2013 North Carolina Autocross Championship (NCAC) - Oct 5-6

Steven Spampinato · **Posted:** Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:10 pm

All I know is that the amount of cones made me better at deciphering when looking ahead. The fast downhill on day two at first made me uneasy, but after listening in my head on what Shawn, Rob Luppella, and Keehner told me during course walk...I was amazed I could go into the long Slalom on the rev limiter and hold speed all the way to the finish. That side of the course made my slow runs turn up mediocre. I am still struggling with sweepers and diamond like corners. Having three runs to get it right was rough. However, I was there for a fun challenge. That is why I moved from GS to Tire. I wanted to see if I could finish in the top 50% in class.

Thank you Rob Luppella for Saturday, you helped me drop four seconds during fun runs. I wish I could of kept that up on Sunday.

My only complaint was being bitched at by a Grid Worker....no one was directing me where to grid on Saturday. I apparently took someone's spot in the second row. He could of not been such an ass about it. I hought he would have a grid list like we use so it did not matter where we setup. Plus our group just started to grid. All he had to do is tell me to move in a nice manner. I regret not telling him that he was an ass!

OVERALL, I could not ask for a better weekend surrounded by a great group of fellow club members!
So when is our non-points event?????

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:21 pm

Too many cones: Welcome to National type courses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lESceGMo14M and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10CXcfM ... e=youtu.be

:lol:

You should have seen the courses I started on in California. Walls of cones were common and in fact the norm. "We" didn't like gates but we did like line choice and since several of the clubs in the Northern California Sports Car Council were Corvette Clubs minimum widths, etc. were in the rule book. MANY of the current SCCA minimums came from the California folks. You should have seen some of the tiny gates and tight corners that used to show up a Nationals.

Californians had a lot of trouble following gated courses since we had no experience with them. I think the use of lines was also heavily pushed for by Californians back in the day.

With my 6' wide car on Sunday there was no braking after the left hander just before the offsets going out until stopping to get my time. Alternating full throttle with lifts and 1.3 to 1.6 g cornering. I loved the offsets (I hate slaloms) and the "lots of throttle" sweepers. Saturday required more braking in that segment. Top of the chute, entry to the big sweeper, then for the right hander after the offsets coming back. Those corners were all about 47 mph at the slow point. Yes the car was WORKING if you couldn't tell from the big grin on my face. A little different from Fayetteville with its bottom of first gear corners due to the small lot size. :lol:

RobLupella · **Posted:** Tue Oct 08, 2013 12:26 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

Too many cones: Welcome to National type courses http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lESceGMo14M and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10CXcfM ... e=youtu.be

:lol:

You should have seen the courses I started on in California. Walls of cones were common and in fact the norm. "We" didn't like gates but we did like line choice and since several of the clubs in the Northern California Sports Car Council were Corvette Clubs minimum widths, etc. were in the rule book. MANY of the current SCCA minimums came from the California folks. You should have seen some of the tiny gates and tight corners that used to show up a Nationals.

Californians had a lot of trouble following gated courses since we had no experience with them. I think the use of lines was also heavily pushed for by Californians back in the day.

With my 6' wide car on Sunday there was no braking after the left hander just before the offsets going out until stopping to get my time. Alternating full throttle with lifts and 1.3 to 1.6 g cornering. I loved the offsets (I hate slaloms) and the "lots of throttle" sweepers. Saturday required more braking in that segment. Top of the chute, entry to the big sweeper, then for the right hander after the offsets coming back. Those corners were all about 47 mph at the slow point. Yes the car was WORKING if you couldn't tell from the big grin on my face. A little different from Fayetteville with its bottom of first gear corners due to the small lot size. :lol:

Damn Corvette people that screw it up for everyone else. :lol:

I have a particular disaffinity for excess cones. This course hit several of my pet peeves: a) pointer cones on a gate b) pointer cones on each slalom cone c) ALWAYS using 8 cones when 2 would do. I don't mind the occasional additional cones but not on every element d) cones that break fluid transitions. The glaring example was a cone on Saturday going up the hill leading toward the big sweeper. It literally was right in the natural driving line. I think someone actually stopped and pointed it out as being out of place and was told otherwise. e) chalk - not really cause it bothers me - i don't even notice it when I drive but it is an annoyance.

