Deep Dive - A chat with Autocross Director Greg Uhler
/by Matt Gage
I first met Greg Uhler on my very first BMW CCA event in December of 2016. We became friends right away after bonding over our new M2s. I’ve seen Greg serve as the Newsletter Editor and as President, as well as take part in a host of other committees and events for our Chapter. Most recently, Greg stepped into one of our most important roles for one of our most important Chapter programs: Autocross Director. If you don’t know what autocross is or wondering if it’s for you, Greg’s story is inspiring because we all can relate. He stumbled onto his first autocross and was immediately hooked—and now he runs our program! Greg is an inspiration to me as a devoted family man, yet is able to dedicate significant personal time volunteering to create an event that is the highlight of many people’s years.
Myself, who is not involved with autocross, wanted to understand how it works and what it takes to put on such a program. I interviewed Greg to go deeper into this event and how he’s chosen to run it. Read further to understand everything there is to know about the San Diego BMW CCA Autocross program.
How long have you been involved in autocross?
My first autocross was in 1997. I was invited by a neighbor to an SCCA autocross and was like “what’s an autocross?” and he responded “Oh, it’s cone racing at the stadium!”. So I rode as a passenger in his Mazda RX-7 and my jaw just dropped. He was a good driver and I could not believe that we could do this legally. I owned a 1995 BMW E36 M3 at the time and somehow discovered there was a BMW club that did autocross. I went to my first BMW autocross in '97 and one of my first instructors was Dan Tackett. We’ve become great friends ever since!
I always enjoyed driving, but now I wanted to learn performance driving in my own car, in a safe environment. After autocrossing a couple of times, I learned that no matter how good I thought I was doing, when an instructor drove my car, he or she was many, many times better than I was. I just could not believe how capable both the car and the instructor were, so I knew there was a lot to learn and I could get so much better if I just kept working at it.
What were your motivations in becoming our autocross director?
After the break due to Covid and losing our venue (Qualcomm Stadium was torn down), there was a big void for autocross. I really wanted to give back to everyone and help restart our program. Our previous autocross director, Austin Varco, made it clear that he could no longer be director after 2022 due to his racing schedule, so I thought I might be the right person to fill the role in 2023. I love the sport, and am motivated to devote the time and effort required with the support of a really good team, of course.
Had you ever considered being our chapter’s Autocross Director before this?
I had not. In the past five years I got more involved with the program being an instructor and then a chief instructor, so I thought my involvement would continue to be from an instruction standpoint. I really enjoyed being an instructor because I love getting in a car, seeing what the driver is doing and how I can help them, whether they're new to autocross or an experienced driver. I just love seeing people grow, either improving their time, better mechanics behind the wheel, or just having fun together. I love seeing how happy people are that they know they’re improving. The clock doesn’t lie, huh? I love instructing but I felt I needed to take on a more organizational role to ensure we could restart our autocross program.
Are there any perks to being Autocross Director?
I can still give rides to participants or spectators, which is always a thrill. That’s always incredibly fun because the ride-along passengers may not know what’s possible and a fun lap can really open their eyes.
How did you go about resurrecting our autocross program?
So, working with last year’s autocross director Austin Varco, we found a suitable venue that we could rent. I helped run a test autocross in December of 2022, and collaborated with the team about what the format of the event could be like. We were able to keep that momentum going and just kicked off our first official autocross in February!
Who is the target audience for autocross?
There's definitely a few different segments of people who like to autocross.
One segment is those who’ve never done autocross but are interested in performance driving their own car. They want to learn what they and their car are capable of. Autocross is a great opportunity to do this and a good first step if you’re interested in improving your driving abilities. Autocross is lower speed and a safer environment than a track, and the BMW autocrosses offer free instructors to ride with you if you want.
Another segment are the autocross junkies who are the folks that just love their car, making modifications specifically for autocross, and really want a venue in San Diego in which to participate.
Another segment I can think of are people moving to San Diego who used to autocross wherever they lived previously and are looking for that here in San Diego.
What is a prerequisite for autocross?
A good idea would be to first attend one of our events as a spectator, see how it works, and get a ride with an instructor. That way you get to feel what it’s like but not have the responsibility of driving your car on the course.
If you think you’re ready to drive then you should sign up. One of the great benefits of our program is that we do have instructors that can ride with you for your entire session if you’d like. They'll talk about the mechanics of what your hands and feet should be doing inside the car, the importance of looking far ahead, being smooth with your inputs, etc. The instructor will help you with your driving line, your brake points, and your smooth acceleration to improve your lap time. This is a huge benefit of our autocross program. I personally learned so much so quickly because of good instruction.
Do you need a BMW to autocross?
Absolutely not. All you need is a membership to our club in order to autocross your own car. We have many driving enthusiasts who become members of our club simply to autocross their non-BMWs.
What would you say to someone who is really excited about autocross but is concerned because their BMW is also their daily driver?
I’ve autocrossed my daily driver for years. The parts of your car that will get some wear due to autocross are your tires and perhaps some extra wear on your brakes. Eventually, if you autocross a lot, you may want to consider getting an extra set of autocross-specific wheels and tires, so you don’t wear through your expensive street tires.
Another question we usually get is about warranty. To my knowledge, we haven't had any issues with someone being denied service on their vehicle if it was discovered that they’ve autocrossed it.
