Autocross

[silverdemon]

Hey there!

Last weekend I went to an Autocross event and I thought I'd show you some of the pictures I made.

Most of the cars there were cheap pieces of crap, driven by amateur drivers who can thus 'race' with a tiny budget:

sometimes the drivers a a bit too optimistic and things go wrong

all cars are fitted with safety roll-cages, so the drivers who crashed are fine

there was also a class just for beetles

in this class there was a real big accident. the car in the picture rolled 4 or 5 times. Unfortunately I had turned my camera off when the accident took place, so this out-of-focus picture is all that I have

the car was wrecked, I think only the engine can be used again. the front left and the right rear were bend several centimeters (or inches) and I guess the whole chassis is bent as well

And last but not least there was a 'sprinter' class with amazing pieces of engineering! This car has two (2!) 1000cc Honda motorcycle engines tuned by 'ten Kate' (who also have a team in the world championship motorracing)
These thing were blindingly fast!

If you ever have a chance to see these sprinter-cross-buggy things in action, you should. The speed will amaze you. reportedly they can reach 100kph (60mph) in 3 second ... ON DIRT!!!

well anyways, I had a nice day, hope you like the pictures

[Luke122]

the car was wrecked, I think only the engine can be used again. the front left and the right rear were bend several centimeters (or inches) and I guess the whole chassis is bent as well

Dude.. am I wrong, or is that a DOHC Honda engine I see?

[silverdemon]

I am not a 100% sure, but you might be right...

I believe the rules state that the chassis should be from a beetle and some body-parts should be beetle, but the engines are free (as long as they are of a certain size etc..)
I'll upload another picture for you in a minute...

[edit]

[Luke122]

Yup, almost certainly a 16B engine. Cool.. those put out some pretty decent power! Also, it's cool to see one longitudinally mounted, since they are designed for transverse mounting. I wonder if they have any oiling/cooling problems in that configuration..?

Either way, I bet those bugs are a BLAST to drive.

[chaksq]

Cool stuff.

European autocross in not the same as autocross in the US. That is more of what we call rallycross, although I usually see better cars even at rallycross. In the US autox is done on pavement, I actually occasionally run my daily driver in some autocross:

My first event:

Second event:

[silverdemon]

Actually this stuff is also called rallycross in Europe, but this was a minor (regional) event and most of the people there will call it 'autocross', I guess it would be car-cross if you translate it literally.

[Snowman]

Chak you got a lotta roll in that sub, need to lower it... sorry crap that was my volkswagen forum starting to come out in me.. looks pretty good but seriously you are sitting too high on too soft of suspension its a good thing you didnt have a fat chick in the passenger seat.