Anyway, the course was fun to drive, with 3 runs I would have liked to not have spent run 1 finding the course so much. But that is my learning curve to figure out - as Dick points out I need to get used to it as it is the norm.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue Oct 08, 2013 1:39 pm

RobLupella wrote:

Damn Corvette people that screw it up for everyone else. :lol:

I have a particular disaffinity for excess cones. This course hit several of my pet peeves: a) pointer cones on a gate b) pointer cones on each slalom cone c) ALWAYS using 8 cones when 2 would do. I don't mind the occasional additional cones but not on every element d) cones that break fluid transitions. The glaring example was a cone on Saturday going up the hill leading toward the big sweeper. It literally was right in the natural driving line. I think someone actually stopped and pointed it out as being out of place and was told otherwise. e) chalk - not really cause it bothers me - i don't even notice it when I drive but it is an annoyance.

Anyway, the course was fun to drive, with 3 runs I would have liked to not have spent run 1 finding the course so much. But that is my learning curve to figure out - as Dick points out I need to get used to it as it is the norm.

Rob, Since I started with chalk lines to help find the course and now drive a really low car and have always been bad at remembering/seeing where the course goes without lines I'm obviously "in favor" of the lines. :lol:

My biggest issue with the lines on midwest concrete is lack of contrast so they are hard to see from my seating position.

By the "out of line" cone you mean the gate/cone where the chalk was 1 1/2 feet to the right of the cone on the right? The entrance to the offsets leading to the far end sweeper certainly would have been FAST for high HP cars and pretty fast for the rest of us if that gate wasn't there or was 10 - 20 feet to the right. I dropped from about 66 to 45 mph between this cone and the left at the top in order to make the turn but still reached about 63 mph before the sweeper and again between the sweeper and the right turn at the end of the return offsets. :sing:

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Tue Oct 08, 2013 2:06 pm

I think that there were a few places were they could have used more cones. On day one, the green Formula Ford decided that the gap in the first sweeper cone wall was a gate. He did that twice. I was chased by a black Mustang when he mistakenly decided that another gap in the cone wall was a gate. I don’t run like I used to. :shock:

Remember, there were a lot of people from different clubs that obviously do things differently than we do and have unique expectations.

You boys with the PHAT TOYZ need to stop bitching!

RobLupella · **Posted:** Tue Oct 08, 2013 5:12 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

RobLupella wrote:

Damn Corvette people that screw it up for everyone else. :lol:

I have a particular disaffinity for excess cones. This course hit several of my pet peeves: a) pointer cones on a gate b) pointer cones on each slalom cone c) ALWAYS using 8 cones when 2 would do. I don't mind the occasional additional cones but not on every element d) cones that break fluid transitions. The glaring example was a cone on Saturday going up the hill leading toward the big sweeper. It literally was right in the natural driving line. I think someone actually stopped and pointed it out as being out of place and was told otherwise. e) chalk - not really cause it bothers me - i don't even notice it when I drive but it is an annoyance.

Anyway, the course was fun to drive, with 3 runs I would have liked to not have spent run 1 finding the course so much. But that is my learning curve to figure out - as Dick points out I need to get used to it as it is the norm.

Rob, Since I started with chalk lines to help find the course and now drive a really low car and have always been bad at remembering/seeing where the course goes without lines I'm obviously "in favor" of the lines. :lol:

My biggest issue with the lines on midwest concrete is lack of contrast so they are hard to see from my seating position.

By the "out of line" cone you mean the gate/cone where the chalk was 1 1/2 feet to the right of the cone on the right? The entrance to the offsets leading to the far end sweeper certainly would have been FAST for high HP cars and pretty fast for the rest of us if that gate wasn't there or was 10 - 20 feet to the right. I dropped from about 66 to 45 mph between this cone and the left at the top in order to make the turn but still reached about 63 mph before the sweeper and again between the sweeper and the right turn at the end of the return offsets. :sing:

Yeah, I think that one. It still could have been moved so that it wasn't right in the middle of a natural line. Even it it was pushed out a couple of feet it still would have required a loss of speed to make the turn in w/o it being just a random "OOPS, I dropped this cone off the back of the bus and instead of picking it up, I'll draw a box around it feel" There were other things that worked well, the offsets after the turnaround that required some skill to drive fast and smooth.

As for chalk lines, I don't see them when I drive, they are never the line and IF THEY DIDN'T USE SO MANY DAMN CONES THEY WOULDN'T NEED CHALK :lol:

michaelsmiller wrote:

Remember, there were a lot of people from different clubs that obviously do things differently than we do and have unique expectations.

I agree, I'm not really bitching about the course, just commenting mostly on my needing to get used to that style of design. I agree there were a couple of places they should have had more visual barriers so you didn't get chased so much.

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2013 North Carolina Autocross Championship (NCAC) - Oct 5-6

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