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That's my opinion as well, we are trying to pack 10lbs of shit in a 5lb bag.

The bad thing is our next event is at the site with the LEAST elbow room.

Ahhh a challenge....

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

The course's I designed in the past, the best thing I always did was walk each element slowly and pick up cones or gates that were not needed. For example if I setup a sweeper with 3 sets of gates, a lot of the times I would take the middle out unless there was a reason I was trying to push the corner further out, giving the people the option of what line to choose. In fact one of the course I set up for a test and tune I picked up like 10 gates because they were just not needed, and I was "defining" the line through the course, but thats just what I used to do .

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David Teague
2015 Lexus IS 250c
1994 Honda Del Sol HS 39
2009 Dodge Journey R/T
http://teaguefamily.us

I just wanted to say that all the people talking about wanting to use fewer cones should come to a rallycross. We try very hard not to even have gates - just 1 to 3 cones with pointers to define the inside of every turn. BTW, we still have probably around 80% of the competitors killing cones.

Jim, I do understand that it was an offset to begin with, but it wasn't a "simple" offset. Next time I'll try a slightly different layout for what I was trying to do there & see how that works (and it will only involve 3 cones with a pointer on each).

On the "sea of cones" thing - if you figured out & remembered where you were supposed to be & what you were supposed to be doing in key places, you would see the elements "open up" as Chris Landi said earlier. I kinda like blind corners on road courses and rallycross courses, so I guess that's where that was coming from. You just have to figure it out & trust your abilities & knowledge of the car to keep you going where you're supposed to go. Yes, this separates the noobs from the guys who know what they're doing, but should we really be making it easy for them? If this stuff was easy, it wouldn't be as fun, would it?

Yeah I have to agree. I know we wanted all these cool elements on the main runway. And when you are standing there at the end of the runway it looks like they will all fit easily because it's so long. But then driving at speed you find out you're getting cramped in. More lessons learned.

Btw, you're proposed course for Greenville. Did you find that in the trash at Laurinburg? That was my 1st course option for Laurinburg for the main runway. My event co-chair threw it away and didn't like it for some reason.

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http://www.greywinds.com

A "one lane" course is not a desirable design. The best courses are ones where you have a choice of lines that reward the right choice and punish the wrong ones (in added time, NOT cone counts).
This is not just a local issue as I mentioned and why I started this topic, The national tour and pro solo courses have been traditionally designed by someone designated by the local host club without much oversight, but too many of them lately have become "painful" from the designers trying to be "clever" with out regard for the competitors. It all came to a head at this year's Oscoda pro solo where a number of competitors joined together to file an operational protest against the course design! There is no benefit to including very fast to very slow elements that are likely to result in flatspotting tires or have so tight a turn radius that many cars can't negotiate them or must come to nearly a dead stop to make it thru. Same goes for a course that requires several downshift/upshifts in the same run (S2000 not withstanding). Last year there was a course at Toledo that was nearly a straight dragstrip well into 3rd gear on our Celi ending with a near pivot cone tight turnaround. I don't know too many cars that can be successfully downshifted from 3rd to 1st while threshold braking from >70 to <20! A course should also not be confusing, if a competitor has to say "Ok, where do I go now?" on their first coursewalk there's a design problem.
The #1 criteria is that a course should be FUN to drive!

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

One FUN aspect of many good courses is at least one "increasing radius" sweeper that is just fast enough in the initial slow part to allow most cars to be in second gear and on the combination cornering/forward bite limit so that as the corner opens up drivers can squeeze on the power. Then make the following straight long enough for many cars to reach the top of second gear before braking for the next element. It helps if there is enough space so that if the back end (or front for fwd/awd) steps out as power is applied that it doesn't automatically cost one or more cones. The sweeper at the far end of the last Greenville event was an EXCELLENT example of what I'm talking about. We even got to do it twice per run as I recall! This kind of corner is fun for both high hp and low hp cars (I've enjoyed them with both) and they can actually favor the low hp cars since they can get around the corner faster and get to full throttle much sooner.

Also, a safe finish doesn't have to have a 15 mph element just before it. One key feature of a safe finish is no temptation to bansai corners or transitions close to the finish so that many cars are likely to be out of shape when they should be braking. This can be done with a bottom of second gear 90 shortly before a finish "straight". Then have a long enough stop area for the speeds involved. The Danville finish speeds and stopping distance were great even though the finish was slightly transition intensive and there was at least one spin into the grass. Fun (and safe) finishes allow one last burst of full throttle thru the timers before safe shut down. Save the Kenny Cones for someplace out on the main course since replacing cones near timers tends to result in timing errors . . . even if the timing lights aren't hit.

Finally, since my initial praise of the Danville course was posted so long ago: That was a really good example of a fun course. Lots of "power on" corners and curving "straights" while keep the speeds moderate. The tight section before the "straight" at the far end was maybe a little tight for my personal taste but it really was a FUN segment if you took the right line. What the "tightness" did was force us to take the fast line or pay at least one of two prices . . . being slow onto the straight or hitting at least one cone. The gates just before the chicago box were well spaced to slow us down a little from the relatively fast previous section while still being fun.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Well and my idea used every cone in the bus plus a bunch that we would steal from the NCDOT and be so tight that anything bigger than a Miata would not fit through the space, but my event co-chair rolled it up and burned it. - He was muttering something that sounded like "GD Miata drivers, JAP cars ought to be outlawed".......

