24 Hours of Lemons
24hoursoflemons.com
24hoursoflemons.com
Edit: I found the wrap up video: https://youtu.be/Ga9i_qgZLRo?si=_b-8nyFG8G13Yqsj&t=163
Edit: short description in English: https://www.jyr.nl/index.php/general-information/
Sweden and Finland do also have the same, is called folkrace there
This is quite popular in Finland, with racers as young as 14, to stop people spending their way to winning anyone can offer to buy a competitor car for €2,000 and the owner can't refuse.
You might also try Reddit (the iRacing) or the iRacing forums for like minded folks near your time zone(s).
The core group of devs from iRacing are Papyrus alumni.
And being a team sport it also is a great way to build wonderful friendships. Highly recommended if you really want to spend some time on track in a wheel-to-wheel racing environment.
The cars were cheap cars that folks in the area picked up, lots of elbow grease ... and they had a race. Usually there would be a demolition derby between heats, and if they had a lot going on a mud run too.
That's not a criticism, it seems very fun.
Less safety required!
Some orgs do this, like SpeedSF in the Bay Area.
I'd recommend an HPDE after that if it's something someone would like to try (basically a track day with a coach who rides along with you every session to give advice and instruction).
That said, autox is a lot of fun and I highly recommend it to any driving enthusiast
You pay $80 or whatever and get to do as many runs as you like throughout the day. Sometimes they change up the course layout halfway through.
SpeedSF's organizer for that event will go out periodically and adjust the cones and stuff. Although in my experience they get lazy halfway through the day.
But the idea is it's nothing fancy like a standard autox event. It's just a cone course to mess around on to work on handling and inputs.
This way there's absolutely no pressure. You're just there to learn your car in a small relatively controlled environment.
For something run by a group like TrackMasters or GGLC or PCA, then you're definitely correct, you'll have somewhere between five and ten runs depending on how smoothly it goes, you'll work the course for a while, and you should view it as a fun day of hanging out with people who like cars and you'll get to drive a bit.
You're also definitely correct that autocross is a lot of fun and anybody who is interested in driving their car for the joy of it should try it out.
Like others said, "$500 car" is not indicative of your costs. The "$500 car" rule is to control the type and quality of cars being entered, the spirit of the event is "cheap cars that aren't all that fast in the grand scheme of things". you'll easily spend $5k building a car, probably more like 8 or 10. Lemons is real racing, and requires a complete safety setup in every car (full cage, fire suppression, full fireproof race gear for every driver, etc...)
We run in the middle of group B in a very non -cheaty car. When we have 3 drivers cost per driver per event is in the $700 range includ ing entry fees and brakes/tires/gas. Thats an amazing vakue for ~5 hours of seat time per driver, if you are on track the whole time.
Some great things about lemons:
- you need a team, so instead of having to figure out all the stuff yourself (the race car, getting the car to the track, etc.) you'll have motivated people to help you
- because the goal is to still be running at the end of the 2nd day, drivers mostly look out for one another on track
- other teams are super helpful to newbs. Our neighbor in the pits welded up a spot on our cage, we ended up borrowing tools and safety equipment from 3-4 different teams, and we got lots of quality advice
- the rules and culture of the series help keep costs down as much as seems possible
My latest budget for a car that can finish a race is around $10k. Don’t get sucked into building your own. Buy used or “arrive-and-drive.”
We took a few years off during the pandemic, but the team has been going with the same car (with several different themes) since 2008.
Also underrated is the nightlife at the track once the racing is done for the day. It's so much fun to stay after hours, walk the pits, see all the other garages, drink their alcohol, etc.
OTOH, I just saw someone pick up a 98 Lexus GS300 for under budget. Deals can be had.
Most importantly, safety equipment is not part of the budget, so you can spend as much as you want on seat, racing harnesses, roll cage, fire suppression system, tires, brakes, and so on. Plus driver gear (suits, helmets, HANS restraint devices, cool suits, etc. Some teams even run racing fuel cells as that counts as safety equipment as well.
So really, the $500 budget is to acquire the car (minus stuff you sell from it), plus whatever you spend on mechanical (reliability, go-fast bits, repairs, etc).
Also, the penalty for going over is generally that you have penalty laps applied to your car, which is not that big a deal, because very few teams will ever win or even compete for a win, and the prizes aren't that large anyway (and often get donated to a charity).
Our car happens to conform to the budget and is very well-documented, but many are sketchier, and it doesn't make the racing less fun.
You must be real fun at parties.