport. I arrived in only 15 minutes from the 183/loop1 area. Those of you who followed cam-am and sports car racing might recognize the name Bill Dollahite. He is the owner of this facility. On Saturday, I stopped by to make sure I could find it when I needed to early Sunday morning. As I arrived, there was Bill. He gave me the royal treatment, including a jeep tour to show me the future expansion he is starting. All I can say is WOW! I can't wait and I hope to someday take a lap or two on that part. This course is not intended as a wheel to wheel track for cars, though the bikes & karts can & are loving it. For only $2500/day plus insurance, a group an rent the track and have fun.

DON"T WE NEED TO HAVE A TEXAS LX OR LEAD SLED EVENT????

Take a look for yourself. There is little public info out about this track. Yokohoma has just booked it for an upcoming driving event as has a few of the other biggies in the car world.

**BIGREDBEAST29** · 03-26-2007, 07:32 PM

That would be a great place to have an ALL Centex LX meet. Maybe we should talk about putting one together. I'm definatley game for it. $2500 shouldn't be hard to get together with 100 or so people.

**ratman1648** · 03-26-2007, 07:52 PM

uhhhh...did they just build it or tear it down because here is your image

and here is google Earth's

maybe G. Earth's image is extremely old or something

**Charg-um** · 03-26-2007, 08:00 PM

I would say google had that picture before it was built, look at the size of the trees.

**TxSwimDad** · 03-26-2007, 09:00 PM

Originally Posted by ratman1648

uhhhh...did they just build it or tear it down because here is your image

and here is google Earth's

maybe G. Earth's image is extremely old or something

Google earth is behind the times on this one. Looks like a couple of years.

This track was built about 5 years ago I am told. It was originally built by a local excavation company owner who loved karts, for his own use. He supposedly got a permit to add a "circular driveway" to this poperty. Apparently there is less mess to get a permit for a driveway than a road course

You think? Low and behold, it is not quite a circle.

More recently Bill purchased it and is getting all the right permits and political wrangling to make it happen. It has not been an easy task. Austin is a very enviro sensitive community. One benefit is that this is in the flight path the the airport so noise is not a biggie. Bill even purchased the land adjacent to this just to add another sound zone.

Bill is on the ball with this and makes a great salesman. I wish him the best to make this happen. I have offered to volunteer as staff to support the events he has coming up, just to do my part for the Austin sports car scene.

**TxSwimDad** · 03-26-2007, 09:18 PM

Originally Posted by BIGREDBEAST29

That would be a great place to have an ALL Centex LX meet. Maybe we should talk about putting one together. I'm definatley game for it. $2500 shouldn't be hard to get together with 100 or so people.

We still would have to hire the EMS and get insurance coverage for the event. An easy way to cover those, have tech inspections & get the timing equipment operators could be to pay the Spokes club to come run it for us. We can pay them a fee so we can all be available to play as much as possible.

I would propose that each particpant sign up for two hours of corner marshal duty. The rest of the time, you are running laps.

If there was serious interest in this, I will pursue it. I'll start a poll to try to determine what you would spend for it.