I figured since there was so much discussion over how many cones are being used by course designers, I would scan the course map from Danville & delete all the cones that didn't change the line.

course as it was laid out (cone count is not 100% accurate):

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/Danville1.jpg

course as it would've been if we'd picked up all the cones that "weren't needed"

http://home.att.net/~kevinmallen/Danville2.jpg

(now how interesting/ easy to drive would that be? )

I think the minimal cone course would have been a lot more difficult to drive. You would allow people to select their own lines in the two most difficult areas. That would have been fun...

I know your example is extreme, but it does illustrate a good way to deign a course. Start with the minimum and then add to it. Replace some of the cones with pointers with wide gates. Add some cones that may help in reference. Add the chicago box back fro grins. Add some cones deep in the back of the sweeper to try and fool people.

The minimal course you show would have penalized people driving the wrong line pretty much the same amount of time as forcing then into a specific line and hitting cones.

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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

I would rather see this than a DNF/Cone fest.

Give people enough rope and they will hang themselves.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Technically, there are four cones that have to be added. The cones you come back through after the first 180, need to be a double cone gate.

I would remove one additional cone...the one after you enter the uphill sweeper. Let the people drive out there all day.

By removing a bunch of the cones, we could have been bench racing all week on the best line

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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

The minimal cone course would have been MUCH more of a challenge!
I'd have also removed the two inside cones in the big turnaround, just had the entrance and exit gates or leave one that was significantly too far inside for a single arc turn as a "sucker" cone for those not looking far enough ahead. Chicago box should designate a gate spacing too narrow for a slallom. My biggest issue was using "walls" to designate all features, lanes, slalloms and offsets. If you wanted an intimidation factor of potential high cone count, then vary the arrangement i.e. a cluster of three cones for the slallom gates instead of a wall. I found the three offset gates before the chibox were almost invisible after all the walls.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

Raises hand to insert PERSONAL OPINION.

Before the next event chairs go & remove *all* the cones from their course design...

First, I don't think designing a *really* good course is all that easy anyway. Secondly, I, personally, very much liked the concept of this course & thought several of the features were done quite well. I particularly liked the first turnaround section, "the lane", "the holes", & the back section with the offsets & Chicago box. However, I, too, thought there were too many cones *in some areas*.

I thought there were some features where the use of extra cones was fine & *did* add more interest. Cone placements that make you have to "think outside of the box" & recognize a feature for what it is, not necessarily what it first looks like *can* add more interest--just as long as the extra cones don't force-fit every driver into the same method or line to make it through. But, I also thought there were some cones that were there for no purpose other than visual clutter. When the course is cluttered, my pea-brain is *definitely* cluttered. For me to quickly recognize features in a clutter (even when looking pretty far ahead), I usually have to name them & memorize their drive directions. So, this time, to cover the front section of the runway I memorized: lane, gate, chute, diagonal, hole, hole. Luckily, this section was a mostly simple left-right driving action, so not much to have to memorize there. The only 2 places *I* really thought there were cones with *no* purpose at all other than to add clutter were the "vertical" row of cones just before the "holes" in the front section & the 2nd diagonal set of cones just before the offset gates in the back section. Looking at the original course map, it looks like these might have *originally* been expected to provide a purpose; but by the time the final drive iteration was set up, I think they had lost their purpose altogether & so should also have been removed.

After years of walking courses with some of the best around these parts, I have really come to prefer courses that, as Chuck mentions, don't define the line you must drive, but rather allow you the space to pick a good line & give yourself a chance for a pretty fast time or pick a not-so-good line & just #$%^! hang yourself. Such courses have usually been relatively easy for everyone, novices included, to find their way around, most often are not cone-penalty intensive, but also don't result in really fast times for every driver. With the "clutter cones" & maybe a few others removed from the front section, I think this course otherwise did a mostly good job of allowing the driver to pick his/her own good/bad lines -- & I think I did some of both of those on this course, too.

So, future course designers, my *opinion* would be to be judicious with your cone use & placement, but no need to be fearful of using any more than *the* bare minimum number of cones. There have been some pretty dang fun courses in between the bare minimum & every cone in the trailer/bus.

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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 !

I agree! Courses should be fun, not painful. Courses should be easy to follow and should allow some room for line choice. Guess what. The fast folk will still win and have lots of fun . . . but so will everyone else and cone/dnf counts will go down.

How do I know? I started autocrossing in an area which mandated easy to follow and wide courses. As a result that part of the country developed DRIVERS and dominated the Solo II Nationals for years.

FYI easy to follow course may require lots of cones to define the course boundaries. Also, on our gritty sites, don't get too carried away with course width since the only line will soon be the "popular line" due to grit build up adjacent to that line. I would be especially reluctant to have optional elements on dirty sites like Sanford. (of course, I see no good reason EVER for optional elements . When is the last time you saw a race track with optional elements? )

Dick

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Oh, but I *loved* that first turn around being optional! Carl & I were some of the very few who choose to do it counterclockwise -- & that direction worked great for us! Made for more lively conversation, too.

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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 !