Autocross also makes you a better driver in general—not just on the track, but also on the road. Your ability to react to things and know what the car is going to do will be improved. If you’re driving in the rain and you have to avoid something and your car begins to slide, you’ll have experienced that before in a safe environment and you’ll have a better chance of naturally knowing what to do to get out of that situation. Our instructors really promote looking far ahead with your eyes because that’s vital to doing well in autocross. When you look far ahead, everything coming at you slows down, and that is very applicable to daily driving and avoiding accidents on the roads.
How safe is autocross?
It’s very safe. The speeds are relatively low 30-50mph. Within the course area, there's nothing to hit besides cones. We design the course to avoid all obstacles in case of a spin. It’s much safer than a track where if you go off, there could be walls to hit or uneven dirt that could flip your car. Autocross does not have that risk.
We also ensure your car is safe. We have specially trained crew who performs a tech inspection of your vehicle before you’ll be let onto the course to make sure there are no obvious mechanical issues. The crew will check things such as: loose wiring, brake pad thickness, tire wear, fluid leaks, motor mounts, and even items inside the cabin that need to be taken out because they'll move around during the event.
If my ultimate goal is to drive on a track, how can autocross help me?
I think autocross is a great way to learn car control and good driving mechanics in a safer, slower speed environment than the track. You're learning the right techniques in the autocross environment and then you can apply what you’ve learned to the track. We have people that prefer autocross because it's a single day, less expensive, and less risky. Some people, once they start doing track days, may want to build a race car and want to be on the track all the time because the speeds are higher, much longer laps, and they like traveling to the different tracks in their area. Some people, like myself, end up doing both since I like each one for different reasons.
What does it take to put on an autocross event?
To prepare for our first event, we had a team of six people meeting every week for several months. We covered the format of the event, who's doing what, and things would be arranged in the physical space for the new venue, course design, etc. We also had to negotiate the contract to rent the venue and get insurance for each event. Once all that was decided, we had to set up online registration and coordinate with 10 volunteer instructors and 20 staff members. We also needed to prepare the truck and trailer with all of the equipment for the event. Finally, we had to do all the advertising on our various social media for the event to get as many signups as we could.
On the day of the event, we have 10 volunteer instructors (to ride with and instruct attendees) and 20 staff members to help. The staff members first set up all the materials required for registration, tech inspection, grid, corner working, and the course itself. Then our timing crew hooked up and tested the timing equipment and software. After a brief driver’s meeting and corner worker meeting, participants begin driving or corner working, depending on their run group. At the end of the day, everything needs to be cleaned up and packed nicely in the trailer for the next event.
It’s a huge effort by a lot of people. We couldn’t do it without our amazing volunteers!
Tell me about the new autocross timing system we’ve invested in.
It's a reliable system compared to our previous system, which means less interruptions of the runs to fix any issues with the timing. Also, where we used to only time a few of the runs and write them down on a whiteboard, the new system posts live timing results to a website so participants can check them throughout the day. Eventually, once we’re more comfortable with it, it’ll require less manpower to run the new timing system for each event.
I really want to commend the timing staff because they were learning the new hardware, the new software, and several of them had never done timing before our first event. There’s a lot of pressure dealing with cone penalties, cars that spin and never go across the finish line, or any number of things that happen in real time. The team did an amazing job!
This past month in February, we held our first official autocross after the long Covid break. It was also our first autocross at our new venue at North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in Chula Vista. How did it go?
We’ve heard a lot of positive comments so far. Responses have said how helpful and professional everyone was. People also said they loved how much track time they got. Even though it's a shorter course than the old Qualcomm parking lot, attendees got to do as many laps as they could in about an hour. This meant you could drive almost continuously for about fifteen laps. This was different from our old format at Qualcomm where you’d only get four (longer) practice laps, then a long break, then four more practice laps, then another break, and then three timed laps. With our new continuous lap format, attendees got a lot more repetition and could work on areas that were very fresh in their minds without having to pause for long breaks.
Our new format also allows attendees to choose a morning, afternoon, or all-day session. I did hear from a couple people that this format allowed them to come to the autocross because they had another event later in the day that they needed to get to, but they could autocross in the morning. This split-day format is something we’re trying and showed good results in our first autocross.
How does this new North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre parking lot in Chula Vista compare to our old venue at the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot?
I was talking with one participant about this particular venue and they brought up a good point that “we shouldn’t compare between then and now…we have to compare between what our options are today.” Currently some clubs have been doing autocrosses up in Lake Elsinore which is almost two hours away from central San Diego. It’s a slightly bigger parking lot than our new venue but not by much. Our new venue in Chula Vista is only thirty minutes away for most people in San Diego. I think it is a great option to allow as many people as possible to experience autocross.
What does Autocross mean to our Chapter?
Autocross is a fantastic event for your members. It is the only large event (60-80 members) that happens multiple times throughout the year (we have 6 autocrosses schedule in 2023.). It's a driving event, a learning event, and a social event, all wrapped up in one. So there's a lot of benefits for our members from that perspective.
If autocross initially attracts you as a member, we hope that you will also enjoy our other events as well. We have our yearly Performance Center trip in Thermal, near Palm Springs, where you drive the latest BMWs at a dedicated facility. We have our High Performance driver education program event in May, where you take your own car and drive Buttonwillow Race Park. We also do social tours in the back-country where we practice safe driving on public roads. And as a member you get our monthly E-news which lets you know of all the events we plan and participate in throughout the year.
