It's exciting, takes serious navigation and driving skills if you want to be a serious competitor, and yes it can be dangerous.

IMO the most difficult job is being a navigator, not only because the bumpy ride makes seeing your notes difficult to read at best when meandering along at 150 plus, but for the big brass ones it takes to sit in the passenger seat while you quite literally place your life and all control into the drivers hands.

IMO It's definately a "bucket list" item if you are a serious car guy.

Motivation? You get to drive fast!

I live in a town one of the races starts in. I get a charge out of sitting about a quarter mile from the starting line and seeing which drivers are really trying to get to the average speed the quickest...

Are you one of the people out there along the side of the road as we pull through to the starting grid from the truck-stop staging area? It amazes ma how many town folk in Ely and Lund sit out and watch the cars go by in the wee morning hours.. W leave Ely around 6. Funny thing is, even with the police escort, most of us are hitting triple digits on the drive down to Lund. The cars toward the front start to lag and create a NICE gap and after each of the corners we "catch up." I've been in the middle of that conga-line doing 110+ with the red/blue flashing about 10 cars back... Good times and a great way to get warmed up/ the head in the game on a frosty morning.

JCC,
Your original question has been pretty well answered, but reading your assumptions, maybe add some insight from another direction. Autocross is very different than road racing. (Solo is the SCCA name for autocross) Behind the wheel it is very quick non-stop action but the car's forward speed rarely exceed 70 and then only for a second or two. You generally try to drive the car at 10/10s for the entire time. There is room for mistakes, and you get three tries (if following SCCA National rules). There is no practice for most autocross events but you do get to walk the course.

The Silver State type events ask the driving team to hit 10/10s on the predicted average speed. But that's rather different than hitting 10/10s on car control (or loss of it). One could consider the qualifying part of road racing a 10/10s game, but in reality its not. Everyone knows that the machine and driver has to survive to win and running on the ragged edge the entire time is a big big gamble. Of course it takes great skill and experience to know the difference between 95%, 99%, and 100.1%! That's the beauty of autocross, when you exceed 100% grip there's usually no damage (other than your ego).

JCC, I honestly don't think you'll know unless you try. Since they start you out at such a low speed (relatively) it wouldn't require tons of prep to see if you like it.

And yes, I typically sit on one of the hills to the east side of 318 and watch the cars shoot past. I camped down at the narrows with my dad once but the height made it look like the cars were hitting maybe 75 in the turns. Not much thrill factor there.

I'm disappointed now. I'd always thought this would be the best possible venue to race a car. I was planning on it someday. But now you say its not even a 'race', but a 'challenge'...??? It sounds like bracket racing for real cars. Maybe you have to be in the 'unlimited' class to actually 'race'...???

Hahahaha.
I had ideas like that too.
Those days are gone if they ever really existed. Most of it is the creation of rag writers and marketing men sorry to say. For the most part, your not going to be able to 'race' a real street car. The rags like to make everything into 'racing' but thats a very loose use of the word racing. The truth is autocross is timed competition, rally is in a creative way. 'Track days' type performance driving events rarely allow transponders or other timing devices. Why? Because they know human nature and a percentage of people will do something stupid with a little incentive to get quicker lap.

So nowadays real wheel to wheel racing is with rule restricted, safety prepped cars and you'll need a drivers school which is usually 3 days plus a logbook of your racing (wheel to wheel) experience. Circle track and carts may be a bit easier on driver schooling in some classes.

I like to think rallys through the 60s and even original trans-am and early Cannonballs were somewhat like that picture you painted, but by 1970 it was fast disappearing. You can see parallel changes in drag racing and stock car.

However the other part is the good news and it didn't take me too long to learn. Take whatever car you have, preferable in sound working condition, and get a taste for one of the 'non-racing' activities. You'll have fun, and you'll know a lot more about what dream you want to pursue.