Well, I met with the folks at Race City today, and looks like there's some excellent news. Race City is changing their procedures a bit for Secret Street for the better! A bunch of concerns were brought up :
http://forums.beyond.ca/showthread.php?threadid=52610
and they listened and will have changes starting with the Friday Aug 6th 2004 Secret Street event.
Tech Procedure
There will now be 2 tech lines. If your car runs 13.99 or faster, you will go to the normal tech line, so existing tech procedures still occur. If your car runs 14.00 or slower, or is only running in AutoX, you will go to the new quicker "basic/autox" tech line.
In the basic/autox tech line, it'll be a fast quick walkaround of your vehicle. Quick check to ensure your tires are OK, battery is tight and you're ready to run. No hassles.
For insurance and registration, if your last name and address on your driver's license matches the insurance and registration, you will be allowed to run. You should still bring a permission slip just in case, but they WILL allow you to run and may call your parents to ensure that the permission slip is valid. No more turning away cars/drivers because names don't match, or wait 2 weeks. This will allow anyone who's cars are listed under their parent's name for occassional driver status (pretty much every asian under 25 haha).
AutoX Pricing
Basically, the price will not change for AutoX. $25 for Drag, Add $15 more (total $40) for AutoX. The reason is because the lights are expensive to run, use up a lot of power. The problem is that if the price goes down, they'll lose money and rather not run. If more cars show up, you'll get less track time. Honestly, if you've run Solo2 events before, $40 is a great deal for the amount of runs you get.
Next year, there will be changes in this area. The oval practices will not be held on Friday nights anymore, so AutoX can start earlier. If AutoX starts and ends early enough so the lights aren't turned on, then a price reduction is possible.