SASCA Event #7 - 2010

[craig_n]

Huge thanks to the many people who helped set up and tear down.  Stanford and Federico tried their hardest to make sense of the cones I tossed out on course and did a great job of making a course out of a scribble.  A secondary team came through and made very helpful suggestions- Chris, Shane, Ricky, John & Vivek. 

Huge thanks to Lee who worked all day - before the trailer showed up to the very very end.  Of course El Presidente is always there to do all the things we have no clue about.

The course succeeded in that Dalton/Mike were able to finally get the tire temps on the Legends car above ambient!

GreyLens- You can have even more fun at the next autox but please, we beg you, put limo tint on your windows!

[fury211]

man my car sounds hella nice from behind.

[Shane]

I know I'm not really a picky driver... as in, I like all sorts of courses cuz I have gobs and gobs of driving learning to still do.  That said, I quite liked this one.  Wasn't hard by any means, fun long sweeper, a slalom that caught me going to fast every damn time, and a hair-pin turn!  Don't see many of those.    I enjoyed it!  Plus, my raw-times were pretty good by my standards. 

P.S. Sorry for the gate worker that ended up with that extra long work-shift!!  Hey, it was my first run at Worker-Chief.  I won't let it happen again.

[AustinTX]

Good course, nice and safe.  The run from the crossover up to the first S was nice and tough, the rest was a bit too obvious and led to a single line approach.  Being that I haven't ever designed a course myself, I'm just speaking from a driving standpoint.  While I don't generally like long constant radius corners, I did learn something about my car that I can apply from now on.  THANKS!!!

John

[fury211]

I liked the course being simpler at least for a few rounds. It really helped me focus on looking ahead as I watched my times get crappier if I didn't.

It was also helping in teaching me a bit more about late apexing and proper positioning of the car in the corner. something I'm still working on. meh.

anyways, fun day, good course!

[danscanlon]

Craig,

After initial concern that my new tires would be trashed by your course, , I was pleasantly surprised. 
This was a good course & seemed an equal challenge for all, regardless of the steed brought to yesterday's event.

Laters & happy 1 year anniversary to me owning & competing with Karlino - as of yesterday! 

- - - - - - - - - -

Here's my latest blog post about what my new tires revealed:

  http://racingready.com/2010/07/12/return-to-autocross-competitive-too/

[Ricky Crow]

It's hard for AutoX to put much hurtin' on all-seasons ;-)

I must echo the sentiments by some of the others about the course...  Even though he won't take credit for it, thanks to Craig for a fun and safe course (as far as I know, this was his first time as eventmaster).  Also thanks to Stanford for helping with the course ideas and setup as well as the many others that helped with setup and tear-down.  It's much appreciated, and I'm glad to see us being able to consistently get everybody a good number of runs very efficiently.

Ricky

[craig_n]

Yes, it's my first attempt and that's why I begged for some high powered help.

John, I totally agree with you.  I also appreciate the suggestions/concerns you guys had during the walkthrough.

Even though I went through Roger Johnson's guide http://www.houscca.com/solo/courses/coursedesign.zip multiple times, I still violated about a hundred things.  I hope to have another shot at it and get some redemption.  I actually had specified the radii of the final 'S' turns but when it came down to setup there just wasn't the room that I thought there was.  Stanford managed to squeeze 10lbs of $@!^ into a 5lb bag.

I was unhappy that there were some dnf's, around 44.  Sixteen were from experienced drivers and/or class winners.  I'm sort of ok with that.  I'm not thrilled that a few novices had multiple dnf's.

Novices:  if you have a dnf and don't know where it happened, please have an experienced driver ride along with you.  Talk to a grid worker and they will help you out.  It's no fun to dnf more than once!

[Shane]

Actually, this experienced driver was the cause of a Novices DNF!  Oop!!
Sorry Shawn!      I'll keep my yap shut next time!
Actually, it was his first run ever that I messed him up no too!  D'Oh!
I guess I'm fired huh Kevin?  
me: "Ok, right hand around the outside of all these cones" (it was the first big sweaper)
me: "WAIT, THAT'S A GATE, GO THROU...."  Never mind.. to late!!  "
D'Oh!

[boxster_rs]

Hey Craig, it was a lot of fun working with you and Stanford and I think the end product was  pretty nice, after spending nearly 2 hours on  course setting up  and 7 runs I could never really get the last turn on to the finish right. I thought it was a good course with a lot of different elements and  I really enjoyed it . keep up the good work

Federico

[kujitsu]

I thought the course was hella easy to read. Loved the uber tight turn. Cant really see how you could dnf.

[fryguy190]

did any one get pics of the event???