THSCC Forums

Remind me to never take the CM car to one of these events. My current 4th gear (top gear) redlines at 88 mph.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Sounds like you're perfectly geared then.

Not to mention an off in that area on the straight, a spinning off perhaps into the grass that's not real easy to control, I'm not sure if a FF wouldn't go right under (partially) the Armco on the inside of the straight?

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Current stable:
2019 BMW M2 Competition slicktop 6MT
2011 BMW M3 sedan slicktop 6MT
2007 BMW 328i wagon (slushbox for now)
1975 CanAm 125MX2

Good point. I really do want to live long enough to collect a lot of SS dollars and spend my 401(k) down to $0.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

I had an off there going 74mph. It’s quite dramatic sliding backwards at that speed toward barriers. The other problem is that the ground is sandy and the car digs a couple of trenches as it slides. The risk is that the car will flip if you do anything but go straight back. I think that we should in the future try to reduce the speed in that area or just make it a straight, not a slalom.

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Mike Miller
AutoX VP 2016/2017
Just a C Stock Miata DD
Mazda Speed 3 Family Car
Corvette Z06 Toy

We'll just put a big sign in that section that says "Don't lift". It was actually a great teaching point for a novice. He spun on one run, then I took him for a ride, and the rear got a bit loose in that section on me, and I floored it to catch it.

Yeah, probably a tad fast, although to be fair, we had two offs, and both stopped before the Armco. Sounds like it was well designed to me. . .

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

I don't think "don't lift" was appropriate for my car but looking at data and sync'd video it appears I could have gone to full throttle sooner than just before the last cone on the left. I slowed from 65 to 55 for the pointer cone on the right, cornered at 1g for it and the next cone, but didn't really apply significant throttle until just before the last cone on the left. However, cornering g's were low enough before then that the car might have been able to hold more throttle sooner. I might have been spooked from the 3rd run attempted spin in that area. I NEED to work on the friction circle lateral/longitudinal/vector limits.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Honestly, I don't think any autocross run should involve an off at 70+ mph. At that point, we've pretty much discarded the normal autocross guidelines for course design. Going straight at 70+ fine by me, but throwing 70+mph transitions? We might want to reconsider.

I've updated the season points standings thread with the results from Points #2.

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2017 THSCC Autocross Chief of Timing and Scoring

03 Nissan Altima
02 Honda S2000

I know that I wasn't on the top of my game on Saturday and that I put too much into self-preservation, but I've been thinking about the course and how it felt a bit unsafe. I feel like I had to keep pinching in the car around elements, which is fine; however, it was on the narrow part of the track with some camber and north of 50mph.

The obvious thing is do long sweeping stuff on the fast and narrow portions and put the tricky technical stuff at a place where it's much slower and there's a bunch of run-off room.

It might just be me conjuring stdh and making excuses, but I felt that there were some tricky elements used to catch you off-guard versus keep the speed down and I don't think it's the best way to keep cars on the track and in something that resembles control.

Do the emoticons make my sarcasm a bit clearer?

Safety concerns raised here have all bee duly noted, don't worry.

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

My bad.

And, in spite of anything I may post, I did enjoy the course.

When I did circuit crosses at CMP with CCR they basically made chutes through the turns that dictated a very slow line (early apexes that meant a decreasing radius turn) or a gate way off-line before a turn and then a very tight slalom on the back straight to keep speeds down. The speeds were still uncomfortably high and my autox/street brake pads were cooking at the end of each run.

This may not be visible on mobile due to some copyright infringement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ZIPu1GwF4&t=5m18s
(70mph is at the top of the giant MINI speedo, btw)

I dont know how to do it better at a sweeper track like NCCAR. The offset gates were designed to keep speeds in check through the long turns and the most technical parts (lane change, high-speed offset slalom and pivot cone) were all on straight sections of track with adequate runoff room. We drove the track at 85% (and unfamiliar cars) on Friday night and adjusted it several times to ensure reasonable speeds for given runoff and a nice flow.

There's only so much a course designer can do.. the rest depends on the participants to not overdrive their abilities & equipment. Given we all had 6 runs and each of the drivers that went off continued to run afterward, blaming the course designer for going off or for any portion of the course being designed to catch drivers off-guard seems a bit far-fetched to me. If those drivers felt the course was unsafe it was their responsibility to alert a steward and stop running on it themselves. If something caught you off-guard you might want to rethink your course walk habits.

I'm not being defensive. It wasn't my design. I was just putting cones where I was told to. I'm also not trying to start or finish a fight. What would you folks have done differently? Another lane change element instead of the offset slalom?

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'07 MINI Cooper S
Borrowed '14 Crosstrek & Borrowed '12 BOSS .. for rallyx reasons
n+1 motorcycles

I don't think anyone is trying be insultingly critical. Rather, we are giving constructive advice for future designs as we are still a bit new to designing courses in this new (and fun) NCCAR setup. I loved the course, but also agree that ten hits off the (raised) rev limiter in third gear is too much speed while slaloming with little runoff room and nearby immoveable objects. If the gates in the final left hand sweeper led the car into another chicane, then into the offset slalom it would have been fine as well.

I do like running in the anticlockwise direction, though. That downhill lefthander is so fun!

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Steve Carter
1972 Datsun 240Z-- resto pics at http://picasaweb.google.com/srcartermd
2007 GPW Honda S2000-- STR 86

I agree with the above, however, looking at the numbers we had 2 offs at that part of the track by two of the more experienced drivers so does that constitute a bad course design, too fast, or just drivers pushing it (or all 3?) I tend to agree that it was a little bit fast with the tank slap inducing offsets before it but not extraordinarily so. The rest of the course I thought worked well and pretty much kept us on course as long as we didn't drive like an idiot

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1990 Faded Reddish CSP Lite Miata
2002 Electron Blue Corvette Z06
2005 Mazda 6 Wagon
2003 Nissan Pathfinder DTV (Dog Transport Vehicle)