NCAC?

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:23 pm

The bike pump is on the bus.

Thanks, to EVERYONE, for helping make the event a success. Seriously. For most of the day, you all make it such that there's not all that much to do.

ColinOConnell wrote:

jeremy gast wrote:

did anyone mistakenly pick up an aircompressor in carrying case? I laid it by the cones in grid and when we went back to get it is was gone.

What a great event. This was my first NCAC and it was as smooth if not smoother than a normal event!!!!

Nothing was laying around after everybody left. Well maybe some trash and butts that we picked up, but nothing like that.

Great course guys. I loved the somewhat faster than normal elements, it made Sanford much more appealing than usual. I'm keeping these course maps for future reference.

We're glad you liked the course(s)! It was definitely a bit faster than normal, I think, at least in spots. That got mixed reactions, most were favorable, but I think I'd probably slow it down just a hair both days if I had it to do over. Not much, though. I heard reports from "I was going over 75mph," to "I never got my car** out of second gear." Weird.

I guess they don't read this forum, but my hat's off to the Triad guys. Not only did they turn in some amazing drives, they were A LOT of help, both days. They were willing to do anything to help us out, especially in the bus, where I think I saw a Triad member every time I looked in the door. Props to them. And, if anyone missed getting to watch Chris Cline drive, especially today, you missed out on quite a display.

** Chris Cline's FTP-setting STX BMW, FWIW

JohnByers · **Posted:** Sun Oct 03, 2010 11:24 pm

Outstanding job by the entire team that planned and saw thru the NCAC! My first as well and I had a blast even if I was running against Hodge's and Jinx :shock:

Thanks for a great weekend!

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 8:33 am

Karl Shultz wrote:

The bike pump is on the bus.

Thanks, to EVERYONE, for helping make the event a success. Seriously. For most of the day, you all make it such that there's not all that much to do.

Thanks for grabbing it Karl.

I LOVED the courses both days. However, I will say I may be biased because it was so well matched to my absurdly long 2nd gear (72mph).

All the transitions coupled with the the new star specs really made me 'discover' the benefits of the koni's. Thanks to Aaron Buckley for adjustment recommendations.

Event was well planned and well executed too. I was skeptical about everyone getting 4 runs with 180 drivers without going into the night, but it worked out great.

And I worked the station (2) where everyone was DNFing on Sunday. It was insane how fast Cline drove through the 'slow down' cone next to the cone wall. Possibly 5-6 mph faster than Jadrice on r comps

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:37 am

Big thanks to everyone who made the event run smoothly and put in the legwork with sponsors, course design, photography, and all the other countless behind the scenes jobs that pull everything together.

Saturday's course was so much fun and I've never had to shift that much. I went to 3rd three times on a couple runs. Sunday was cool too but I TOTALLY blew by the first gate coming back onto the main runway and I think that threw off my chi. j/k Taking the same line through the sweeper (and staying left on the optional slalom) was a bad move but I have a feeling I wasn't the only one in heat 5 that did this. :oops:

I heard quite a few dnf's and cone calls.

I managed to nab some phantom cones in all of my first three runs yesterday and did a 'safety run' on my last run as Hodges called it which was slower but clean.

I hate that I had to boogie out of there but I had a little family business to get back to with my little guy.

This shot made me chuckle. Courtesy of Jesse Fleming.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 10:57 am

Thanks to everyone who was able to come out and make this a very successful NCAC! As for club members that helped make the event successful, kudos to all! The core planning team for the NCAC has been working on this for months and I personally am glad this one is in the books. Even though I collect 3 DNF's on Sunday, I was happy that everyone had a good time. As a bonus, we couldn't have asked for any better weather.

Trophies, I take responsibility there for not having this organized better. We WILL get all trophies out to class winners and my sincere apologies in having to ask tarheeler's to return their trophies. We wanted to make sure that the other clubs had theirs.

All in all a great weekend, but not one I want to repeat any time soon

RobLupella · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:26 am

I enjoyed the course Sunday, too bad I could not make Saturday. I'm glad I was able to pull my head out of my lower anatomy on my last run and avoid cones and drop 3 seconds (felt like a noob taking 3 seconds off) :oops:

I could tell because I ran out of second gear on the runway about halfway through and I was so slow the other runs I never got close to hard rev limiter hit.

But geez the 5th run group sent my ADD into motion, especially considering I couldn't ride with the novices and work with them as much. I think I should have done the novice meeting and then wnet back to the hotel and napped for a few hours. :wink:

thanks to everyone who put this together

Rob

Keith Vail · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 11:50 am

I wanted to thank everyone for a well run event on Saturday. I wished that I could have made it for Sunday but after the off on Saturday I didn't want to run the car again without going over it top to bottom which I did and fixed the few things that broke. Now I just need to fix the cosmetic damage. I think the culprit was that one of my front sway bar mounts broke in a 65 mph 3rd gear slalom.

