[here are my course design notes/analysis. hopefully it will be of value to other course designers and novice/intermediate drivers.]as i have mentioned before, 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. this time, instead of focusing on a particular technical aspect, i chose to focus on trying to illustrate the difference between the "art" and "science" of racing/autocrossing.
the way i think about it, the "science" of racing is the ability to keep the car on the edge of traction. we are all governed by the same rules of physics, and our cars produce a certain amount of grip. so the science of racing is the ability to utilize all the grip that the car can give you. the "art" of racing is the ability to find the right racing line to be on! you can be perfect at keeping the car on the limit of traction, but if you are on the wrong line, you are not going to be as fast. similarly, you can be perfect at finding the right line, but if you are not going as fast as you can ON that line, you are underdriving the car.
so with that said... the course had 2 distinct sections. the first section (let's call it section A) was comprised of 1, 2, and 3 in the course map, and the second section (section B) was comprised of 4, 5, and 6. section A offered some tough driving challenges, BUT there was very limited line choice through the elements. the idea behind doing this was that it would be a good way to tell how good the driver is at the "science" of racing. section B had many of the same challenges as as section A, but also offered a lot of different line choices.
luckily for us... the split timer happened to be almost exactly between the 2 sections... making it very easy to compare! so if you compare yourself to people in your class (or in similar cars), if you lost time to them in section A, you maybe need to work more on your ability to stay on the limit of traction... and if you lost time in section B you maybe need to work more on finding and/or staying on the right line.
of course this is not an exact diagnosis... and is only a crude attempt at shedding light on the difference between the art and science of this sport. there are many other factors involved that could affect the result. i am simply explaining what my objective was.
1. high speed right hander leading into transitionsthe opening straightaway leading to the fast right hander was an exercise in seeing how much speed you were comfortable carrying through the turn. there was no line choice... it was obvious that the driver needed to stay tight to the right. the entry to the transitions was the same story... simply an exercise in seeing how much speed you were comfortable carrying while being able to properly place the car in the gap.
2. left hand 180 degree turna habit that separates the fast drivers from the rest, is that the fast guys will not pass up ANY opportunity to accelerate the car. in this case, in the very short gap from the transitions to the left hand 180, the fast guys probably got on the gas for a few tenths of a second. while this may sound slight... it makes more of a difference that you think! of course, you can only do this if you are looking and thinking ahead and the car is in control coming out of the transitions. the 180 itself was pretty straightforward. the entry was pinched off so there was no line choice. the only choice you had was what angle you want to come out of the corner at. and that is important! just like the small gap between the transitions and corner entry, you would have wanted to take advantage of the short acceleration room between the exit of this corner and the entry of the next. to do that, you had to make sure that car came out of the left 180 at an angle such that most of your turning was already done.
3. right hand 180 degree turnthe entry of this corner marked the end of "section A". the moment the driver passed the entry cone, his/her eyes should have moved to the 6 cone "chute"... NOT the second apex cone of the corner. looking further ahead on the course gives your brain the information it needs to draw smooth imaginary arc between where you are, and where you want to be. unless you were looking ahead to the chute... you probably got on the gas too late... which cost a lot of lost time because you are accelerating hard for a significant amount of time here.
4. the obvious "make-or-break" corner of the coursethis corner had a whole slew of factors for the driver to consider! coming out of the preceding chute, the first thing that the driver saw were the 2 pointer'd cones on the right. both of these cones were FAKE apex cones... they were visual tricks designed to make the driver turn in early if the driver was not looking ahead. turning in early on those cones made getting through the gate much harder (and much slower!), and it also made the curb look much more menacingly close. to drive this corner right, the moment the driver got through the preceding chute, his/her eyes should have been locked in on the gate at the exit... completely ignoring the 2 pointer'd cones. this would make the driver start this corner wider, make the arc much more gradual, allow the car to carry MUCH more speed, and would cause the car to apex on the inside of the gate. as a result... the driver could begin accelerating the moment they passed the gate and get past the wall/offset with no issues... whereas other drivers would be left behind still trying to get the car turned to the correct side of the wall/offset, unable to accelerate. (NOTE: the other "mental game" of this corner was that the curb looked much closer than it was... which made drivers scared to carry speed around the corner. in actuality, any spin would have caused the driver to spin to the inside... keeping them away from the curb.)
5. the not so obvious "make-or-break" corner of the coursethis was quite possibly the most deceptive corner on the course. i employed another visual trick on corner entry. the gate on the corner entry made the corner look like a standard 90 degree corner, which would mean we would normally like to start the corner by placing the car near the left/outer gate cone to get a nice smooth corner entry. however, given the speed with which the driver would be approaching the gate... it was IMPOSSIBLE for the driver to be anywhere near the left/outer gate cone. this naturally made the corner an increasing radius corner! this made many drivers make one of 2 mistakes. they either (a) ended up apexing the corner at the right/inner gate cone on corner entry, drifted wide of the apex cone, and then maintained a constant speed all the way to the outside wall at the exit, or (b) slowed down too much at the right inner gate cone on corner entry, drive close to the apex cone AND the inside cone at corner exit, and thus carry too little speed through the corner. the correct way to get through the corner was to slow down just a bit at corner entry... enough to make sure you apex the corner at the pointer'd cone, and then accelerate through the corner to end up at the outside wall on corner exit. this approach would have given you better speed on the straighaway heading to the final transitions.
6. closing transitionsthere is little to say about this section. the only points of note are that you could carry quite a bit of speed into the 3 cone slalom, braking to get around the second cone, and then having the control/discipline to get the car slowed down to get around the third cone to make it to the right for the final 2 cones without being pinched off before the finish.
