course design notes: 10/10/2010 @ blossom (vivek)

[in the interest of helping all of us become better course designers, i think it would be a great idea if we posted course design notes (to explain our thinking) before/after the event. doing so will help others who are interested in course design get up to speed on what kinds of things they should be thinking about... and it will also help the experienced designers get feedback from others. the intention is to increase the level of fun, make the courses safer, and more challenging!]

10/10/2010
i try to give each of my courses a theme. the idea is to have varying elements on the course, but have one primary aspect/skill to focus on and practice. for this course, the goal was to focus on "carrying speed through a corner". so i will explain how i tried to instill that
characteristic.

1. the start
a common theme you will see at bigger national level events is to have a turn immediately following the start. the purpose of this is to reduce the launch advantage of all wheel drive and high horsepower cars. the radius of this particular right turn start was such that it made banzai launching unnecessary, but you could still accelerate continuously around it. if you recall, there was a cone on the outside/left that served to prevent the driver from swinging too wide. i put that there to reward drivers who are able to figure out a way to accelerate and carry speed through the right turn without running wide.

2. right hand pivot + slalom
another cone on the left prevented the driver from swinging too wide... but the crux of this section was the fast right hander before the slalom. because of the angle of approach and the edge of the parking lot being visible (but away by a safe distance!), the turn looked sharper than it was. novice drivers might also have missed the fact that it was VERY on-camber (banked in the driver's favor), making it even faster. the more advanced driver had a choice in how to approach it... either carry good speed around it but not swing too far on the exit and back-side the first slalom cone to carry more speed through the slalom... or carry even MORE speed around it, end up a little wide, and essentially "miss" the first slalom cone and make it a (tighter) 2 cone slalom. there are trade-offs to both approaches, and it is ALWAYS a good idea to give drivers choices in how to attack a course.

3. bottom of the hill 180
normally, the 180 degree turn at the bottom of the hill is a pain! it is usually very slow because of being severely off camber, and somewhat gravelly. i chose to go a little further down the hill than we normally do... because it flattens out (not off camber anymore), and is significantly smoother and free of gravel. the result is that even though the turn has a smaller radius, it is actually faster because there is more grip! this particular corner was designed to be a bit deceptive. the apex cones were laid out to form an increasing radius corner... but the wall on the outside of the corner was really far away at corner entry and came closer on corner exit, making it LOOK like a decreasing radius corner. as a result, the driver was rewarded for properly recognizing the corner, and subsequently figuring out a way to get on the gas early to carry maximum corner exit speed, as necessitated by an increasing radius corner.

4. unmarked apex high speed right!
the very fast right hander before the crossover offered several different line choices to the driver! hug the inside and minimize the distance before accelerating hard? start wide to carry more speed through the corner while driving a little more distance and finish on the inside before accelerating hard? or take the classic "outside-apex-outside" widest/smoothest arc to maximize corner speed? these choices are typically pretty obvious (and thus not really choices) in slower corners... but on faster corners like this one, the trade-offs tend to be harder to visualize. this was done by setting up the corner using 2 angled "6-packs" that are (a) wide enough to offer line choices, and (b) placed in a way that the apex of the corner is somewhere between them... unmarked! this forces the driver to visualize the smooth arc that they want to drive instead of just "connecting the dots" on the course. the driver's dilemma is then further compounded by the pucker factor of such a fast corner

5. tight left/right and acceleration zone
this series of elements had a little something for every level of driver. novice drivers had to work on finding the right braking point, intermediate drivers had to work on being patient and looking ahead, and advanced drivers had to do all of that and ensure that they got on the gas BEFORE the right hand turn to carry maximum speed exiting the turn and onto the long straight! to make this work, i designed the elements in the following way. the tight left hand box turn was made to APPEAR as if it opened up at the exit (because of the shape of the box). this would be a "gotcha" for a driver who was not looking ahead and carried too much speed around it. the secret to getting it right was to keep it tight, look ahead, and be patient on the left turn, so that you are properly lined up for the right turn and can accelerate early! the wall after the right turn apex cone is another visual trick. it makes the driver a little weary to carry too much speed or get on the gas for fear of hitting cones. the fast way was to begin accelerating before the right turn apex cone, and let the speed carry you out towards the wall (but not hitting the cones obviously).

6. the "single cone turn from hell" high speed left
this was one of the make-or-break sections on the course! drivers had near unlimited choices of how to approach the turn. they could carry a lot of speed in by diving in and early-apexing before slowing down to get through the gap, or take a wider approach and be much better lined to carry more speed through the gap, or anywhere in between! from a design perspective... what made this corner work is that the corner entry point was wide enough to allow the driver to position the car however they wanted, have a VERY open/undefined mid-corner, and a challenging corner exit. giving the driver so much choice at the start and middle of the turn FORCES the driver to look ahead if they want to get a good time. this becomes especially true when you notice, as an astute driver would in this case, that the surface begins going a bit downhill at the end of the corner... making it even MORE important to plan, look, and think ahead. of course, as with #4, one of the biggest variables on this corner was just how much speed the driver was comfortable carrying!

(remember, trade-offs are only trade-offs if the options available are actually worthwhile/viable. if only one of the choices makes sense... then there is no trade-off.)

7. downhill 90 degree turn
this was a fairly straightforward ~90 degree turn. the only things that made it interesting were that the surface is very off-camber, the driver has a little room to run wide on exit if they so choose, but that is probably unwise because of the cone wall a little further down that you have to be to the left of while accelerating. it was a pure "execution" corner... not much thinking to do here

8. look ahead, go fast, dont spin!
while the layout and shape of this corner were mine, the idea behind it was stolen from the west course at nationals 2010. the idea is a simple one; the line through a corner is DIRECTLY affected by what comes after it. because of the location of the 3 inside cones, the corner was made to look as if it goes on longer (greater degree) than it really does. the trick to driving this corner right was in looking way ahead to the kink at the end of the straight and realizing that in order to line up well for the kink we would have to be over on the right. that made this corner much faster... carrying enough speed to BARELY miss the end of the wall on the right. an unintentional complexity that resulted because of the surface was that the entry was flat, mid corner was uphill, and the exit fell off to the right... so the grip levels were ever changing!

9. the kink/gap and finish turn
the kink and the right hand sweeper are directly stolen from the east course at nationals 2010 (except mirrored/flipped and scaled down). the intention of the corner is to give the driver a long sweeper with a slow entry through which to find the right arc and right rate of acceleration without pushing out too wide. the far/wide walls lulled some inexperienced drivers into carrying too much speed in, and thus pushing really far wide... but for most intermediate and advanced drivers... it was a matter of finding the ideal angle at which to point the car to be able to accelerate around the corner and into the finish.

in sum, as i said at the start, the "technical" goal was to get drivers to work on carrying speed through various different kinds of elements. hopefully that was accomplished while still being fun, safe, and challenging to ALL levels of drivers