Sept autox at Cary

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 1:53 pm

Really bummed I couldn't make this event but on-call duty...well, called. I guess. :roll:

Are we still able to use Cary TC? I thought after they filled Sears with the furniture store we would be disallowed for 2017 after they (very kindly) kept their agreed upon site rentals for this year.

If I had a car with $14,000 worth of CF wheels I might take them off in favor of a cheaper wheel alternative if hooning is going to happen.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 2:44 pm

Chad Culbertson wrote:

Vincent Keene wrote:

Chad Culbertson wrote:

We had 2 cars hit curbs, one destroying at least one $4000 wheel...

I hope that is a typo!

Nope, it's carbon fiber, and from what I saw on the car, it was toast.

Damn. I guess it's cold, but I don't really feel sorry for someone who can afford a car with $4K wheels, but not the skill to keep it off a curb. Of course being able to afford more car than you have talent is not exactly breaking news.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 2:58 pm

I watched two of the GT350's driver's runs and they were nice and smooth and from the times pretty well driven (i.e. almost as fast as mine and not that far behind Art and Rodney

). That site in general, including a couple of places in Saturday's course were real potential "gotchas" for wide, high powered, heavy cars. I left before the "incident" so I don't know where he lost it but the bump in the middle of the roughly 50 mph slalom could easily have caught him out. My runs were absolutely "take no chance of a spin" because the combo of the low grip grit and the close curbs leaves no room for error if the spin/slide goes in the curb direction.

You can see where lifted in the slalom (vertical blue bar is throttle percentage).

https://youtu.be/yL90S_R3TLk

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:09 pm

We were worried at setup about high horse power cars with inexperienced drivers. The course safety runs were done in Rodney's Bullit Mustang and my Z06 Corvette. We drove with the intent of seeing how wrong things could go and we changed the course to reduce that chance. Brice even spun the Mustang. I had the Vette ass end out around the sweeper and was not even close to the curve. Based on this, we decided that the sweeper was safe. We assumed that any spin would probably occur at the bottom of the sweeper so we left more room there. Both of the cars that ran into the curb did not even touch the brakes at the end of the jiggle sections, they just yanked the wheel. I noticed a lot of the novices being very abrupt with steering at Cary. We will have to take this into account next time we set up a course there.

BriceJohnson · **Joined:** Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:33 am **Posts:** 2230

We tweaked that slalom for about 45 minutes to make the angle, spacing, and number of cones what it was. I think it was pretty safe the way it was, but am open to (constructive) criticism if people think it wasn't. I did the "drive Rodney's mustang like a jackass" test multiple times through there, and spun the car a couple different ways and never felt in danger (once we got the FINAL configuration, I DID come within about 8 feet of the curb in one "proposed" configuration).

We didn't even THINK that sweeper was that big of a deal considering the camber helping you out on entry. If it were one or the other of these incidents I definitely would have chalked it up to "shit happens" but with 2, I do wonder a bit (although I still lean towards "shit/idiots happen").

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:37 pm

I agree with Mike & Rodney that the course was as safe as a parking lot site can be with poles and curbs. For those that don't do many other clubs' events, you might be surprised how often a car nips a curb from being overdriven.

Like Dick said, a little extra caution like a lift through the fastest parts for the course could make the difference between a fun day and a horrible day. I lifted a little bit heading through the gate that was slightly offset to the left right before the pivot cone. Probably could have slid a bit more through there to gain a tenth or two but it wasn't a good place to get loose.

Vincent, the wheel was only $3200 not $4k. :lol:

In all fairness, the guy was pretty cool about it and has a backup set until the new one is custom ordered.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 3:56 pm

Just to be clear I didn't think there was anything "wrong" or "unsafe" about the course design and am impressed how much effort went into making sure it was safe. Were the curb hits in that area?

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 4:22 pm

No Dick, the curb hits were at the sweeper on the east side of the lot after the jiggle section. Their cars pitched sideway as the end of the jiggle and slid pretty straight into the curb. The section that you were cautious with was in the lower slalom at the double gate. I'm glad that everyone was cautious there as we had to balance the car's momentum with a light pole on the left and the curbing on the right. Hopefully the black tire spin marks that Brice left were an effective warning.

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 5:05 pm

michaelsmiller wrote:

We were worried at setup about high horse power cars with inexperienced drivers. The course safety runs were done in Rodney's Bullit Mustang and my Z06 Corvette. We drove with the intent of seeing how wrong things could go and we changed the course to reduce that chance. Brice even spun the Mustang. I had the Vette ass end out around the sweeper and was not even close to the curve. Based on this, we decided that the sweeper was safe. We assumed that any spin would probably occur at the bottom of the sweeper so we left more room there. Both of the cars that ran into the curb did not even touch the brakes at the end of the jiggle sections, they just yanked the wheel. I noticed a lot of the novices being very abrupt with steering at Cary. We will have to take this into account next time we set up a course there.

