THSCC Forums

Please share stories, observations, suggestions.

Thanks!

Good event, well run, not too hectic (nice), and THANKS for letting the instructors get lots of runs! That makes it more than worthwhile.

My comment / suggestion: Re - Having only one course - I understand the desire for simplicity and having ample course workers. But as far as event "quality" for participants, 2 simultaneous courses is better. 2x the number of runs and a lot less time sitting in the car between runs. But it definitely makes the event harder to run.

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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

Having done two novice schools with the above format, they are not that tough to run. Two catches though:

1) Getting the students organized in the morning.
2) Can be a bit much for the instructors. We had a few last year that were getting motion sickness.

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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

a few novices i talked to were disappointed that the turnaround was gone for the 2nd course. of course they all hated it, but they all agreed they needed more practice w/ it.

most ppl seem to hate turnarounds which means they are bad at them which means they need more practice which means they are good for instructional courses.

Wow. I love those things. Other than timing and knowing your line, it is a fairly easily element (iff you have abs). Just get close to the cone and go-go-go!

At the same time, it is nice when 'easy' elements have multiple attacks to them (i.e. I took the pivot cone on the left).

I thought Saturday was excellent and more well defined than when I had my Novice school in 2004, IMHO.

Great job.

- dow

Just wanted to post the reasons we went with one course at a time...

1:1 ratio means instructors are able to stay with one student the whole time, instead of jumping from car to car. Yes, I know some of you ran out of things to say & thought the wait between runs was too long, but most of MY time at any autox is spent standing/sitting around, waiting to run and socializing.

Only 5 instructors needed at a time to help the students learn how to work the course.

Wanted all the students to run the untimed course before they ran the timed course - can't do that with 2 courses running simultaneously. Also wanted to run the timed course like it was an actual autox (although a very small one).

Wanted the students to see how the course changed when it was reversed.

Wanted to see if we could make the worker-change-on-the-fly thing work. We couldn't, even by having some of the workers come in and get in line to run early. They were just moving too sloooowwww.

Less work to switch to Sunday's course after the school if just using the "P" area.

I think there were a couple other reasons, but I don't have my notes here right now.

I wanted to keep it, but the launch interval would've been too long to get 4 runs.

Kevin - I understand and agree with all of your reasons except this one:



Splitting into 2 courses would not change this -- just makes 2 mini events, ie, 20 students and 10 instructors per course instead of 40 students and 20 instructors on one big one. Doesn't change the ratio or the car-hopping.

Just wanted to point out the logistics -- not trying to bash your decision! You are the event chair, you get to do it the way you want, and by any measure you guys did a great job!!!

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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

I heard from a couple of students that it would have been good to ride with instructors after lunch, before their afternoon sessions.

Have mixed feelings about that idea.

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Not spectacular just decent.
I'm not sure what I'm driving.
Maybe an ITR in DS.
Or half-assed STX prepped 330.

I scared the crap out of my first student just before lunch. He was really aprhensive about even riding with me .

When I woke up at 0530 saturday I was like, bleep bleep why did I volunteer for this. Turned out to be a lot of fun and hopefully my students learned something. Me="Gas, gas, gas" "It's just a cone, it's not going to kill us. Go faster"

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Silver Honda
Green Ford
Blue/White Suzuki
Red Triumph
Grey BMW

"Never let life be shaped by fear of its end"

No, you're a towel!

The official "mantra" of the hack association.

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Vincent Keene
'06 Ford Mustang GT (track rat)
'15 Dodge Charger R/T (yeah, it's got a HEMI!)
'07 Ford Fusion SE (205,000 miles and counting)
'98 Chevy Z-24 (retired)
'93 Acura Integra (Team SWB 24HOL Car)

Hmm... I thought that was "Dialing out the hack".

I took both of my Novices out on runs, and it helped both of them. Tim learned that he was doing the right things, but he just needed to cut out the pause time in between, and what I meant about needing to be near the limit to get the car to rotate (or as some people call it, 'dancing').

I took Frank out at the end for my 26.4/26.2 (I can't recall which it was) and it showed him what he needed to do a little better, and what NOT to do (i.e. the drift run).

I think taking students out there helps in relatively the same cars. However, taking them out in a car that behaves NOTHING like theirs *I think* would be of little value.

Regardless, this NOV school isnt the last time they can get ride-alongs. I am open every event on every run.




I like the K.A "I am going to do this element so I have enough speed for over here" phliosophy as well
- dow

Ps. My drifts are never 'watch this'. They are always premeditated before the person gets in the car.

I guess you're right. I do the same thing

I don't know what I "try" to do more, be smooth or have fun. I find it's hard to be smooth, have fun, and turn good times (for me at the moment).

As for the ride along's in similar cars, that is also a plus. It's hard to compare the three aspects to each other and would suck if you show a novice how to do something in a Subaru and they try the same thing in a Vette and end up half way in the field

... or, they could try the same thing in an STi and end up way off in a field anyway

Man, I am sure glad that Stacy doesn't check the THSCC forums often

- dow

I was talking in terms of 2 courses and 2 sets of worker stations changing the number of instructors needed to teach course working - if we'd needed 5 more instructors for that, plus an additional starter, plus an additional grid worker, plus whatever else we'd need (I can't remember right now) some instructors would've been car-hopping. Unless we could've added more instructors... and the higher-ups didn't want me to get more than 25 instructors.