Tampa Bay Executive Airport

[w0rd]

Maybe too small for an autocross, but I thought it was cool anyway.
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/FL/TampaBayExec_FL_02_ramp.jpg
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/FL/TampaBayExec_FL_05_hangars.jpg

Notice the hangars are actually open, so maybe running through them is possible.

Taken from here... http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/FL/Airfields_FL_TampaN.htm

[chi town brat]

While going thru the hangers would be cool in a way I can't imagine the insurance the association would have to carry to cover any possible damages.

[RedOctober]

This airport has been closed for a while now. I'm not sure what the future plans for it are. But an autocross might be possible on the runway due to no flight activity. I will try to find out who is the current owner.

[D-Roll]

It would be nice to have an autoX event in Tampa. The hanger would be a dangerous area though, risky.

[RedOctober]

It would be nice to have an autoX event in Tampa. The hanger would be a dangerous area though, risky.


This airport isn't in Tampa. The airport is located on State Road 54 in pasco. It is located west of Gun Highway in Odessa area.

[w0rd]

But an autocross might be possible on the runway due to no flight activity.
The runway is only 48' wide. Not much you can do with that. At least nothing that can't be done better at Brooksville.

[RedOctober]

The runway is only 48' wide. Not much you can do with that. At least nothing that can't be done better at Brooksville.

Good point about the width of the runway. But I feel the autocross events at Brooksville aren't spectator friendly. The gates are only open for a short time in the morning, which is fine if you plan on running your car, but for the spectators getting there at such an early time makes for a very boring morning until the event starts. I pesonally would rather wake up a bit later, get some breakfast, then make my way to the event as it is just getting started. Just my opinion.
Thanks,
Chris

[jaball77]

We need to steal a couple of those hangars for Brooksville. How sweet would it be to have a covered paddock and grid area?

[Leonard]

Good point about the width of the runway. But I feel the autocross events at Brooksville aren't spectator friendly. The gates are only open for a short time in the morning, which is fine if you plan on running your car, but for the spectators getting there at such an early time makes for a very boring morning until the event starts. I pesonally would rather wake up a bit later, get some breakfast, then make my way to the event as it is just getting started. Just my opinion.
Thanks,
Chris

SCCA autocrosses aren't spectator events. (Before you argue with me that they are, read the insurance policy. I have.)

[fastforward]

why couldnt the access roads and the airstrip all be used? Sort'a like a mini-prix?

[mofugga]

Good point about the width of the runway. But I feel the autocross events at Brooksville aren't spectator friendly. The gates are only open for a short time in the morning, which is fine if you plan on running your car, but for the spectators getting there at such an early time makes for a very boring morning until the event starts. I pesonally would rather wake up a bit later, get some breakfast, then make my way to the event as it is just getting started. Just my opinion.
Thanks,
Chris
spectating at an autox is not fun, therefore who care's about the spectators

[w0rd]

spectating at an autox is not fun
Well maybe it isn't when you are driving, but I enjoy watching anyone else run. :)

Seriously though, I enjoy spectating.

[mofugga]

lemme correct myself, going with the intent to only spectate is boring ;)

[RedOctober]

Well maybe it isn't when you are driving, but I enjoy watching anyone else run. :)

Seriously though, I enjoy spectating.


I completely agree. If I can't run my car at the event due to a broken part or any other reason that is prohibiting my vehicle from entering; why should I just sit at home being bored? I would rather go to the event with the sole intention of just spectating, enjoying the racing and chilling out all day in my lawn chair with a cold soda.

[Alizarin]

why couldnt the access roads and the airstrip all be used? Sort'a like a mini-prix?
+1... might be kinda neat.


And a covered paddock/grid area for Brooksville would be hella cool!

[chi town brat]

Oh I have visited this airport in the past on a Saturday night for other street reasons :lol: oops

Anyway, maybe because it is abandoned we'll be able to use it.

The one way autox they did in Seabring was good and using the side roads is a good idea as well.

+1 for covered parking

[Spin Out]

It's hard to tell, but the uncover tie down area looks pretty big.
Couldn't we run in that big triangle and stage under the hangers.

[Presidential_Detail]

Kind of off topic, but an idea...recently porsche has been using the parking lot across from the Horse track on racetrack road for test and drives. they set up cones and make an auto-x course so i know it can be done, who holds the auto-x events and could maybe make this happen? Ill try to get a satellite image, but its a decent parking lot.

