December 2010

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December 2010

Postby Jamie » Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:57 pm

PaboShon wrote:While I was out there today I kept thinking that I was taking the return side of the course too fast and that was what was giving me trouble. While a great deal of that is true...looking back I realize something else. It wasn't just my speed that was a problem. I think I was entering the first corner after the crossover all wrong which was putting me in a bad position for the next three.
That was a deliberately inserted option...the right-hand cone "L" at the top of the course was positioned to leave enough pavement to enter wide and get a good late apex. If you hugged the entry to the "L" instead, you were forced to a wider or slower exit. Most of the large-offset "slaloms" were set up more or less the same way -- concentrate on a late apex, and they should have flowed pretty well. Dive in too tight and/or too hot, and pay the price. Easy for me to say, since I didn't get to drive it...I'm looking forward to more videos to see how people approached it.

Something that's not clear from the results: how easy was the course to navigate (as opposed to drive fast)? It shouldn't have been difficult to follow, but since some runs are noted as "OFF" and others as "DNF", it's not clear whether people got lost, out of shape, or what. Feedback's welcome, and if we want to get into the design elements of the course, we can move a spin-off over to that forum.

I really missed being there....
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Re: December 2010

Postby Loren » Sun Dec 05, 2010 3:01 pm

It was a good course and a challenging course, but not a "great" course. Great courses don't generate the DNF and cone count that this one did.

Jamie designed a course that baited the driver into missing the optimal line AND hitting a bunch of cones by being off line. Better to make the evil course designer misdirection only show in the time rather than the cone count. A really great course is one that nobody gets lost on, hardly any cones are hit, and you only know you made mistakes by looking at your time.
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Re: December 2010

Postby yamaha731 » Sun Dec 05, 2010 8:19 pm

When I first saw the course map I hated it even after I ran it I hated it.

Even though I hated it I would love another shot at it. So far the most challenging course I have raced on. During my 6 runs every run was faster then the last. Right now I can think of 3 places I could do faster so givin the opportunity I would love to run it again. so I guess I really don't hate it after all
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Re: December 2010

Postby Native » Sun Dec 05, 2010 8:30 pm

It certainly was a more technically challenging course that we usually do. Which is fine. It was not hard to read, but demanded even more than usual that you look ahead, and that you don't get off the line as there's no place for recovery.

I'm like Chris - each run got faster (a little), and I didn't have a run I didn't make a mistake (or two). I hit cones, but all with the inside rear tire, which I do once in a while in slaloms anyway. It was a tough course, and probably even tougher for those with less experience.

I liked it fine. But I like 'em all for the most part.
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Re: December 2010

Postby Jamie » Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:01 pm

Loren wrote:It was a good course and a challenging course, but not a "great" course. Great courses don't generate the DNF and cone count that this one did.

Jamie designed a course that baited the driver into missing the optimal line AND hitting a bunch of cones by being off line. Better to make the evil course designer misdirection only show in the time rather than the cone count. A really great course is one that nobody gets lost on, hardly any cones are hit, and you only know you made mistakes by looking at your time.
I'll agree it was just "good" -- narrow courses like this are a real challenge to design, and I haven't gotten beyond "good" with any of them.

I'm still trying to get a feel for the off-courses. If due to difficulty in finding the way, bad course design. If it's a matter of folks getting too far out and deciding there was no coming back, potentially bad course design...always better to have enough runoff to salvage sometihng from a bad run, but it's just not always available.

As far as cone count, for a narrow runway course where nearly everything is a variation on a slalom or chicane, cone count is time. On a differently-shaped site (SPC, for example), larger changes of direction create the means of generating more time -- circumfrence is proportional to radius, so a little runoff generates a significant difference in time. "Runoff" on narrow courses is only plentiful in two dimensions -- with or against the direction of the course. Get off line, and it's either an off-course (missed a gate) or a struck cone. A possibility of striking several cones? Better take some extra care in positioning and be sure not to hit 'em. Looking at the declared novices, most of them (there are a few standouts) seemed to get this pretty well -- in several cases better than more experienced counterparts who (by the times) were pushing harder. That's just from looking at the final times, though -- I can't see where drivers had to have instructors plugged in to "get it" or the effects of re-runs -- Jeremy said something about timer problems.

What struck me in the results was the continuity in individual times...for many drivers, the drop in time between first and last run (for clean runs, at least) seemed to be much less than usual...seemed like it was tougher to "make time" on this one. I'm tempted to graph the results to see if it really pans out that way, but too much work for tonight.

From the commentary, and the videos, I'm really regretting not being able to drive it. I may have to do another one like this to see whether or not any of this holds water...and to see if I'm the only one who shows up to run it. :)
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Re: December 2010

Postby Loren » Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:08 pm

I think most of the DNF's were in three places. Or two specific places and one "general" place. Specifically, DNF's that I saw frequently were in two places that ironically, I tried to help us "fix" when we did our safety walk. More on those below. The others were just missed slalom cones where people knew they weren't going to make it, or otherwise just missed one of the big offset slalom cones.

