race today

[TouringBubble]

No hard feelings Matt....

Look forward to the next event if I'm in town and can make it.

Of course not man. Like I said, friendly discussion ... we talked about things and in the end it's not as subjective as I thought. Just sounds like a good discussion to me.

I hope you can make it too. I've run very well on the new tires and would like to see how I stack up against your times before the "good" wears off of me.

[OverDrive418]

The "stop box" could be renamed the "slow the hell down and watch for traffic" box! I don't believe we'd have to come to a complete stop per say, but at least slow to a "California stop" before you exit. My only complaint I guess was the few who hardley stopped at all and just exited the course with, what seemed from my point of view (WS#1), no regard or way to avoid any oncoming traffic from the BRC workers or patrons if any were in the area. It would only take one incident like that and that would be the end of everyones fun. A U-shaped stop box helps in this regard but again, space is limited so who knows.

I think this is the most hotly contested topic on this site so far!

I agree with Clay that, coming from the CFR region myself, racing in other clubs is a great learning experience as far as what works and what doesn't, or what could work if maybe you did it this way. Being that we're all volunteers CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is key to working this stuff out. Not everyones going to like the idea of a "slow the hell down" box but it is something that can be incorporated without stepping on toes.

[Cholewa]

Just to chime in and disagree with clay only because he's far superior to me.

While the rules are the rules, did that stop us from using the turn around during the SSSS, where the curb was maybe 3 feet away from cones? Pretty sure that is considered a solid object and should be at least 25 feet away from the course/intended path.


Now then, back to the discussion at hand. I really really really don't see what everyone's problem is with putting a slow down feature in before the lights, so you have a chance to blast through the lights at a slower pace. I recall an event last year where we finished with a left hairpin, with the entrance downhill and the exit uphill, and had to then turn slightly to make it into the lights. Everybody was able to get that last second push into the lights that's so ingrained into our brains, and we were able to make the finish short, since cars were already slowed down enough before the lights.

Why can't we do things like that more often? People come to autocross' to have a good time while testing their car control abilities. If we don't put something technical in that can make or break a run, what's there to test? Tight technical courses are a pain for most everyone, and big open fast courses are super fun (typical Clay course), but i've seen plenty of finishes that were quite unsafe at BRC and nobody seemed to care. Even after the timing lights and reflector boxes were taken out multiple times, we still had he 60mph finishes.

Its almost a little hypocritical to say that safety is your first objective when a good portion of your courses break the suggested speed limits on course (and i'm not talkin about the fast cars, if the rabbit gets up to 60 that's a feat) and the finishes are full out, off camber, post slalom/sweeper/some sort of turn finishes with necessary 200' braking zones. I'm no course designer, I'm no safety steward, I'm not even a great driver, and I admit that you do qualify for all the above, but sometimes you make some scary courses.


PS: Clay, you're awesome and this post is in no way an attack on your character or anything of the sort. I just wanted to post my view of things.

PSS: You also cheat.

[claym]

PSS: You also cheat.

I do agree with Michael that we stretched the rules interpretation for the SSSS with the transition between lots. But we made extra sure that cars were really slow and under control thru the section, and I don't remember any problems at the events I attended. But that is a moot point now

As far as the speeds of the course, I try to design courses that are similar to the type and speed of National Tour type courses. Those courses are usually all 2nd gear and some 3rd gear for shorter geared cars like Miatas (55-65mph). Some have even been short bursts of 3rd gear vs riding the rev limiter in 2nd gear. They try to refrain from the features that require you to shift down into 1st gear due to the tightness. They also try not to punish wider cars like Corvettes and Mustangs with features that are too tight.

I started out running at Gardendale HS parking lot (about the size of the lot last Sunday). I always thought it was fast till I went to other regions and Divisionals (there were no Tours) and did not feel comfortable driving my car at the limit at higher speeds. Once I learned the higher speed handling, the lower speed stuff was easier also.

It will be difficult to have the higher speed events on the lower lot, and different designs will be more difficult to apply without getting slower speeds or even first gear corners. Eric did an excellent job for the first event down there, and I commend him for it. My courses have never been as fast as most national's type courses, but are faster than most at the BRC. And if you look at the time differential on some of those faster courses, you will see that they also have many fast technical features (shown by big discrepencies in time between drivers in the same class).

