QOTD: Do We Need More Off-Road Parks/Race Tracks/Drag Strips?
Yesterday, I argued that we need more off-road parks. And more race tracks. And more drag strips. All in the name of keeping the flame for automotive enthusiasm alive, as well as growing it.
Some of you agreed with me in the comments, some disagreed -- but for those who didn't, well, here's another chance. Does my argument make sense, or am I off-base? I mean, to paraphrase Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, it is just, like, my opinion man.
Sound off below.
[Image: Ford]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Off road parks definitely yes ! I live near a drag strip in NW NJ and it's a sound I grew up with and missed the sound when they closed for a year . But one day about a month ago they had a tuner car audio expo . The whole town sounded like a giant sub-woofer from 10am to 6pm for miles around . Then the cars went boom boom booming down the road on the way home . These idiots will be half deaf before the age of 40 !
The more opportunities you present people with legal means to enjoy their hobbies, the less they are tempted to do those activities illegally. The challenge becomes making a business case out of the resulting facility. We have to be vigilant in preserving the facilities we have, as well as exploring options to expand when available.
Glad to see this discussion come up just as my Facebook is being flooded with ads for a race track event coming up near Toronto. Seems to be billed as a chance to see a lot of exotic cars, but also watch various categories of cars on the race track. This is the kind of event that might generate some interest in getting on the track.
Sorry for lack of detail, but I'm not doing this in attempt to spam, but more to show there are attempts being made to increase interest. That said, someone made the point that there are less and less people out there with something that could be driven on a race track (i.e. a car), so it does leave it to the grass roots type of racers to keep this going.
Where you going to build it? Even in Texas near Cat Springs they wanted to put up a country club for sport cars. People complained, mostly rich people who had weekend hobby farms. They said the noise would scare their cows. So they ended up in Dickinson, where they were more eager for development of any kind.