THSCC Forums

Okay time to address Brian's questions:

A normal ax course is usually between 40-50 seconds. So the Laurinburg course is what you normally see at all levels. Nothing bad, nothing great.
I am bored with Laurinburg. Over the past 5 years, over 90% of the courses have been the same course. The only varient is running clockwise versus counter clockwise. Running the same course is not the object of AX. It is fine for the track though. A major object of AX is the different courses and figuring it out.
I only had two self-serving design features in mind:
No heavy braking zones (Corded two tires testing the school courses any heavy braking would result in blown tires)
No clutch dumping start (MR2 hangover)

Now when designing a course these things come into play before a cone is set up

Safety - that site is pretty fail safe, not much to hit. But we do have to keep people out of the dirt.
Speed - Please read the SCCA rulebook on speed. The rule of thumb is keeping SS (Z06) to about 68 mph or so. I know on this past course you did not have a chance to look at your speedo. And that is a good thing on an AX course.
Overlap - We would like to keep overlap around 25 seconds. The novice school course had a 15 second overlap I have found it best to keep 2 cars on course. That means the worse case scenario only requires 2 reruns.
View - If the starter and t&s can see the whole course, they have total control on launch. This prevents a lot of confusion and reruns. It also adds to the safety. It goes along way in keeping course workers safe
Grid & Pits - Do we have enough room to accomidate 120 drivers in a safe manner. Is there easy flow to and from grid and pits? This is usually the last real concern. And it is usually an after thought.
Worker Stations - Okay, we have 90 people to man the course and 30 of those are novices. You do the math. We can not support 10-12 worker stations. This leads to long delays and is very dangerous. So my goal was 6 worker stations.
Crowd - No one wants to come to an event only only see 100 yards of a course and see it in one dimension....from the back. If you are not watching other drivers, you will not improve.

Now comes the actual course set up

I did not have the luxury of spending days onsite designing a course. We had to design three courses for the weekend.
That site is in very, very bad shape. So any course has to work around the broken pavement. Most people do not notice it, because they are walking around the stuff and looking at the course that rests on some decent stuff.
We did not want to be running on the concrete patches that ECTA had put down. If neededwe would go straight over them, bit could not turn on the patches nor brake on them. Trust me, we found out in the novice school that those patches come up pretty easy. Then you are left with a giant hole in a turn or braking area ... not a lot of fun
Now you have to work with the area and incorporate the elements that make AX...well AX. AX is not a speed event, it is a driving skills event. Drag racing is for speed.
Can we incorporate looking ahead, turning early, getting on the gas early and proper braking...yada, yada, yada
Now, you have 10-12 people offering advice as you are trying to lay the course out.
I have 5 years under my belt and 100 plus events...but I need to remember that 25% of the participants are novices or little experience. But the course has to be a challenge to the more experienced drivers.

So those are just some of the issues that I am dealing with doing the Laurinburg course. Like any AX course, you want sections that are slow and you want to reward those with fast sections. Remember the adage, to go fast, you have to go slow


If you want to learn, co-chair an event or be there for the EV Challenge. [/list]

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

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

Excellent post Jim! That really gives some insight to what a course designer go thru.

I have chaired several events and designing a course is not as easy as it looks.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

I don't know that I can agree with that. If by the same you mean they all started on the runway/taxiway went down to the crossover and cam eback on the taxiway/runway, then sure 90% have been the same.

But there are an endless number of variations in how you get to the crossover and back. As well as using the P or not. An the whole concept of a normal time for any autox course is a bit strange to me.

Now I am not complaining about the course/event/etc, I wasn't even at that event. Just throwing out my $0.02

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91 Jetta GLI STS/DSP 111
85 Porsche 944 ASP 11
http://www.blackforestindustries.com

ANYONE CHAIRING AN EVENT READ THAT TEN TIMES. It has probably been the most-often screwed up thing at our events the last few years.

EXCELLENT post Jim!

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

Thank you Jim.

I do appreciate the lack of hard braking zones. I'm always going to have a little bit of lockup, but it was just a little bit last weekend, as opposed cording a 8"x4" section of tread as I did at the T&T slalom excercise last month. Now about that launch.. this was only the second time in 17 years that I had the opportunity to dump the clutch on an autocross start. The first time was the June 2003 night series event.

I did find it helpful to be able to walk the length of the course and observe the action while the A grid drivers in my morning heat were driving. Nothing like eliminating any navigation doubts before your first run.

Thank you, Jim, for putting on a good event!

Sorry I missed it. I too have experienced the challenge of designing an autocross course, and having it redesigned on me teh day of the event. I am not complaining because changes were made in the interest of safety mainly due to poor trailer placement, but I can relate to the challenge of trying to please everyone and intentionally designing a course that favors one car over another.

Overall, the experience I had was a good one and I look forward to the opportunity to design more courses in the future.

Ryan, Jim, do you use any software to design courses or do you just use sketches?

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'99 Mk IV Jetta VR6 now claimed by the better half.

'90 Miata A-package, Floats like a butterfly and buzzes like a BEE with loudspeakers.

I use Excel.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9