The two places we made changes were... well, let me just mark up a map...
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Re: December 2010

Postby Loren » Sun Dec 05, 2010 10:22 pm

Okay, attached is the course as it actually went down. Aside from doubling a few key apexes (mostly the ones that needed to be spotted from faaaaar away), adding a few more pointers, and more cones marking the finish, the only material changes we made were at #1 and #3.

#1 - We felt that going all the way around that 3-cone wall to the left was too extreme, and also likely to put a newb driver's focus on the other side of the course, which could be dangerous. So, we left the 3-cone wall there to define the OUTSIDE of the turn, and put a well-marked apex on the inside. There were some DNF's here from people missing the gate that we created and going around the wall... not sure why, maybe they studied the map too much? But, otherwise, as you can see from watching the vids, getting over to the left through this gate and back to the right for the next apex was quite a challenge as it was... so I think this was a good change.

#2 - If you were to make one single change to make this course better in general, I think this is the place. This area was so intense because it was a challenge to get into, and then to drive (especially if you entered it a little "behind", which was VERY easy to do), that it was difficult to think about the fact that you needed to enter the crossover. A lot of people then wiggled around the wall of cones at #3 instead of shooting cross-course. So, not only would smoothing this section have eliminated one of the tightest parts of the course, it would have made the seeing the crossover a lot easier. Probably could have eliminated half of the DNFs with changes here. (but we didn't make any)

#3 - We removed the gate in the middle here. Things seemed busy enough in this section without another gate there adding clutter and more cones to hit (and they would have been hit!) or causing more DNF's by being missed (which would have happened, too). We extended the row of pointers to attempt to obscure the apex beyond (the exit apex of the turn-around), but that didn't work for some people. Again, I think it goes back to the area at #2 being so busy that drivers didn't have the time to think about how to get into the crossover or where it was, they were just reacting.
December_Actual.jpg
December_Actual.jpg (66.92 KiB) Viewed 22529 times
To add to the discussion of "how people drove the course", I can tell you that the first-timer that I rode with was struggling to keep up with the course at all. Very busy course, not novice-friendly. He DNFed I think 3 or 4 runs, and I was with him each time! He DNFed by going around the gate that we put in at #1, and by skipping the exit apex of the turn-around, as I recall.

Me, I drove the course in three cars. Course check in my car (fairly slow, traction control on, just to get a general idea of speed... 49 mph max on that run), on which I felt like a lot of things came up REALLY fast, but it was navigable. Then I took a run in my student's car, a Z3 Roadster, which was uneventful. I was focusing on maintaining line (and avoiding left-foot braking) for his benefit rather than being "fast".

When it came time for competition, I drove the course "okay" in Brian's 240 right out of the box, and improved a little over 3 runs to 56.0, I think. Having mondo grip made the course fairly easy to drive if you weren't too far off-line.

I took two runs in my Z4 with traction control off. First run was wild, but I didn't hit any cones or get lost. Second run I had to "slow down to go faster", which was quite effective, knocking my 54 seconds down 52.9.

Then I took my final run in Brian's car, needing to knock .5 seconds off to win our bet, in which I gave him a .8 second handicap. I was doing okay off the start, but hit one of the slalom cones early on. Of course, that pissed me off, so I drove the rest of the course "angry" just to see what kind of time I'd get. Me driving angry in a car with more grip than I'm used to is a good thing. I did 54.2, but hit another slalom cone on the return side.

Conclusion: The course required a high degree of looking ahead and setting up for the slaloms (by design). It also required a high degree of precision do manage that and not clip any of the slalom cones, and a high degree of grip to do it and return a fast time. A little bit of power could actually be put down in several places, as well.
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Re: December 2010

Postby Jamie » Sun Dec 05, 2010 11:12 pm

Loren wrote:#1 - We felt that going all the way around that 3-cone wall to the left was too extreme....
I did notice from the vids that all the walls were longer than I'd orginally intended. They were supposed to be literally cones lined up adjacent to each other, so would have halved the lengths I saw on video. I forgot to mention that to Ron or Shon before setup, though...my fault. May or may not have made a difference in execution.
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Re: December 2010

Postby Loren » Sun Dec 05, 2010 11:27 pm

Jamie wrote:
Loren wrote:#1 - We felt that going all the way around that 3-cone wall to the left was too extreme....
I did notice from the vids that all the walls were longer than I'd orginally intended. They were supposed to be literally cones lined up adjacent to each other, so would have halved the lengths I saw on video. I forgot to mention that to Ron or Shon before setup, though...my fault. May or may not have made a difference in execution.
Most of that stuff I left as they set it up without giving it much thought. Rows of pointers that were set right next to each other, I made sure got spread out so they'd be visible from further off.