The NCAC is just a jinxed event for me as my first run was cautious but dirty, my second run was clean but I forgot to shut the traction control off and was fighting to get it off during the run and my third run was the huge off that ended my weekend. I have not had good luck in the 6 years I have run this event.

I also want to apologize if I was a jacka** to anyone after my incident as I was extremely shaken up and kind of in emotional overload from almost hitting a tree backwards.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:25 pm

Keith, my heart sank when I found out what happened. If you need help with anything, you know I'm a phone call away.

And BTW, I didn't see you being a "jacka**" to anyone at all. In fact, I was impressed with how cool headed you remained, even though you told me you were quite rightly a little spooked.

Keith Vail wrote:

I wanted to thank everyone for a well run event on Saturday. I wished that I could have made it for Sunday but after the off on Saturday I didn't want to run the car again without going over it top to bottom which I did and fixed the few things that broke. Now I just need to fix the cosmetic damage. I think the culprit was that one of my front sway bar mounts broke in a 65 mph 3rd gear slalom.

Just curious - was it an endlink, the tab on the control arm, the D-bracket that comes with the bar, or the L-bracket on the unibody? I've heard of the D-brackets breaking. Nevertheless, that would certainly explain it. Having attempted to drive my own S2000 with broken FSB hardware once (and only once), I can't imagine being able to gather the car up mid corner after that thing lets go. These cars are pretty twitchy with the stock bar in place - removing it altogether would make it all but uncontrollable.

Come to think of it, I'll plan to replace the D-brackets and bushings on my FSB this winter. That just got added to the lengthy list of TLC items I need to do to a car that has been two- and three-driver autocrossed, for four years, with basically zero failures. It's time to freshen her up a bit, she's earned that.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 12:33 pm

I'll echo too that the courses were fun and challenging. On day 1 the STi required 4 separate 2->3 shifts and 3->2 shifts. Not good for time, although I felt like I drove reasonably well for still being on the stock shocks. On Sunday I thought I was driving pretty well (aside from the coneage on my last two runs), but the clock never agreed

Jadrice had me by .4 second on Saturday, pulled out a can of whoopass violated me by 2.1 seconds on Sunday. Not good

When I dismounted the Hoosiers, I was surprised at how much OPR (other people's rubber) that my tires had collected over the two days, which could have explained why the car was so loose... although both the front and rear collected it evenly.

While I am run down from too much beer Saturday night and way too little sleep, I had a great time and it was good catching up with everyone. If a 2.5 hour drive wasn't ahead of me, I would have hung around for trophies, but I needed to get back to watch the Giants dismantle the Bears

I will say that after helping Triad with timing and scoring within the last year and working in our bus for the first time in a LONG time, I think it would be beneficial to reach out to their T&S team to get some lessons learned from those that worked at this NCAC. Our process is pretty cumbersome with a lot of pain points, which I won't go into detail on here, but will talk to anyone about on the phone or via email. I think we can pick up some best practices that will help our process. This is by no means a criticism to those that work/run timing and scoring. I just think we can make some changes that will streamline the function.

Thanks to everyone who helped plan it, including the help from Triad, CCR and Highlands members. - AB

Keith Vail · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:23 pm

Karl Shultz wrote:

Just curious - was it an endlink, the tab on the control arm, the D-bracket that comes with the bar, or the L-bracket on the unibody? I've heard of the D-brackets breaking. Nevertheless, that would certainly explain it. Having attempted to drive my own S2000 with broken FSB hardware once (and only once), I can't imagine being able to gather the car up mid corner after that thing lets go. These cars are pretty twitchy with the stock bar in place - removing it altogether would make it all but uncontrollable.

The D-bracket was snapped clean off on right above the bottom bolt of the two that hold it to the factory L-bracket. I assume it started to break before that but actually let go at or right before my spin occurred as the car felt solid the first couple elements of that run and then all the sudden just let go as if the outside rear tire just hit ice. I knew the moment it started to go there was no saving it and I just bailed with both feet in but I had to have been doing at least 65 mph at that point. It was not fun and something that I don't want to ever do again.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 2:40 pm

Going off what AB said, I have to say the people receiving the radio communication from workers yesterday did a very good job. With 3 cars on course at the same time and a lot of areas where many people picked up cones and DNFed halfway down the taxiway, there was a lot of radio communication going on all the time.

As a takeaway, in future drivers meetings we should possibly emphasize the 'hold the button for a 1 count before speaking' and to standardize the call verbage: <class> <number> <call>: B stock 1 plus 1, or TIR 7 DNF (:) ). The calls were all over the spectrum in order of information....lots of people didn't know the numbers etc.

Also I think it should be emphasized that working the course is not a social event. Don't sign up for a station with your friend so you can BS the whole time. Instead, spread out and pay attention to the numbers/cars and make radio communications short and yet clear.

