[obscuretone]

I used to volunteer at a race track. The amount of bureaucratic shit to even get your car on the track makes it not worth it to most people, myself included.

Used to find back corners of industrial parks to have fun. Cops were cool with it. More than a few were there off duty doing the same.

[Zak]

I've gone to drag strips and autocross events in more than one US state and the extent of "bureaucratic shit" was roughly "Do you have a driver's license and a helmet? Is the car leaking fluids? Sign here that you won't sue us." I have the impression things are a bit tighter for road courses.

[obscuretone]

very much so.

I dealt with tech inspections and people would try to go on the track with worn out brakes and suspension all the time. Which is dumb but. So are people.

Even getting to that point means you've gone through the local amateur licence process, shown up to training days, etc.

You have to prove to a bunch of gatekeeping boomers you deserve to race.

[Zak]

A quick look around the web suggests you can do high performance driving events on serious race tracks with no experience at all. You may be required to do some laps with an instructor in the car and they have tight restrictions on passing. They'll probably want to check that your car isn't falling apart for obvious reasons.

If you want to do wheel to wheel racing with other drivers, then there's a license requirement involving a couple days of training with a four digit price tag.

Maybe we have different thresholds for what counts as "bureaucratic shit", but there seem to be some good options to drive fast under controlled conditions and compare your results to others. The most exciting and dangerous versions of it have some gatekeeping and I imagine most of the participants prefer it that way.

[obscuretone]

Depends on the track I guess.

[radley]

It's more about organizations. I'm in the Bay Area, and I've done Luguna Seca a few times through Hooked on Driving.

[obscuretone]

Fair enough. I know guys have that gone there. This was a much smaller amateur track in rural Canada.