[mofugga]

Kind of off topic, but an idea...recently porsche has been using the parking lot across from the Horse track on racetrack road for test and drives. they set up cones and make an auto-x course so i know it can be done, who holds the auto-x events and could maybe make this happen? Ill try to get a satellite image, but its a decent parking lot.
sunriders, aka nasa, said something about running an event there awhile back. i've been on that lot many a time & can say that it is at best a subpar surface, think more gravelly/slippery than at zhills. i have not autox'd there but have parked lots of times & yea, it'd take a lot of work to make it a good surface, about all it has going for it, in my opinion, is that it's large. :)

[Presidential_Detail]

sunriders, aka nasa, said something about running an event there awhile back. i've been on that lot many a time & can say that it is at best a subpar surface, think more gravelly/slippery than at zhills. i have not autox'd there but have parked lots of times & yea, it'd take a lot of work to make it a good surface, about all it has going for it, in my opinion, is that it's large. :)

Yeah, it was just an idea...now that i think of it, it it pretty dirty...but we could change that if we really wanted to :D

[Loren]

Tampa Bay Downs... I can only guess that the big boys (Porsche, Subaru, etc) are offerring them a ton of money. A year or so ago, they offered us the site for $1500/day and said they required $5M of insurance coverage. At the time, we were the SunRiders club using K&K insurance with a $1M policy... and K&K quoted us (hold onto something) $8k per event to get $5M coverage!

NASA's insurance is $5M coverage, so I contacted them to see if we could get some dates for 2006 and was told that they had looked at the lot and decided that they didn't want to rent to us any more. (and now, since then, I've seen several car dealer events out there...)

Idunno. But, even if you can get it, it's NOT going to be cheap.

As for this Tampa Executive airport... good luck finding the owner, and it's highly unlikely that the owner will be interested.

[Alizarin]

sunriders, aka nasa, said something about running an event there awhile back. i've been on that lot many a time & can say that it is at best a subpar surface, think more gravelly/slippery than at zhills. i have not autox'd there but have parked lots of times & yea, it'd take a lot of work to make it a good surface, about all it has going for it, in my opinion, is that it's large. :)
Candidate area for a rally-x? ;)

[jblaine]

This is where we used to autocross in MA. Note building size. Note size of car next to building for scale.

Courses were 1:20 or so. New England SHO Club + "Other cars allowed". Capped at 40-45 entrants. 8 runs always.

I'm convinced I'll never have it that good again :)

http://www.kickflop.net/temp/ftdevens.jpg

[Presidential_Detail]

Where that rough terrain is...is that going downhill or uphill?

[URY914]

Hey the lotto is at $18m this week. If, I mean when I win, I'm building a a/x site. Covered paddock, grandstands, control tower, no woking the course, lights for night runs, lunch, etc, etc, etc.....

[bam2002]

If some one can get me the owners contact info I will get ahold of them. I have the backing of a major club and the Insurance needed.



I also have the #s on the amounts of cash that Brooksville is making. So its a very lucrative business if you have a site that can be rented out.



Bam

[Loren]

The website that w0rd linked to has an article that mentions who the current owner is. That might be a place to start.

[00ACCORD]

I would love to see this place turn into something useful for us. Plus I live right down the road from it

[bam2002]

I looked up the company that owns it. All the phone #s are no longer theirs.
The article says the runway is only 48 ft wide. VS 100 at Brooksville. So Im not quite sure how much usable room there is.

B

[Loren]

I had someone volunteer to do some legwork on this for NASA. The property has been sold to a residential housing developer and they plan to start construction there this fall. It sounds like they may have been willing to work with us, but there is no time. This one's gone.

[chi town brat]

another freakin housing complex , where do all these people come from?

oh well

[Alizarin]

another freakin housing complex , where do all these people come from?

oh well
A friend of the family who works as a realtor said alot of people from up north are selling their homes for mad $$$, then moving down here. They can get a huge house for the $400k their home up north sold for. Also, since the bay area has been "relatively" hurricane-free for a while, people from other parts of the state are starting to come here.

[Charles]

Yup, real estate is still dirt cheap here compared to up in that northern corner of the U.S.