I've had a good day at work today and have enjoyed the stimulating conversation. But it's really hard to take comments from the driver of a Rabbit with auto trans seriously

Smack time...

[aufoxy]

Just talking to matt here....

Sometime if you wanna shadow Clay in course design, I got your back. Katie can help me. We've got it covered I promise!!! Maybe even Erik can come help if the sky starts falling or something :-P Heheheheh

[hondamaint]

At first I was sad we had to miss the last autocross but we had the TT at TGPR a week before and this weekend we have the Rallycross so there was no way we could do 3 weeks in a row.
I am glad now that we missed it . Stop box or no stop box,can it be that big of an issue.We would have ran the course and as long as there was no real danger and would never have said a word.Did it work,they admitted it did not.Did they try something different to make everything safer,yes and that is a good thing.The only real safety thing anyone said were flat spot's on tires that I remember. I may be wrong and there may have been death and destruction possible but to tell the truth I just hate I wasted as much time as I did reading it the first time.

[engled]

Pop posted a few pictures.

http://www.alscca.org/community/showthread.php?t=1659

[jimkana]

I kind of dropped out of the discussion, but let me re-address something related to the finish that seems to have been missed. I quote myself:

Several of you heard me say before we drove that this course was going to be slow, tight, painful and over in 30 seconds. In reality, it had a pretty good flow, was a lot faster than I expected, had a couple of technically rewarding points and lasted right about a minute.

All that to say that I expected the cars to already be moving slow by the time they hit the kink at the end, and could trip the lights at a slower speed. It worked out to actually be a fast section that was a real gut check.

I know there have been comments about the kink before the finish, the need for a slow feature prior to the lights, blah, blah, blah. The reality is that I really thought that the slalom was tight and slow and I did put a gate prior to the turnaround/finish that I thought would further pinch everyone and thus it would be slow. I was wrong about the speed there at the finish. A more experienced course builder like Clay would have seen that it was actually pretty fast. Sorry.

As to the stop box/slowdown box - it was intended to be a LONG lane with plenty of room to slow down. Remember, I thought this was going to be a slow course. And the purpose was not an actual stop, but a place to make sure everyone slowed down that visually looked intimidating, but actually was quite safe. As for the safety of the box itself, without being defensive, there was simply no way it could have been safer, given the lot we have. We could have made the "box" the only feature in an entire section of pavement and somebody would grandstand about needing more runoff room. Whatever.

The fact is, we had wa-a-a-ay more room on all sides than was necessary by any reasonable standard. The only danger, which the box was there to prevent, was from someone running really fast out into the road. There were a few drivers who simply did not slow down. Red Mist will do that, but after Rod talked to them, they settled down pretty well. I did see one worker who went to reset a cone at the end of the box, who moseyed over and moseyed back while never seeming to acknowledge that a car was bearing down on him because his back was turned away from the course. Course workers always need to move quickly (ie: RUN!) and never turn their back on a car. That needs to always be addressed in the driver's meeting (and usually is).

But other than those limited incidents, the kind which happen at every event, the finish was about as safe as it could have been made. I do not consider the risk of hitting cones to be in any way dangerous at the finish. Frustrating and annoying, but not dangerous.


As Forest Gump would say: "Thats all I got to say about that."

[jimkana]

Pop posted a few pictures.

http://www.alscca.org/community/showthread.php?t=1659

Great - the one picture I am in, and its the one with my gut sticking out. Haven't you guys heard of Photoshop?

[rodhx]

Great - the one picture I am in, and its the one with my gut sticking out. Haven't you guys heard of Photoshop?

With all that is already going on in this thread, did you really want to tee this up?

Or is it just a clever ploy to jack the thread away from course design???

[JohnW8]

Great - the one picture I am in, and its the one with my gut sticking out. Haven't you guys heard of Photoshop?

Here ya go. I do this for some of the women here at work in their photos where they might not look their best.

[claym]

Here ya go. I do this for some of the women here at work in their photos where they might not look their best.

WOW! John Waight Loss Centers

[engled]

.

[jimkana]

Now that is more like it! I'll show those to the wife; maybe it will help.

wink wink nudge nudge



hahahahahahahahahaha ... (her laughing)

[J2870]

well, i think we've compacted 3 forums into one...so to go back to the original... glad you had fun with the formula firebird, can't wait till the next autox, and great pics.