Finally, I like how someone reprimanded me for calling a DNF by radioing 'just because he hit a cone doesn't mean it was a DNF'. I was 30 ft from the course....the car missed 2 gates and went the wrong way around a pointer......excuse me for not calling 'blah blah plus 1 and 3 DNFs'

.

Zach Hill · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 4:18 pm

JamesShort wrote:

As a takeaway, in future drivers meetings we should possibly emphasize the 'hold the button for a 1 count before speaking' and to standardize the call verbage: <class> <number> <call>: B stock 1 plus 1, or TIR 7 DNF (:) ). The calls were all over the spectrum in order of information....lots of people didn't know the numbers etc.

+1. I couldn't agree more. Accurate, efficient radio communication is critical. Just as critical as clearly-visible car numbers... :shock:

JamesShort wrote:

Finally, I like how someone reprimanded me for calling a DNF by radioing 'just because he hit a cone doesn't mean it was a DNF'. I was 30 ft from the course....the car missed 2 gates and went the wrong way around a pointer......excuse me for not calling 'blah blah plus 1 and 3 DNFs'

.

Were you working Station 3 during Heat 5 at the slalom on Sunday? That very well could have been me. I saw the last two cones in the slalom get hit two separate times, and the worker called DNF. I was concerned because I know a botched slalom run that takes the wrong line but hits the cones is only a time penalty, not a DNF, and this can be confusing to inexperienced workers. My apologies if you were making the correct calls and I got you yelled at.

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 4:48 pm

JamesShort wrote:

Going off what AB said, I have to say the people receiving the radio communication from workers yesterday did a very good job. With 3 cars on course at the same time and a lot of areas where many people picked up cones and DNFed halfway down the taxiway, there was a lot of radio communication going on all the time.

As a takeaway, in future drivers meetings we should possibly emphasize the 'hold the button for a 1 count before speaking' and to standardize the call verbage: <class> <number> <call>: B stock 1 plus 1, or TIR 7 DNF (:) ). The calls were all over the spectrum in order of information....lots of people didn't know the numbers etc.

Also I think it should be emphasized that working the course is not a social event. Don't sign up for a station with your friend so you can BS the whole time. Instead, spread out and pay attention to the numbers/cars and make radio communications short and yet clear.

Finally, I like how someone reprimanded me for calling a DNF by radioing 'just because he hit a cone doesn't mean it was a DNF'. I was 30 ft from the course....the car missed 2 gates and went the wrong way around a pointer......excuse me for not calling 'blah blah plus 1 and 3 DNFs'

.

All very valid points. Don't forget that the October Meeting is the Railroading meeting. If you don't want to run for office you'd better show up to defend yourself. Otherwise..................................

James Short for Autocross VP!!!

I'm just saying........................... :wink:

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 4:54 pm

I had a great time at NCAC. Thanks to all who made it happen. I liked both courses, but for some reason the Sunday course treated me better. It's weird how just mirror imaging a course can make such a difference in how it feels. It was fun having more entries in HS but our 3 regulars had to fight it out as usual. Great weekend!

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Oct 04, 2010 5:04 pm

Zach Hill wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

As a takeaway, in future drivers meetings we should possibly emphasize the 'hold the button for a 1 count before speaking' and to standardize the call verbage: <class> <number> <call>: B stock 1 plus 1, or TIR 7 DNF (:) ). The calls were all over the spectrum in order of information....lots of people didn't know the numbers etc.

+1. I couldn't agree more. Accurate, efficient radio communication is critical. Just as critical as clearly-visible car numbers... :shock:

JamesShort wrote:

Finally, I like how someone reprimanded me for calling a DNF by radioing 'just because he hit a cone doesn't mean it was a DNF'. I was 30 ft from the course....the car missed 2 gates and went the wrong way around a pointer......excuse me for not calling 'blah blah plus 1 and 3 DNFs'

.

Were you working Station 3 during Heat 5 at the slalom on Sunday? That very well could have been me. I saw the last two cones in the slalom get hit two separate times, and the worker called DNF. I was concerned because I know a botched slalom run that takes the wrong line but hits the cones is only a time penalty, not a DNF, and this can be confusing to inexperienced workers. My apologies if you were making the correct calls and I got you yelled at.

Zach, this was heat 3 at station 2 right in front of the tight-ish wiggle with the 4 cone wall to it's right. For 3 gates/cones, there are 8 ways to negotiate it: 1 right and 7 wrong (ie DNFs). I think I saw all 7 ways to DNF the 3 elements I worked in front of

. I think Jadrice also triple DNFed, but not the time when the radio issue occurred

.

Anyway, I agree with you about the slalom, hitting a cone is a cone and not a DNF. Hell, if you just drive literally straight through a slalom and drive right over all 6 cones, that's a +6 in my eyes.....not sure if it's 12 seconds faster though

.

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