[AScoda]

I propose a nice, hefty state income tax for all new residents. To be given directly to those of us that were born here.

[mikespeed95]

yall dont have insurance? is there not a scca region around here?

[Loren]

yall dont have insurance? is there not a scca region around here?

Of course we have insurance, and yes, there's an SCCA region around here.

Um... what's your question got to do with the topic at hand?

[mikespeed95]

Of course we have insurance, and yes, there's an SCCA region around here.

Um... what's your question got to do with the topic at hand?

Tampa Bay Downs... I can only guess that the big boys (Porsche, Subaru, etc) are offerring them a ton of money. A year or so ago, they offered us the site for $1500/day and said they required $5M of insurance coverage. At the time, we were the SunRiders club using K&K insurance with a $1M policy... and K&K quoted us (hold onto something) $8k per event to get $5M coverage!

NASA's insurance is $5M coverage, so I contacted them to see if we could get some dates for 2006 and was told that they had looked at the lot and decided that they didn't want to rent to us any more. (and now, since then, I've seen several car dealer events out there...)

Idunno. But, even if you can get it, it's NOT going to be cheap.

As for this Tampa Executive airport... good luck finding the owner, and it's highly unlikely that the owner will be interested.

clearer now?

[Loren]

Nope, not clear at all. Sorry.

In the statement you just quoted, I stated that the SunRiders club (the club I was with when I inquired to Tampa Bay Downs, which is what I was talking about) had $1M of coverage. And that NASA (the club I'm with now) has $5M.

Given that, I don't understand why you're asking whether or not we have insurance.

[mikespeed95]

well to quote your excuses on why you havent done an event here


Originally Posted by Loren
Tampa Bay Downs... I can only guess that the big boys (Porsche, Subaru, etc) are offerring them a ton of money. A year or so ago, they offered us the site for $1500/day and said they required $5M of insurance coverage. At the time, we were the SunRiders club using K&K insurance with a $1M policy... and K&K quoted us (hold onto something) $8k per event to get $5M coverage!


most readers would take this as you cannot (and for obvious reasons) afford $5M coverage at the dog track, as events do not bring in 9500 of revenue.

NASA's insurance is $5M coverage, so I contacted them to see if we could get some dates for 2006 and was told that they had looked at the lot and decided that they didn't want to rent to us any more. (and now, since then, I've seen several car dealer events out there...)

and from reading this part you are stating that nasa is not interested in doing an event in this facility.

Idunno. But, even if you can get it, it's NOT going to be cheap.

As for this Tampa Executive airport... good luck finding the owner, and it's highly unlikely that the owner will be interested.

pessimistic attitude discouraging another possible venue.


now to this


Originally Posted by Loren
Of course we have insurance, and yes, there's an SCCA region around here.

Um... what's your question got to do with the topic at hand?

so you have insurance that is not enough, therefore useless... and theres an scca region around here (which is funny, since everywhere in the us has a regoin around it, which does not necessarily mean events), but since TAMPA does NOT have events, as stated here

It would be nice to have an autoX event in Tampa. The hanger would be a dangerous area though, risky.

and that i am new to town, with several insurance outlets i can use, with $5M coverage, and less than 10% of what k&k quoted you, and once i get settled in i woud like to help the area be able to have its own auto-x and drifting events since there aren't any yet, i'm asking questions to understand what is around here, what isn't, and why there are/aren't events/venues around here. from what i've gathered in this thread i can guess that you possibly were trying to organize something, but im sure your pessimistic attitude had something to do with the fruits of your labor never quite ripening.

[Muddy]

:lol: Are you as big an asshole in person as you are online? Try doing a little research. Hey, look at the stickies right above this thread and you can find plenty of information about autoxing in central FL.

[mikespeed95]

this thread?

http://www.tamparacing.com/forums/auto-x-road-racing/241818-autocross-driving-event-schedule.html

i dont know where these places are since im new in florida, but everyone i ask tells me their locatoin in number of hours away. the closest being st pete and brooksville which are 1.5 hours away from what im told?

[Loren]

I'm catching up now, Mike. Thanks for explaining. Your question really seemed "out there" at first, which is why I responded as I did. Knowing a little more why you asked the question, it makes a little more sense.

1. Correct, SunRiders could most certainly not afford that insurance rate. No local autocross is going to bring in $8k just to cover the insurance.

