Ok so here goes on the course and Lessons Learned
Split Personality
While we joked about this. Rob came up with the name based on a Miata and Corvette guy chairing an event. The Photo Chopped car was the funny part. Robs' friend did that chopping for us based on our idea. We were both pretty happy with that. We agreed on most of the course and ideas so it really wasn't based on jamming Miata elements and Corvette elements back to back. But it sure seemed that way.
The P:
When we went down weeks ago we never setup the P. It took too much time to clean and setup the main runway. So I did the P on paper and kept it fairly simple. And made sure we had open sweepers that most people like.
The diamond (some people thought it was a football). The intent of that was to make the preceding slalom entry optional and give people a choice on which side of the diamond they wanted to travel. Smaller cars could
take the short cut and larger cars could swing out and throttle it. We had to dismantle it unfortunately.
The intent was that the first cone of the diamond was actually the last cone in the slalom. Some people felt it could easily be seen as a standalone island and people would skip the last slalom cone shorting it up.
So we removed it. But it is coming back at some point in the future once I figure out how to use it differently.
Overall the P was easy, swing the pivot cone at the start. Enter a decreasing slalom, jump around the sweeper, go through a gate and into a jog around a pivot cone with a wall border. People who got burnt by that were simply driving too hard. I liked it and thought it was fun.
Taxiway:
Hmm, big contention point with some people. Apparently broke some golden rule of not having a slalom be either fixed, increasing or decreasing. Well it was an increasing then decreasing slalom. First 2 pointers
pushing you to the right. This was simply working around bad concrete. Then increase to the middle then decreases towards the end to slow you down before you hit the taxiway. There is bad concrete in the middle
and at the end. So forcing cars left and right at the intervals we chose was to keep you off the worst concrete. It was 50-50-75-100-75-50-50 (not random at all). If you gave it up at the end of the 100 you
could brake in a straight line and throw the car back in. Treat it as 2 slaloms, not 1. I thought it removed some of the boredom of the Taxiway since it has very limited options. I think I liked it but I'm not really
100% on that. I could take it or leave it.
Crossover:
This was the most fun part of the course for me. I thought this was the best sweeper out of all of them. I wanted a fast entry and Rob wanted Chicago boxes offset. Usually there is some small slalom in there. This changed things up. We did take the last cone in the slalom and move it in so that you had an easier entry into the box. We also moved the last cone at the end of the box in on both boxes. Apparently a lot of people tried to overcook that and take out the wall or part of it. That really was an easy jog through both if you had your car settled down properly.
Sweeper:
Ok so the big sweeper to the main runway is a favorite for Laurinburg. You can let the tail hang out and have fun.
Or take the shortest line. Whatever makes you happy. For this event we swung it way out to get you on the new concrete and not run over all that crap tar patching in the middle of the runway. So in theory a good idea. Then at the end of the sweeper the concrete started tearing apart. Damn! So Rob, Scott, Sally, Ann and myself fixed it Saturday night. It was the only new area that came apart. After the sweeper we gave you a little rundown area.
Actually about 100ft. Some of you took advantage of that and some just blew threw it and got tangled in the small slalom.
Main Runway:
That fed an offset slalom as we moved you across the runway. Again to get around bad concrete. We left the open gate on the other side of the runway as the setup for the next 2 elements. Here it got interesting. When
we setup the course weeks ago we had these next 2 elements spaced out so they were fun and challenging. Not painful. When we rebuilt the course we got that spacing seriously wrong. We screwed up. The 2 elements were
taken right out of Roger Johnson's 1999 North Course. 1st the Tunnel and then the Walls. It was really supposed to drive like a small sweeper in the middle of the runway and then a nice S. All the cones were really about the
visual. To make it look like a tunnel and then driving into 3 walls. Coming out of that if done properly you were set to fly through 2 offsets. I really wanted those and they were a blast to drive. But the trick was to slow
down sooner than you thought for the last slalom. But that was the end of the course. The last slalom was a decreasing slalom intended to get you slowed down. That final slalom caused some grief also. I think we could have done that part better. After that slalom you had a quick right turn and out of the box. Pointing away from cars and people. And pointing you right back to "pit row".
Lessons Learned:
So overall our idea felt sound but it ended up not running like it should.
We full well expected some really fast drivers to break 60 seconds. We were off by a good 10 seconds.
We created cone carnage and that was never the intent.
It was tighter than it should have been in some areas and I hate super tight painful courses.
We missed the notion of fast sections being followed by medium then slow. So we made mistakes there making people go from full on to full off. Some, but not all areas should have had better transitions.
We had a longer course than the head count could bear. We realize that now but had no real way to predict entry count. I was surprised and dissapointed in a realtively low turnout for Laurinburg.
We had options to shorten the course at the beginning or end already planned for. It was agreed to try and run it the way it was built. I thank the staff for supporting us. But as Event Chairs we should have pushed to cut the course based on the entries.
As with all courses some people hate them, love them, think they're so-so. Everyone has their favorite courses and elements they want to see. And elements they don't want to see. That's perfectly fine. I had no visions about everyone being crazy about it. The course idea was thinking outside the box and trying new things. Some of it worked and some of it backfired.
With all the problems that arose including the course and worker count it just made my weekend so-so. But it hasn't slowed me down. Most of this is really a technical challenge and I enjoy those. I'll figure out how to do it better.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
