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Kevin Allen was supposed to chair the next event in Danville, but as of this writing, Kevin has not responded to my PM. At this time I'm assuming he is not going to chair this event since he's not been to any event's this year that I can remember.

That said, I need some help w/ this event. I can run the intermediate school w/ some help from my VP brethren, but I need help for the #7 autocross. I will also need some extra help to set up the course on Saturday for the school.

If you would like to co-chair and run the autocross, please let me know. I'll be the GM, so I'll be there to beat up on. If you have never chaired an event and wanted to, here's a great opportunity for you. Danville is a great site that lends itself to some interesting setups.

PLEASE get to back w/ me ASAP please so we can get rolling on this event.

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

What does this entail?

We're not intentionally leaving you hanging, we're considering having a prospective event chair "school" after the intermediate school that Saturday that would coincide with Sunday's course setup. Considering that there will be a pool of people with adequate experience there that may be interested in being an event chair next year, it'll be a good way to explain the thought process behind setting up an event. Topics would include safety, minimizing cone counts, overlap, safety, course flow, safety and safety.

It really isn't that scary of a thing, and it gets you out of shagging cones for the day of the event.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I'd be willing to volunteer. I don't really know what I'm doing as far as course setup, but I've been doing this for long enough its time I actually did something to help out. Particularly if there is some "school" to go over event chairing. My wife will be available to help some, but she has an exam the next monday and doesn't want to "officially" volunteer.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

Maria, Brice - that's the spirit! It's pretty fun. And, it's not some huge amount of work; it's quite reasonable.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

Huh, why the hell have so many cones in the bus if we are not going to use them

uhhh, getting back on track here. Watch for upcoming info as it relates to the intermediate school and autox #7. Should be interesting.

Maria and Brice, I take it you both want to volunteer to chair the upcoming event, so congratulations. I think you both bring a good perspective to the table. I would recommend you guys get together and come up w/ a name for the Sunday event and some graphics. The VP's will focus on the school and students. We need you to focus on the autox.

Stay tuned for some emails. We need to figure out how we want to set this up considering the upcoming NCAC. We'll get you guys in the loop for any concerns we have for elements, but we want you to design the course based on some input if you don't mind. Like I said, we'll have some email communcations to make sure we're all on the same page.

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

What exactly are you saying here, I don't understand. . .

I'm in for being an event chair, I've got a couple ideas of what I want to do and I'm reading up everythign I can find on course design so that my course doesn't suck as bad as Les and Art's (just kidding, I actually liked that course, but people complained about it a lot). I'm just confused byt he statement above, are you saying there will be some "suggestions" on course design? I'm not oppoesed to the idea, just trying to understand.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

Don't read a lot into that right now. The VP's are having a powwow next week and there may be a few elements we'd like added to the sunday event to aid in the upcoming NCAC, but we also don't want to step on your creative talents. Stay tuned...

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Rodney

'08 Bullitt mustang, CAM 7
Autox VP '09-'10, President '11-'12, interim President 2nd half of ‘14
proud recipient of the Bowie Grey service award '12
Now just a guy driving a mustang....

I'm in, and the event chair school sounds like a great idea.

Pivot cone!

The meeting will result in a price plan and information to be put out on the website.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I guess from reading what I can find on course design people prefer to avoid too many 180 degree turns. I'm not quite sure how you avoid this on such a long skinny site. The again, they are the only real sustained turns that we can do (other than the sweeper obviously) at Danville, which is probably what we need in preparation for the NCAC. Then again, I'm new at this whole thing.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

Site layout is always a factor in course design. At runway sites, a designer is often left with little other option than an "out and back" layout. There are ways to mitigate this though.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

At Danville, for instance, one can have a course where you go up one side of the runway, turn around and go down the other. In effect, you're doing a Sanford taxiway course with a 180 at one end. That's all well and good, but there is a lot of asphalt in Danville that one can use. The problem is that doing things on the "wrong" side of the main runway adversely affects overlap. So there's a balance that needs to be figured out.

I'm a member of the camp where you figure out where start and finish are, kick cones out of the back of the trailer, and set one up. Others like to predesign a course and have a map to follow. My rule of thumb is that both ways can work just so long as you don't stay married to the design. Sometimes, things just don't work out like you plan them. Case in point, Karl and I almost had a capital s Spectacular rev-limiter off at the last Danville event because it was WAY faster than it walked. You *have* to drive the thing and make sure that everything flows well and is safe and minimizes cone hits. That way you keep drivers happy, the insurance company and courseworkers happy and timing and scoring happy.

This the kind of stuff that we (Rodney, Karl and I) can sit and talk about with you that Saturday before setting up for Sunday's event.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Wise words, these:



"Don't stay married to the design" cannot be over emphasized. I've seen it countless times - someone has an idea in their mind that they're dying to try. Often, it works. But sometimes, it doesn't. This is a very important thing to be prepared for, and to not take personally.

Not only that, sometimes a feature that doesn't work can be made to work with the smallest of changes. The above example from Danville 2 weekends ago demonstrated this. The diagonal "sort of slalom thing" at the far end was VERY fast when we first drove it, and would have certainly led to some cars in the dirt. No question about it. With small changes to the first and last cones, which altered the angle at which the feature was driven, the problem was solved. Often, it can be a matter of a few feet.

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)