Hey guys, pardon my laziness (not doing my own research), but I wanted to find out here what the NW has to offer as far as autocrossing and roadracing.
My wife as an opportunity to land a seriously decent job and I'm looking for more "pros" to add in my "pros & cons" list.

Thanks!

 

Traffic sucks everywhere and it always rains, but there's no shortage of car related activities. There's something going on just about every weekend during the summer.

 

http://www.portlandraceway.com/

Check the schedule. Between PIR, Pacific raceway (Seattle), Bremerton, Mission (BC) and Spokane you could probably find a event to participate in every weekend from May through September...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by johng &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Traffic sucks everywhere and it always rains, but there's no shortage of car related activities. There's something going on just about every weekend during the summer.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

SO true. There's about 2.5 monthes of good weather. Other than that, it sucks. Traffic is HORRIBLE. I commute from Vancouver Wa, to Portland Or which is a 18 minute drive in the middle of the night. This morning 52 minutes, and this evening more than an hour for sure. Besides that..... it's nice. Hey, misery loves company, come on over.

But like Greg said, there are plenty of tracks. Portland International Raceway is a great road course, and the racing community around here is very active. There are MANY track days available if you want to drive them, and many of the track events have an autocross attached as well.

The true draws of Portland are the Microbrewerys , and strip clubs. Uh... I wouldn't ever actually visit a strip club, but I've heard they're phenominal in Portland Micro's for days! It's actually a real nice area to live in as long as you're prepared for $h!tty weather. Actually though, I just got done driving from Vancouver WA to Lake Canandaigua NY, via SLC.... and I'd have to agree with most of the people who have moved here. This IS one of the most beautiful places in the US as far as I've seen. The only place I'd love to move to if I had a chance would be San Diego CA, but it'd cost about 3 million to replace my crib down there, so I think I'll stick around here.

You're within close proximity to mountains, rivers, beach, as well. All within 1-2 hours. If you windsurf, the Hood River area is one of the best places on this here planet, and it's only an hour out of Portland. Plenty of excellent restaurants, and things to do.

Come on out, join us. We'll buy you a beer.

 

There are many great things about the PNW, mostly the great outdoors. If you like the Mountains, and many lakes, and plenty of motorsports activities as well, you will not have a problem here.

The one thing I have seen people move here and then away again for is the weather. We do not have real seasons here, only summer and extended fall. No cold winters. I tend to like this mild climate, but there are some that insist on definitive "seasons" and colored leaves and stuff.

 

Sorry guys I wasn't specific enough. Though I wish it was the Seattle area, were looking at the San Fran. area. Is that still considered Northwest?

Thanks for the info so far!

 

LOL, the Bay Area may as well be another country. You do have a great point about what we call our regions.

West Coast=California
SoCal=LA
NorCal=Middle Part of California
PNW=Oregon+Washingon+Vancouver BC

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by emwavey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Sorry guys I wasn't specific enough. Though I wish it was the Seattle area, were looking at the San Fran. area. Is that still considered Northwest?

Thanks for the info so far!</TD></TR></TABLE>

BAY AREA..... bummer. Prepare to rent for the rest of eternity, or commute for at least 2 hours each way. That is unless she's making more than 250k per year.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by emwavey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">were looking at the San Fran. area. Is that still considered Northwest?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Nope. Not even the same ballpark.

As for shortbus and jhill, shaddup already! The more people find out about our little slice of paradise, the more they'll move here, *** up traffic even more, raise property rates, and tell all their friends from 'back home' to move here too.

So, yeah, I hear it's really nice in San Fran. Go there



Modified by johng at 1:33 PM 7/14/2003

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by johng &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
So, yeah, I hear it's really nice in San Fran. Go there
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Yeah we've visited Seattle a few times, and, oh it's absolutely horrible there. It rains all the time, the salmon is completely yucky, the people are all rude... and the coffee sucks.

 

Benefits of Bay Area Autocrossing/Roadracing:

With all the autocross clubs within a 1 hour drive you can autocross almost every weekend.

San Francisco SCCA
Sacramento SCCA
NASA AutoX
American Auto-X
Empire Sports Car Club
PCA (2 local chapters)
BMWCCA


For track events:
~1 hour to Sears Point
~2.5 hours to Thunder Hill
~1.75 hours to Laguna Seca
There's also Buttonwillow but I don't know how long it takes to get there (2.5 hour guess)

 

Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for!!!

 

Oops forgot the Cons:

Bad traffic
Bad roads
Expensive

Have you looked into housing costs yet? Depending on where you want to get a house or apartment it can range from ridiculous to outrageous.

-Jeremy (who once paid $900/mo for a one bedroom apartment during the worst of inflated rent costs)

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Geratol &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Oops forgot the Cons:

Bad traffic
Bad roads
Expensive

Have you looked into housing costs yet? Depending on where you want to get a house or apartment it can range from ridiculous to outrageous.

-Jeremy (who once paid $900/mo for a one bedroom apartment during the worst of inflated rent costs)</TD></TR></TABLE>

Bad roads are offset by the cool roads East of San Francisco. 8)
- I rented a Miata while visiting my wife on business travel, and had opportunity to go "spelunking".

Housing? Yeah, it's sickening! $400,000 for a rancher with no basement, eeek!
But we're still lookin' around.

Thanks again for the info.

 

I can only hope that Seattle got better after we left and the tech bubble burst. Not that I am complaining about gaining $100K in equity in our house in 5 years or anything but the sense of entitlement of the average Seattleite was getting nauseating...

"I'm sorry - you must not know that I am the most important person in the most important tech start-up in the world. Without my option-swollen genius it would be impossible to leverage realtime enterprise-level knowledge management to generate tiered returns on asset management strategies, off-line F2F human factors multipliers, and OWEBLT.** Now, I shall drive on the onramp shoulder to pass you wage slaves to get into the I-5 parking lot."

Now the food? That I miss...

Kirk

** Other web-enabled bullshit like that

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Knestis &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Now the food? That I miss...
</TD></TR></TABLE>

And the Redhook brewery...

 

Mmmm. The school where I taught was just a couple of miles from the Redmond brewery. We used to call it the "teachers lounge." Before that, my business was about 50 yards from the Fremont pub - it was the "marketing department."

K

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Knestis &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
"I'm sorry - you must not know that I am the most important person in the most important tech start-up in the world. Without my option-swollen genius it would be impossible to leverage realtime enterprise-level knowledge management to generate tiered returns on asset management strategies, off-line F2F human factors multipliers, and OWEBLT.** Now, I shall drive on the onramp shoulder to pass you wage slaves to get into the I-5 parking lot."

Now the food? That I miss...

Kirk

** Other web-enabled bullshit like that
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Classic, very very funny stuff! Nicely done Kirk!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RacerBowie &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Classic, very very funny stuff! Nicely done Kirk!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Well I gotta dock two points for leaving out a paradigm shift and win-win

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by phat-S &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Well I gotta dock two points for leaving out a paradigm shift and win-win

</TD></TR></TABLE>

I can definitely "stack hands" on that!

Scott, who works in a Dilbert enterprise par excellence....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RR98ITR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Scott, who works in a Dilbert enterprise par excellence....</TD></TR></TABLE>

Speaking of Dilbert (and points docked), to completely derail my own post, I pose this question:
Why in the world would Dilbert "strip" author live in Northfield, NJ?

Even more scary to think I work in the same facility that inspired his self-medicating, work-place satire.

(picture: bending over and putting H/O scale train back on track)