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Says the guy that never went left? I'm just sayin' ... :shrug:

PS: That was the honkiest version of Arnold's quote evAr.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

X2!

Offer of a codrive in my car is still open! I'll have Azenis for Danville

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One of those LeMonHeads...
91/95 Miata, 02 Focus SVT, 01 Ford F250, 09 Suzuki SV650SF
rusty 84 C4 Vette, tiny piece of the General Lei
Irish Sport Horse - 1hp NA!

It was basically the same number of inputs. I was able to hold full throttle until the first slalom cone by entering to the right and then just needed to initiate an input to the right to start the rest of the slalom. In the video you can see me give a tiny input to the left entering there 'cause I was trying to be conservative and get a clean run in. On that run, call it 4 1/4 inputs -vs- 4 if I entered on the left. On my other runs, I didn't bother with that tiny input since I wasn't worried about getting a clean run in. I can upload some of those videos if anybody cares to see.

If I had chosen to go left, I would have had to get behind the previous cones instead of driving a much straighter line as I did. Those moves would have caused extra wheelspin and added distance in the process. I also would have had to lift off the throttle big-time to get to the left of the first slalom cone otherwise the car would get massive wheelspin and I would have understeered straight into the first cone.

As it was, I was full throttle for a much longer time than if I had chosen to go left. I obviously had to give it up a hair earlier entering the "P" but I was going so slow either way (remember, acceleration challenged car!) that it would have only moved my braking zone by a couple of feet. Contrast that with the big slowdown on entry by going left and it just didn't add up to me _for my car_. It didn't affect my line entering the "P" as I could get as far back to the right as I wanted to setup for the "P".

Next time we'll know for sure...

Incidentally, the optional slalom at the first Laurinburg turned out to be a wash in my car. I've talked to a bunch of people about it since the event but I don't think I ever remembered to follow up with a post. I think a higher-hp car was better off going whichever way provided a better exit (I can't remember the direction) but the acceleration zone after the exit was much longer than this one.

Jim

Says the guy who spanked your butt out on course. I'm just sayin'...



Digging deep again, are we?

Jim

All this discussion makes me feel good that Marcus and I got the course right regarding making the drivers make decisions rather than forcing the decisions on them.



Yes and no. To me, it became a matter of which straight part to extend. I *think* on my 66.9 that I coned away I went right on entry, thinking (?) that the slalom got faster going out of it, and I would probably extend the amount of time driving fast by maximizing exit speed coming out of it.

Here's where I sort of wish I had a video setup.

Heh

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Karl S.
2014 Baby, 2014 House, 2013 Ford Focus ST, 2013 BMW 328i, 1994 Mercedes E320
(Insert passive aggressive signature line here)

Camera, tripod, bungies - done!

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One of those LeMonHeads...
91/95 Miata, 02 Focus SVT, 01 Ford F250, 09 Suzuki SV650SF
rusty 84 C4 Vette, tiny piece of the General Lei
Irish Sport Horse - 1hp NA!

Karl and Marcus, you guys should mosey on over to Nasioc and read up on the debate as to wether or not that was an optional slalom. Several people are saying that, after watching Jim F and Marcus' in cars, they should have been DNFd for entering on the right.

THE FUN STARTS ON PAGE 12

Personally I LOVED this course. It was one of my favorite at Lburg ever. My performance didn't reflect my love of the course unfortunately.

Good job guys!!

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Marcus, I'm going to pretend you didn't say that! Remember, nothing good ever came from a Triad autocross.

[The preceding announcement was paid for by the Mike Dishman For President exploratory committee.]

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Art McDonald
Premier Amateur #518
2008 Dishman Cup
Pivot Cone Snob

Rodney is a waxer (but in a good way)

I tried both, but since I didn't get a feel for my tires until my last couple runs (analog guage was 5psi off - sound familiar?) I can't say for sure which I liked better. I did have to give up a little more to get into that second slalom going left, BUT, I think I carried more speed into the P because of the line it afforded me. I frankly can't recall which way I took on my fastest run.

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Dustin Fredrickson
-- I'm a nobody --

I never considered going left as an option. Having 180 hp less than Les... I had to take Jim's low HP approach.

Seriously, here's my thinking:

I think there were 3 slalom cones, then a gate on the left and a gate to the right (turn in for the P). The preceding offsets put your car on the right side of the taxiway.

So, I figured if I fought back to the left of the first of the three slalom cones, I had to go slower out of the preceding element in order to get back to the left, then brake earlier, drive 3 cones, then get a short acceleration run arcing through the left hand gate and brake hard at the right side gate leading to the P.

By going to the right, I could keep full throttle from the middle of the preceding offsets until just before the first slalom cone, brake on the diagonal between the 1st and 2nd slalom cones, and then I had a 4 cone slalom (treating the two gates after the slalom as more slalom cones). I didn't have to worry about scrubbing off as much speed (remember - ABS-less Mustang brakes) at the turn-in to the P. The only dicey part was entering the slalom on the diagonal instead of head on.

To look at it another way, I was carrying more speed coming out of the offsets before the slalom than I would be carrying at the exit of the slalom (entering from either direction), so maintaining that speed for as long as possible made a lot of sense to me.

Having said all of that, the results say that I threw away time everywhere else, but I had a great time and thought it was one of the best Laurinburg courses I've run.

Congrats to Karl Shultz for beating me by 1.3 seconds. Karl - you're only
7.239 seconds behind me for the year now!

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Art McDonald
Premier Amateur #518
2008 Dishman Cup
Pivot Cone Snob

Rodney is a waxer (but in a good way)

Well, I couldn't figure out how to post a dick joke in there at the time ...

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Karl & Marcus, thanks for a great course design that was very challenging!

FWIW, I took the optional slalom to the left in the morning. I never even thought about going to the right, which shows I didn't pay close enough attention during my course walks. Once I got to my worker station (#6 at the corner of the crossover and taxiway) I watched Feinberg go through there and he made it look so easy that I spent the next 90 minutes studying the two line choices. Also, I saw Dustin and Art go to the right and they made it look pretty easy as well.

So, I did all three afternoon runs going to the right. I think it was pretty close to even, but felt the right side was a hair bit quicker. Unfortunately, the Miata was a bit ill handling during my first 3 runs so it's hard to compare times. Once again, kudos to Karl and Marcus for coming up with an optional feature that was so even, that is not easy to do.

Eric

Yeah, but it just flowed better to the right for me. I had to slow down to go left.

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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!

Try the mirror next time for inspiration...

I honestly can't remember a feature that was so hard to read that the choice wasn't fairly obvious. That thing should be in a text book under "how to design an optional feature." Great job again guys!

I still think the "best way" somewhat depended on what you were driving. And it should be noted that "easier" or "harder" doesn't necessarily directly correlate to "faster" or "slower".

Ultimately, we are talking about splitting hairs here and I'd be willing to bet that the difference in most cars was in the neighborhood of a tenth. That is certainly within most driver's "noise window" and ability to perfectly execute that section-- myself most definitely included.

Jim

Point goes to Jim.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.