Very true, many of the bigger events run larger courses where you definitely get to go faster, and the lots are generally much smoother, mainly because if they weren’t it wouldn’t actually draw enough people to be that large of an event… and a track event, well, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that wheel-consuming potholes on a track would probably upset a few people…
That being said, a woman from my work asked about the ‘races’ I was going to this past weekend… (she’s got a newer GTI, so of course she wanted to go race) - anyway, I had to explain to her how it was actually challenging and fun to do less then 70 mph in a parking lot around a bunch of cones. One thing that kind of put it into to her head was when I explained to her that you really need to empty everything out of your car so as to not have stuff flying around and hitting you possibly.
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, besides, I still enjoy racing motocross more than competing in autocross, of course, but- sadly, competing at even a regional level, autocrossing my car has been cheaper (still) than racing motocross.