Rather than keep adding I thought I'd add a new thread.

I didn't say on my earlier posts that your last event was very well organized and operated. Course set up dragged a little, but then everything went well.
The course itself was challenging and pretty easy to follow. My only complaint has already been mentioned, which is we might have avoided some of the gravel areas without changing the character of the course.

The lower number of entries allows a more relaxed event, with some free time and more runs than SCCA or ER. With 80 or even 180 entries, those events have become endurance contests. Long work shifts and long waits in grid. The last lunch break was 25 years ago. The only good thing about more entries is being able to afford sites like TMS.

At last SCCA National championship Classes AS (C4 corvette), BS (S2000), and CS (Miata) all were won with the essentially the same time. The order was CS, AS, BS. They didn't run at the same time so course condition and temp varied, but it wasn't wet vs. dry either.

Don't worry about tuning for one car versus another. Just make the course fun to drive and easy to follow.

Don't worry about highly prepared cars wrecking the insurance speed limit. Even 900 lb A mod cars don't go that much faster peak speed on autocross length straights. Same effect I mentioned earlier - faster car has less time to accelerate before reaching the end of the straight. Ignoring air resistance, terminal velocity rises with square root of acceleration over a fixed distance. With air resistance, it's even slower since resistance rises with the square of velocity. And with higher velocity you have to brake earlier, so the acceleration distance is shorter. Radar has confirmed many times.

At mineral wells you just have to use the clear areas. The gravel will never clear on the little used areas even if you use a power blower. On the never used areas the pavement will break up because of plant damage and slight buckling that leaves gaps between the asphalt and the ground. (On the well used areas the pavement stays pounded-down. Apparently at Mineral Wells it really was use it or lose it. The unused areas are lost. The asphalt is dried out and has no flexibilty. No amount of cleanup will rescue it. )

I encourage everyone to try course design. It can be very satisfying both to the engineers and to the artists, and it gives us variety. But allow plenty of time and design ahead of time. Ad lib design on event day can be satisfactory (though rarely excellent) if you've done it a lot and know the site, but it's a really tough way to learn.


Gregg

 

A quick note of clarification:

No matter what we do or how we do it, even if we had a halfwit from the hills of Arkansas's wife who was also his first cousin who couldn't read or write design the course IT WOULD STILL BE MORE FUN THAN AN SCCA AUTOCROSS!!!!

There are just degrees of fun. I just feel we have been missing some obvious and easy ways to improve.

When's the first autocross of the spring?

 

These are all good points and we appreciate constructive criticisim. The best part about all of this is that 95% of our attendees are very happy with what they get for $30. In the future we hope to avoid the "gravel trap" in the far right hand corner. What would really be helpful is to find someone who lives closer than I (2.5 hours) to head out to MW and document the pavement conditions on a plan. Any volunteers?

The tenative (READ: not set in stone) 2003 dates are:

February 15
May 10
July 19 (alternate, too hot???)
Sept 20
Nov 8

 

I would volunteer, if we could come up with a good plan for doing an accurate survey (using a GPS, etc.), and there were others helping.

 

We'll volunteer both our time and our GPS - sometime after the new year, though. Still have to start Christmas shopping one of these days....

 

I have been wondering if a GPS would be useful. How would you translate that data into a map?

I mean does it give you feet?

 

All GPS units have different features, but most allow waypoints to be set and displays distances / direction between them. Hopefully we can set waypoints for each canyon, then download them to a graphics program.

 

Detailed out to the foot by GPS is fine if someone has the time and know how. However, it would be almost as useful for someone to take a scale plan of the site (e-mail me) and use the squares on the ground/plan to document the trouble spots. Remember K.I.S.S.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Clovis
[B]Detailed out to the foot by GPS is fine if someone has the time and know how.

 

Various GPS mapping programs can be d/l'd here:
http://download.com.com/3120-20-0.html?qt=...=gps&tg=dl-2001

Various GPS products can be purchased here:
http://www.gps4fun.com/main_handheld.html

The non-mapping units are not much more than $100, and they can do path recording and such.