AX8 Watch the Jinx @zMax

[drum3]

It was a 2 cone gate with 70 ft on either side of it,, it didn't need a pointer. It was only offset as far as the wall of the gate before it. Just as slaloms don't need pointers,, if there are 2 cones either vertically or horizontally you have to go between them.
What got most was the vast open space between them.

[dewittpayne]

Jul 31, 2013 21:32:34 GMT -5 drum3 said:

It was a 2 cone gate with 70 ft on either side of it,, it didn't need a pointer. It was only offset as far as the wall of the gate before it. Just as slaloms don't need pointers,, if there are 2 cones either vertically or horizontally you have to go between them.
What got most was the vast open space between them.

Strictly speaking there are only a few places where pointer cones are actually needed, mainly to make a slalom non-optional.  There were a lot of unnecessary pointers on the course by that rationale, particularly on the outside gate cones where they are not only not needed, but not wanted.  The question is not about need but about desirability.  Based on the number of DNF's, it would have been desirable to not only have a pointer cone, but probably also a wall and/or set of directional cones or lines.  This was a regional event and there were complete novices running. 

[dewittpayne]

In fact, every other offset in that run up the parking lot was marked in some way.  See black circles.

[drum3]

.There were no DNFs there during the dry runs,, none. They were all due to poor visibilty and inexperienced drivers. It was a gate,,, all by itself,,, sitting just about 20 degrees off your direct line of site....very easy to see... nothing blocking and you barely had to turn the wheel to get through it,,, that's why I said it didn't need a pointer.....there was absolutely no reason to miss it unless you had tunnel vision at which I doubt pointers would have made a difference.

And there were 11 novices in the 1st run group,, none DNFd there.

[xeric13x]

It was definitely the weather. The rain made the chalk lines pretty faint to the point of not noticing them. We all seem pretty accustomed to having our courses chalked which is why there was no DNF's in group 1. They had a line to follow. After AJ showed me where I DNF'd, I noticed the chalk line on my 4th run and then rerun (thanks Marske!).

[ukfpilot]

I ran in Group 1 and we definitely had very good chalk lines to go by. Watching my videos of my runs and then watching some of the others runs after the rain, it was night and day difference in the picking up the course. Nothing you can do about the weather though. Still have to look ahead and pick up the gates and cones, regardless or chalk lines or not.

[Frodo]

The course design was fine. Yeah, in some places it was a pain in the @$$, but that's autocross. It's supposed to challenge you. If every little detail was pointed out to you then it would defeat the purpose. There's no reason for anyone to complain about the high number of DNF's towards the end of the event. If you really feel the need to, however, then send your complaints to whatever god(s) you may believe in for making it monsoon. Like previously mentioned the first run group ran just fine with a hefty number of novices and very few DNF's. So it's plain as day that the course was fine and the weather was the fault here. Some people thought they could handle the weather conditions and tried to drive it like it was dry. Some may have had little experience in the wet. Others may have just got greedy. Regardless the weather sucked, but the course itself was great.

And for anyone wants to whine about times not being displayed throughout the second and third run groups well what I would say here would be changed by the forum rules.

[matthugie]

[dewittpayne]

There is a difference between challenging and confusing. The hairpin turns were challenging because it was easy to fool yourself into taking the wrong line and losing a lot of time. But there was no question where the course went.

Lines wash away or at best become difficult to see in the wet. Cones don't.

Anyone who thinks this is beating a dead horse needs to read Roger Johnson's Course Design Manual

www.houscca.com/solo/courses/Course_Design_4-1.pdf

[CoolGuy094]

Aug 5, 2013 12:03:38 GMT -5 dewittpayne said:

Anyone who thinks this is beating a dead horse needs to read Roger Johnson's Course Design Manual

[dasautochris]

LORD JESUS.

[yellow CR]

If a single un-pointerfied gate directly in front of you is confusing, sorry.

[drum3]

Aug 5, 2013 12:03:38 GMT -5 dewittpayne said:

There is a difference between challenging and confusing. The hairpin turns were challenging because it was easy to fool yourself into taking the wrong line and losing a lot of time. But there was no question where the course went.

