THSCC Forums

Oh and on the course. It commited the worst offense of all.......it was different.

I'll be honest at first I thought it was not going to be that good, but it turned out to be very good.

I thought it made good use of some of the best concrete on Laurinburg, it was fun and challenging to drive properly, it allowed us to have 5 runs and be done at a reasonable time, and it was safe. You can't ask for much more than that.

Now let me hop on the old Soap box - I'd prefer that we didn't critque courses or events in this forum. Personally I think it lacks class to air your gripes about the hard work of your fellow club members in a public forum. I'm not saying this discussion was that bad but I've seen where people expressing themselves online can lead to and I don't want to see that happen with the THSCC forum. Remember the people you are talking to and about on here are your friends and fellow racers.

Now if you want to complain about Triad, please feel free to do so. At length with lots of gory details.

Just kidding I've heard that those guys are running a good show lately and I wish them continued success.

Shawn

Yeah, just like that other awful club, Triad. With whom we just happen to be in discussions with for a potential "relationship". More info soon

Donnie, I'm being devil's advocate just like you. Believe me when I tell you I'm as open-minded as anyone around here you have met Let's keep the civil discussion going.

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Shawn - I agree that we need to avoid that kind of downward spiral here - BUT - I want us to learn from mistakes. I have made some crappy course design decisions in the past, and I have learned from them, but I see them happen again and again.

I encourage criticism on this board about anything in this club if (1) it's constructive and (2) there is a reason to bring it about publicly.

In this case, with every course there is something to be learned, and everyone in the club is a potential future course designer. People reading this thread are learning something new with every post about corse design.

At least I hope so! Sorry, I tend to cut the crap and speak my mind, which is why I'm not running for president next year

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

I wan't going to respond to this, but I started to worry about the implication of that statement. This logic has also come up when advocates of eliminating our entry limits bring up their arguments.

Let me tell you all a story. It's about an event that became known as "24 hours of Laurinburg". I went to this event my first season of autocrossing, and it was the first time I convinced my wife (then fiancee) to come along. The course had, by standards in this club today, terrible overlap. It also had a record (at the time) number of people in attendance.

If everything went well, it probably would have finished in the daylight.

But everything did not go well. The event was plagued with timer problems and lord knows what else. I believe the last set of runs were done in dusk, and I remember being there until at least 8:00. And I left early, no packing up, no trophies. Needless to say, Kendra was pissed and didn't plan on coming out any more.

Let's just say I learned a lot from that day. And that's why I can't watch a course being set up with more than a 30 second overlap without doing something about it, and I hope other people who design courses agree with me.

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Again, it was the devil's advocate thing. In general you are correct. I guess I just assumed that whoever designed the course had some idea of how many people would show up and thus a reasonable idea that the overlap wouldn't end up being a problem. Did they? I guess only they can say.

But yes, *anything* that could result in the event not running in a timely fashion definitely needs to be kept in check. That's not to say there can never be large overlap times, there just can only be when there are lower numbers of entrants.

I'm on both sides of the fence on the course discussion thing, too. Too much can result in no one being willing to design courses. Too little of it can result in courses that too few people like. In general, unfortunately, only complaints get posted. I'm not sure there's a good way to "limit" things other than to repeatedly ask folks to remain constructive and positive in their criticisms and move on.


--Donnie

Like miles mentioned, I really liked the fact that this course made you look WAY ahead. I am a big advocate of looking ahead and I think I do a fairly good job of it, but on this course I was STILL surprised by a coupe of sections. One in particular was coming out of the first turnaround. As you went into that "box" and then left and then into the lane change. I was getting caught by surprise every time there and there wasn't a single run where I nailed that right. Every time I had to lift for the lane change, which if hit correctly, could have been taken flat IMHO.

I liked the change up myself. The turnarounds were nice and open, and were indicative of what you see at national events. There were a couple of sections where you could carry throttle all they way, although it didnt seem like it 1) coming off the first 2 offsets 2) into that lane change I was talking about.

The *only* thing that I would have improved on course design wise, would be the to extend that 15 pace to a 18-20pace slalom on the way back. The slalom on the north course at nationals was awesome this year, and we need to make one like that. It was a 5 gate 5 cones per gate slalom, where the space between the last and 1st cone is 15 paces, but between the last and last cone is 25 paces. Totally screws with you visually. If you can look past that large amount of cones, you can take it just about flat.

-Tom

The Last five cone slalom was fine. Watching from the side during cone shagging duty and from the passenger seat of people I rode with(which was alot after I was done driving and working) nobody was patient getting through it. I came into it on the rev limiter in second and slowed to nearly first speed in it. ALOT of drivers can't get used to slowing down and be patient after a fast section. Almost like coming of the interstate at 80 onto a 45 mph road, it feels like you are crawling. I think having the fastest part of the course then the slowest right after it was great. Aside from the potential overlap problem that course was absolutely perfect, my favorite all year. I don't think the courses should be dumbed down ever for peoples fear of hitting cones. It's not the course designers fault you hit them. The course was a bit 'busy' but that was what gave it charm.

