Like the title says....I need to do some scouting

Two acres is about the minimum, and that's not counting the space required to park the cars attending the event. I've been to events on a lot this small, and it's pretty hard to design an interesting course on anything smaller.

You need to worry about noise, too.

One of the worst events I've been on was an SCCA divisional held at an office parking lot that was about 4 acres in size, almost square. The surface was breaking up, so very quickly there were marbles (concrete, not rubber) marking the most popular line. Go even slightly off that, and it was an instant spin. Fresh pavement is also not so hot, as it can also break up (and usually greatly annoys the owner). Well-aged pavement is best.

Damn I should know this seeing as I live on 23 acres but....how big is an acre?

I guess noise could be an issue.

Google to the rescue...



thats one acre...

The bigger the better...
The one that we used at the MUSR 06 was about 3/4 mile long by 1/2 mile wide.... Former WW2 helicopter training facility.... That did not include the parking areas - ALL course...

Looking at that sat map - you can have a good x-cross with 2 acres if your carefull. We had alot of auto-x's in school with that much space. Some of them got up to silly speeds and were a ton of fun, just have the pits somewhere else.

Local AX used Google Earth to search for locations. Light standards show up as shadows. Here's one of the three locations they use. You can see the staging area at the bottom and the course runs to the right and then up the long leg to the North.

one acre is about 41,000 square feet, or a little more than 200 feet by 200 feet

That's the info I need!

We use 400 x 500 and allows for a different course each time.

got to be wary of light poles. and as stated above surface is very important.

Cool!