Lines wash away or at best become difficult to see in the wet. Cones don't.

Anyone who thinks this is beating a dead horse needs to read Roger Johnson's Course Design Manual

www.houscca.com/solo/courses/Course_Design_4-1.pdf

You do realize that the Course Designer Taught Roger Johnson how to set-up National Level Courses ,,Right ? , He has attended EVERY National Championship , Owned his own driving School and won multiple National Championships. I'm pretty sure he knew what he was doing ,,,,,and btw the 2 cone slalom at the far end of the course had more DNF's than any where , it was dead center of the 2 elements but people seemed to forget it was a gate ,,,,confusing ? did we need pointers on an optional slalom ?

[belcher]

The course is what it was. We ALL had the chance to walk and learn it. We ALL had a course map available before (days?) we put a tire out in anger. If anybody DNF'd, I did just not there, it is the drivers and only the drivers fault. Pointer cones, lines are just assists. They are not, I would think, mandatory. Years ago all you got was a sea of cones and maybe a map if you were lucky. This was at SCCA events.

The course was good and challenging. I didn't drive up to my expectations. It wasn't the course's fault.

[ukfpilot]

I liked the course. I thought it was awesome. So much fun and very fast, and quiet a challenge. But then I got to run in the dry. It would have been a blast to run wet, too. Just would have been much slower times. I think that I could have still found my way around, wet or dry. Like it has been said, we all had a chance to walk it and study the map.

[trdriver]

2 quotes from Roger Johnson's course design manual.

"Track the number of DNFs for other than mechanical failure. The goal is zero. Acceptable is 1 in 20 on the first run, 1 in 100 thereafter."

"The course should NOT be line dependent. If it rains the course must still be able to be seen and negotiated successfully if all the lines are washed away."

If you can blame the increase in DNFs on the rain, then it follows that it will always be okay, even expected, that this always happens when it rains. This is ridiculous. I LOVE running in the rain - I'm not one of you wimps that stays at home when rain is expected. I've been doing this for a while and I've NEVER seen such a high percentage of DNFs just because it was raining or started raining during the event.
A course that cannot be successfully negotiated on a majority of runs after it starts raining, cannot be regarded as a successful course design. I'm not whining - I had fun and I won my class, and i have no specific criticism of this course. I'm just concerned that more folks will not show up when rain is in the forecast because some of you are basically telling them they are whining idiots and its okay with you if they DNF most of their runs in the rain.

Cheers,
Jack Mc

[drum3]

Even in the rain , the DNF's in that area were only from 3-4 drivers , at least one admitted doing their course walks wrong in that section too. The rain caused multiple spins and DNF's due to off course excursions . As noted as the rain lightened and it became brighter , I thought the reflections in the standing water affected my judgement on some corners , it didnt make the course any harder to find .

[trdriver]

126 drivers posting times scored almost 100 DNFs
A number of drivers didn't take all 4 runs, so this means more than 1 in 5 runs were DNFs and the rate of DNFs scored in the rain or wet would be much higher.

So it was even worse than I thought it was. More than a tad short of Roger Johnson's goal for "acceptable".

[1slowcrx]

I still think the course wasn't at all to blame. I never had any issue with the course at all. I did however have a 300' 40* angle slide in Marske's car that put me to the left of a gate giving me a DNF. Completely aware I was going and ended up off course.

Mind you this was in the worst conditions of the entire day. Still wasn't an issue with the course. I still don't feel like it should be the clubs responsibility to show you where you DNF'd.

[srduck]

Aug 12, 2013 20:14:08 GMT -5 trdriver said:

126 drivers posting times scored almost 100 DNFs
A number of drivers didn't take all 4 runs, so this means more than 1 in 5 runs were DNFs and the rate of DNFs scored in the rain or wet would be much higher.

So it was even worse than I thought it was. More than a tad short of Roger Johnson's goal for "acceptable".

Here are mine and Marske's DNFs. Had nothing to do with course design except the bump that I don't think anyone realized even existed before that day. Notice how we both went on the right side of that gate that was blatantly in your line of sight exiting the showcase sweeper?