_________________
2006 Civic Si - #24 HS for 2015

2005 GMC Sierra
1991 318is Garage Ornament

A few comments on the course and the event.

First, a BIG thanks to Jim and Kevin. I got to see what they were trying to do and what they were up against Saturday night. My first glance at it I saw half Autocross and half Rallycross. They did a lot to take advantage of that section of pavement. And thought outside the box and made something very different from the courses I have run this year.

Now with my ignorance showing, I didn't know there was this big deal about overlap. Learned something else this week. But if it broke some golden rule it sure didn't hurt too much. We all got 5 runs.

The course itself was fun. I hate turnarounds! But that is something I have to learn to master, not something the course designers need to stop doing. Now that section after the first turnaround was very cool. As others have said it forced you to look ahead. I actually improved looking ahead more because of that very section. I nailed it once on my 4th or 5th pass. It felt awesome! I swear I looked from the L all the way down to the last gate before the 25 cone slalom. I haven't looked that far ahead all year. So it was a great learning tool for me.

Graham

Ummm, I had to check the previous posts and I think that only myself and Donnie Barnes mentioned anything about "fear" of hitting cones.

So I guess the above quote is related to my comment...

Did anyone say that we wanted to "dumb down" a course (any course) by removing cones? You can penalize a driver in two ways for screwing up. Hitting a cone is one and causing them to go off the ideal line and loose time is the other. I am not saying that one is dumber than the other. They are just different.

Donnie's comments was that the course was an opportunity to work on dealing with any cone issues a driver might have. I totally agree with that.

I also mentioned that I didn't blame anyone but myself for not doing better than I did.

_________________
Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

I don't want to speak for Jim but I sure don't feel that any of this awesome discussion has degenerated into personal attacks at all. Some points have been repeated a few too many times but that's OK. Like I said in an earlier post, I greatly value hearing both what people like and dislike about courses that I'm involved with. Both types of comments help on designing the next one.

--Kevin H.

_________________
2003 WRX (again!)

We have a wide variety of experience levels in THSCC. We have a number of folks that run national level events. I especially value their comments because they see courses other than what just the local autocrossers do.

There is nothing wrong with a healthy discussion. It can even change negative opinions into positive ones. I for one, learned a lot from what others had to say about that design. We don't need to do this level of analysis on every course or every event, but it was helpful here. I suspect the next time we do something very different, a similar discussion may erupt! And that's ok.

Miles

I have kept quite on this thread. Shame on you if you were caught by surprise at Laurinburg. That is part of the allure of AX, never the same course. IMHO, I think the only drawback to the night series, we run the same course 80% of the time. But that is more do to logistics.

The cool thing is that most, if not all, of the top echelon drivers like the course. I liked it and I never got a chance to walk it. It was a challenge and when I did it hit it right, wow it was fast (at least for an MR2) I actually learned what I preach actually works. Coming out the "L" I got behind a little and off the line I wanted to be on. I lifted and gave up a little toget back on line. That allowed me to hit third gear coming out of the lane change. When I go behind another time and did not give it up, I had to bail on the run and blow past the lane change (one of my DNF's).

I think instead of wasting energy critiqueing courses, the energy should be directed on how different people approached a course.

_________________
Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

While I think some course critiquing is a good thing since we're always looking for ways to improve, I'd say I have to agree with Jim on the above point.

I use to spend a lot of my time complaining about courses or various aspects, not because I necessarily considered them to be bad designs (though I've certainly run some less than stellar designs over the years), but because they weren't courses I knew/could figure out how to drive. However, it didn't take me but one national-level event to figure out that, if I ever wanted to be a half-decent autoXer, I'd better quit complaining about the course designs & learn better how to drive any design that was laid out there.

So, that's what I've spent most of my autoX time for the last 6 or so years doing. You might still hear me say "I hate that feature", but that just means I haven't been able to figure out how to drive it successfully & mostly you'll then hear me soliciting ideas to try to fix my problem, not the course's.

I personally thought this course was a fun one. It had multiple fairly challenging aspects, many of which each challenged you in a different way. And, there was nowhere I felt worried about damaging something if I screwed up (which is something you will still hear me complain about)!

So, maybe Jim is right & we should now start a new thread on how to drive that course instead of how to "fix" that course.

_________________
The person with too many names...
Mary E./ME/Emmie Fisher/Daniel/Daniel-Fisher
(& some others not suitable for posting!).
Help support our habits; BUY http://virginiabreeze.us !

See Mary, I do listen you. Where do you think your pupil picked up on this?

_________________
Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

This is my last reply to this thread, I promise!

After designing a few courses I got all high and mighty and would bitch and moan about elements/courses whose design I didn't like. Every time I complained I would get cones, dnf's, or just slow times. Finally, after suffering for quite some time, it dawned on me (I'm not all that bright ) that the task for everyone other than the course designer and safety steward is to drive the course _as_designed_ as well as possible. Remembering that point has made events more fun and my performance more consistent.

--Kevin H.

_________________
2003 WRX (again!)