2. Not quite. I might not have stated it clearly, but it was not us (NASA) who weren't interested in playing at Tampa Bay Downs. It was the dog track reps who decided they didn't want to work with us. They told us that they don't rent their lot out for that kind of thing any more due to the condition of the lot.

3. Yes, I can be pessimistic at times, but my pessimism is well-founded in reality. However, when someone presented me with the site owner contact info for the former Tampa Exec Airport (thanks, Brian), I sought out someone who could handle trying to contact them. Obviously, *I* am not a people person. I know this about me. :) I know to find someone with a silver tongue to approach site owners.

4. NASA's autox coverage is $5M and costs us somewhere around $350 per event. Worlds better than what K&K quoted a few years ago. The power of being part of a large organization, I guess.

5. Whew... yeah. The reason there aren't a lot of autocross events "in" Tampa & St. Pete is simply that there aren't a lot of places available to do it. Same problem exists nationwide, unfortunately. All of the old airstrip sites that used to be plentiful are being ripped out for housing or industrial projects or are just becoming unusable due to age. Places that used to have big parking lots either don't want to deal with the liability, or their parking lots have been redone with a more modern "green" look... which means curbing and islands and trees... completely unusable for autocross. And the places with REALLY big parking lots (anyplace that holds really big events) usually won't rent the parking lot separate from their facility, which puts them out of reach financially. It's no fun searching for an "urban" autocross site.

There are a couple of other threads here similar to this one that address several sites that have been used in the past, or have been investigated in recent years. Good reading if you can search them up. (I'm not sure what to tell you to search for... maybe "fairgrounds", "tropicana", "tampa bay downs", etc)

[Loren]

this thread?

http://www.tamparacing.com/forums/auto-x-road-racing/241818-autocross-driving-event-schedule.html

i dont know where these places are since im new in florida, but everyone i ask tells me their locatoin in number of hours away. the closest being st pete and brooksville which are 1.5 hours away from what im told?

1.5 hours away from where? If you're in downtown Tampa, SPC in St. Pete isn't more than 30 minutes away. Brooksville is about an hour if you take the expressway.

Don't take this the wrong way... but I think Muddy's right, you should do a little research. Find the clubs that are putting on the events, they all have websites and most of them will have a map or an address or something to tell you where they hold their events. Then figure out how far these places are from you REALLY rather than speculating based on what you've heard.

[mikespeed95]

cool beans, i didnt know it was that close, once i get my car repaired from wall damage @ infenion i hope to see some you guys at the st. pete events, as those are pretty close.

but i dont think nasa likes disclosing their prices ;)

but i will say k&k is rediculous when you call them out of the blue, although sometimes i can get them same price.

[Loren]

NASA-X Tampa's standard autocross entry fees this year are $30 for members and $40 for non-members. I don't remember if it's stated on the website or not.

[Alizarin]

All of the old airstrip sites that used to be plentiful are being ripped out for housing or industrial projects or are just becoming unusable due to age.
As we have noticed with Zephyrhills airport. Heck, even Brooksville is starting to chunk.

[obrien2]

Just curious, have you guys looking into using the fair grounds? I participated in an event there with a local corvette club, and we had a blast. I don't know if its an option, but thought I would through it out there.

[Loren]

SCCA used to run autocross events there. Scheduling nightmare from what I understand.

[Muddy]

The corvette club was using a different part of the fairgrounds than the scca. The area the corvette club was using is a bit narrow to allow for much imagination. The area the scca was using is used for event parking.

[robofunc]

The fairgrounds were fun—that's where I tried autox for the first time. I really liked that site.

[Topher]

Yeah...GO FAIRGOUNDS!. That crossover at mid track was really wild, plus all the avalible shaded parking and good access from wherver your coming from.

[obrien2]

I really enjoyed the 2 courses that we ran out at the fair grounds. I quess I liked it becuase there were some spots that allowed me to stretch out 2nd gear. I know most of you guys like shorter tighter courses so I quess its more of a preference.

[bam2002]

Is was as of 05 under new managment.. jacked up the price almost 5 times than any other site. Needless to say No one has use their site.

We are talking to the upper managment to see if they are up for a reality check. More to come.

[AScoda]

Something that also might be worth checking is the Roadmaster trucking school site that is on the west side of the fairgrounds. If they don't have weekend classes, might work.