FYI.
I just wanted to let you guys know that Martins new event site in Tavares is certainly worth going to. It is a police training pad, not unlike BCC/Palm Bay or Sunriders... It is, however, larger, smoother, and the skid pad is off to the side instead of integrated in. The facility has real rest rooms, showers, lots of shade, plenty of paved parking, and a nice grid area.

The courses will never beat Sebring or Gainesville for speed, but it was fairly impressive. It isn't a first gear site. I was able to get 1/2 way through second, and most cars can probably top out in second or maybe get into third. From downtown Tampa it took me about 1:40. The speed limit will get you there in 2:10.

This is not a knock against SCCA events, but it ran smoother than what I've grown accustomed to, there really were no delays, it was relatively cheap ($12 for members), and they have no class bumping, provide nice awards (choice of different types: several different styles of trophies, mugs, shirts, or $7 off of the next event), and generally was a professionally run affair.

Best of all, they have classes for poor bastards like me who can't afford to mod their cars and are still on street tires.


Take a trip in August.

 

I heard course design sucked...

and I personally HATE their run-work format.

 

hey where is their new site, i knew the name of it, but never gotr the right direcctions.

 

1300 Frankies Road Tavares, FL - Plug that into the driving directions area at www.Mapquest.com . It is the Lake County Technical Center. One thing I forgot to metion is that there are two firing ranges there. The near one (handguns) will be closed when there is an autocross, but there is still a rifle range open and the random gunshots can be a little disconcerting.

 

Me too! Of all the different ways it can be done, that has to be the worst.

 

You should have run their events in the early 80's. No one could work the course unless a member of Martin. Reason for that, any cone that was displaced, even by a millimeter, was a 3 second penalty. That way they could make sure that non members had a tougher time of winning. We used to have CFR SCCA Solo board meetings at Martin events. We could run and have a meeeting between runs.

 

It seems that there must still be some close ties between Martin and CFR East. They like to use the same stoopid run\work scheme.

 

So they are not running out at the Martin Merietta plant on Sand Lake Rd anymore, huh?
They've been racing at the plant since like the 60's or earlier...the pavement sucked big time too...I heard the mini-prixs were cool though. I wonder if they'll be back there for those events.
I can't remember how the run-work went...been over a year and a half since I was out there, but I do remember everything went smoothly the 3 or 4 times I raced there. I'll be looking forward to my future runs out there now that the pavement won't kill my meats.

 

They haven't run at Sand Lake since 9/11/01 due to security concerns. Last October's Mini Prix was at the road course in Gainesville. Doubt that any events will ever be at Sand Lake. Before 9/11 there was a guard shcak checking everyone who entered the site.

 

Just an update....I ran their August event and it was a letdown. I guess July was organized by different people. The August event was hampered by dozens of delays, a weird implementation of "rain rules" after my class had mixed dry/wet runs, and generally was a mess. I still like the classing (since I kicked ass), but would have been trounced by Ian, Meredith, & others if running the SCCA classing.

I'm internetLESS right now, so see you all at the Fairgrounds.