[integra55]

IMHO ....( some of that might draw a laugh from the H part.. LOL) there was absolutely nothing wrong with the course ... there are lots of people that don't walk with any purpose, there others that don't get from their walk what some do ... after many back-n-forths with someone that has problems with finding the courses ... there are just some people that have problems remembering the course .... some of it is trying to memorize the entire course instead of picking the few (this time I think I had picked out 5 or 6) special cones ... ones that make the rest of the course flow by itself ... some of those rely on the flour outline. with the rain that crutch was gone (I can't remember ever using the flour while in my car ... it helps on the first walk ... after that ... not so much

so I think the DNF's were more a problem with how people "learn" the course, and the rain making it hard to stay on course ...

[CoolGuy094]

So with all this talk about how the flour lines disappeared after the rain, and then I watch the above video and STILL SEE FLOUR LINES on the course... I'm even more confused as to how people can complain about the rain washing away the flour lines and the course becoming completely undrive-able?

[drum3]

I had 2 DNF's ,,mine had nothing to do with the course . My Co-driver had the same ,,nothing to do with the course , everything to do with a slick surface and overly aggressive drivers . How many times do you see Jinx and Zimmer get multiple DNFs ?

[drum3]

Aug 12, 2013 20:14:08 GMT -5 trdriver said:

126 drivers posting times scored almost 100 DNFs
A number of drivers didn't take all 4 runs, so this means more than 1 in 5 runs were DNFs and the rate of DNFs scored in the rain or wet would be much higher.

So it was even worse than I thought it was. More than a tad short of Roger Johnson's goal for "acceptable".

29 of those DNFs were Pro Class in the heavy rain , another 27 were other classes running in the rain , 59 DNFs were first or 2nd run DNFs with clean runs after . Me and my co-driver had 4 between us that had nothing to do with the course and everything to do with the slick course and standing water.
Street tire ran in the dry , only 3 DNFs !!! out of 80 class runs .....

[belcher]

It wasn't the course, period!!! Some may have had to do with weather and aggressive driving. Most had to do with not learning the course well enough. Others, like me had brain farts. My 1st run was clean. 2nd with a +1. Last 2 DNF's. I knew it when it happened. I had an "oh look, a butterfly" moment. So if the course was "poor" I would have DNF'd in the beginning. The course didn't change much if any from when first shown to us on paper.

[Frodo]

People who want to blame the course design are the same kind of people who more than likely don't walk it properly. I'm not an expert at walking a course or picking out the perfect line, but I'm not up in arms about the course being hard. Those people don't want to take responsibility for the fact that the weather is a feisty temptress and she doesn't care who she messes up. Of all the DNF's how many were in the dry? And how many in the wet? And now lets look at the fact that 2nd and 3rd run groups were the groups that rain in the rain/wet. Now take into consideration that Pro and Intermediate, which was over one-third of the registrants, ran in 2nd and 3rd groups respectively. How often do you see Intermediate or Pro drivers even DNF? That's not to say those running in those two PAX classes are the best drivers out there, but from what I've seen they are generally drivers with enough experience that they don't DNF too often because of their driving. The weather sucked. Plain and simple. Some drivers got greedy and thought they'd be OK despite the conditions. I know because I was one of them. I didn't DNF, but I did mess my runs up because I didn't focus on the course and got greedy with my driving. Not because of the fault of the course design. Quit your whining about courses not being easy for those of you not willing to take the time to learn it. If you took it seriously enough to b***h about it for your points then you would have adjusted your driving and/or learned the course better. Plain and simple.

[z3elda]

Aug 3, 2013 6:08:27 GMT -5 matthugie said:

and my arms are tired...

[Donutz]

Great course Jinx (and great driving Lars), not sure what all the hubbub was about....

Thanks to all those who stuck around through the rain, could've gotten nasty(er) if a bunch of people bailed after the rain.

The correct response when something like this happens is to either go hide out under an awning, in your car or go for lunch then check back, it was much appreciated.