I rode with the guy in the Blue Porsche Cayman and his inputs were very rough, the throttle was a light switch the whole time. I helped him fix the inputs and he busted out a 44 second run, down from a 50 second on his first run. I think it was his second autocross.

Not braking for that would be a pretty bad mistake, I wondered too if they didn't realize they were carrying more speed the second go round.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 5:14 pm

Vincent Keene wrote:

Chad Culbertson wrote:

We had 2 cars hit curbs, one destroying at least one $4000 wheel...

I hope that is a typo!

I can only imagine VK's response had those wheels been OEM on a German car!

Richard

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Chad Culbertson wrote:

michaelsmiller wrote:

We were worried at setup about high horse power cars with inexperienced drivers. The course safety runs were done in Rodney's Bullit Mustang and my Z06 Corvette. We drove with the intent of seeing how wrong things could go and we changed the course to reduce that chance. Brice even spun the Mustang. I had the Vette ass end out around the sweeper and was not even close to the curve. Based on this, we decided that the sweeper was safe. We assumed that any spin would probably occur at the bottom of the sweeper so we left more room there. Both of the cars that ran into the curb did not even touch the brakes at the end of the jiggle sections, they just yanked the wheel. I noticed a lot of the novices being very abrupt with steering at Cary. We will have to take this into account next time we set up a course there.

I rode with the guy in the Blue Porsche Cayman and his inputs were very rough, the throttle was a light switch the whole time. I helped him fix the inputs and he busted out a 44 second run, down from a 50 second on his first run. I think it was his second autocross.

Not braking for that would be a pretty bad mistake, I wondered too if they didn't realize they were carrying more speed the second go round.

I feel kind of bad for the guy who rode along with me (Rob asked if I could take a novice) when his main takeaway was "wow, that was kind of violent" on my second run. He finished dead last in Novice, too.

Patrice Bousquet · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:01 pm

If there is something that I learn over all those years doing AX is that no matter how safe you try to make your course there will always be someone
willing to try to prove you wrong. I think the course Saturday was well design and with safety in mind for the fix obstacle and the space available but like
I just said it is it difficult to make it foul proof. You do the best you can and according to the required safety distance and all, and hope that no one try to test it.

If I ask you, do Cherry Point is a safe place, I guess you will mostly say yes. When I was there 2 weeks ago they had a very fast lane change, 3rd gear for most cars.
Well, 3 cars lost it there, that was my worker station, the last one went all the way to the ditch and snap a 4X4 post holding an electrical box.
Here a video of my best lap you will see how the course was setup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxS4Lscx5qg
Did it was a bad course design ? not really I think. Did we were coming too fast in that element? Maybe. Do the driver were trying too much? They went off, so that’s must be a yes.
If you do a course that is foul proof it will be likely so boring that no one will come back.
You do the best you can to have a fun, relatively fast and safe course and hope everything goes fine.

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Mon Sep 19, 2016 8:32 pm

Andrew, I have known you for a long time. Hidden within your mild mannered demeanor is a wild animal waiting for his next meal of red meat. :lol:

Patrice, Thanks for your supportive words. I think that we needed this discussion. The line between safety and fun is not always clear. Like anything else, when things don't go as planned, one needs to discuss it with other knowledgeable individuals so that one can adjust that line as best as possible. Thanks to all for their opinions.

Arthur McDonald · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 1:54 am **Posts:** 2052

Vincent Keene wrote:

Damn. I guess it's cold, but I don't really feel sorry for someone who can afford a car with $4K wheels, but not the skill to keep it off a curb. Of course being able to afford more car than you have talent is not exactly breaking news.

I did feel sorry for the driver, but then I saw the look on his face when he returned to the paddock. He flopped down in chair, leaned back to look at the sky, and then put his hands over his face. Besides the wheel, there's a chance of suspension damage, and I think George P noticed damage to the lower body.

The Pilot Sport 2s on the car looked pretty worn when I saw it in the grid earlier. I think a tire with little/no tread is dicier to drive on marbles - the pebbles and bits of rubber have nowhere to go. And there were definitely marbles on the periphery of that sweeper by the 4th heat.

For what it's worth, my line took me to a car length of the curb, and that was following the tire marks I saw during my morning walkthoughs. In the future, we should just give that some more room and think of way to encourage an early braking point.

Matthew Ryan · **Posted:** Tue Sep 20, 2016 8:21 am

Please don't share this on public forums, but here is the gt350 curb event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgVeL2D ... e=youtu.be

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Sept autox at Cary

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