The only place the cone spacing you're talking about might have made a difference was on the return side where they were all set like 3-4 feet apart. If they were "stacked", that return offset-slalom would have been a lot faster. That part wasn't bad, though. I think most people liked that part as long as they didn't overcook the entry. I loved the "broken slalom" effect that allowed a nice burst of acceleration in the middle of the return side if you were ready for it.

Now that you mention it... the whole course probably would have had some minor "course designer's discretion" tweaks if you'd been there at setup. When I walk for safety (which I did with Ron & Pete this time just because I saw the course was hitting some broken up concrete that I wanted to get us around), I try to NOT make material changes to the designer's vision without good reason, so I mostly left it alone. In hindsight, I bet you'd have been inclined to make a lot of the changes that I THOUGHT about making when I was walking it.
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Re: December 2010

Postby Rosko » Mon Dec 06, 2010 12:12 pm

I walked this course 4 times. By the second walk, I figured out that somebody put some thought into it, and that it was tricky.

There have been a few times where I have said that a course is too tight. Inevitably, this is met by somebody saying, "What do you want? It's autocross". I bow my head and agree. I've been to some fairly open courses lately, so I really liked this one. Overall, really good stuff.

Hindsight is 20/20, so having said that, I agree with Loren on the area he has marked as #2 and #3. I got behind there on my first two runs. I told myself I was not looking ahead well enough. I had even told myself after I was done walking, that this part of the course was going to be slow. Drive the slow parts slow. So the second quarter of the course was definitely tough. Nothing wrong with that, but yeh, it must have been hell on the novices.

There were definitely some drag strips out there, though. The run out to that half-moon shaped Chicago box in the first quarter, then there was a run into the turn-around. There was also the exit out of the turn-around. I never hit close to the 2nd gear rev limiter, but still pretty fast. I think I heard Jeremy hit the rev limiter somewhere, probably the half-moon chicago box.

On the return side, I liked the difficult offset slalom, then medium offset slalom, then good speed, then normal 50' slow slalom, then WALL! That was another place that tricked me a time or two. I went through that 50' slalom and then got behind and hit that wall before the finish, and did not have the car positioned properly for my flat out run for the finish.

Thanks, Jamie. I haven't had that much fun at a Brooksville course in a long time.
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Re: December 2010

Postby BigBlue » Mon Dec 06, 2010 7:14 pm

I only walked the course once, and that was the time Loren mentioned. I think it was challenging for me because of how busy it seemed to be while I was driving it. My first run was a DNF because I got caught adding the 'bonus' turn and going around the wall of pointers to the right. That was what my busy mind said was the next apex rather than just heading across the tarmac. (See Loren's #3.) It was the only time I had an issue with getting lost. The rest of my runs I just was driving the course wrong. In the videos I can see that I was trying to carry way to much speed through the sections that needed a slower approach. Maybe one day it will sink in that sometimes you need to go slow to be fast. I guess the point of my rambling on is that the course wasn't bad, it was just challenging. All things considered, I really liked this course because (hopefully) it taught me something.
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Re: December 2010

Postby yamaha731 » Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:09 pm

The trickiest part for me was the last slalom right before the finish. I could hit that so fast but it messed me up for left right to the finish. My last run I slowed down at the last cone in the slalom and got the the car far enough to the left to get on the gas knocking a full second of my time. Given another chance I would of slowed even more
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Re: December 2010

Postby Jamie » Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:19 pm

BigBlue wrote:My first run was a DNF because I got caught adding the 'bonus' turn and going around the wall of pointers to the right. That was what my busy mind said was the next apex rather than just heading across the tarmac.
I'll have to think about that...we've become very reliant on pointers for many things, but in particular for marking apexes. I need to go back and reread some of Roger Johnson's course design manual, but we may not be doing ourselves any favors by over-pointering the course.
yamaha731 wrote:The trickiest part for me was the last slalom right before the finish. I could hit that so fast but it messed me up for left right to the finish. My last run I slowed down at the last cone in the slalom and got the the car far enough to the left to get on the gas knocking a full second of my time.
That was on purpose. The original design wasn't offset as much, but Peter assessed it as too fast for a safe stop (and he'd have the car to judge it!). I try to do finishes on the assumption people will bury the throttle going across the finish, so needed to kill some speed and still leave enough straight to prevent a spin through lights. That's not a universal design philosphy, though -- I ran another club's course this year where the finish had a stop box, and it was necessary to lift before reaching the lights in order to stop inside the box, and some cars actually had to brake before the lights. Glad I wasn't the guy manning the stop cone!
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Re: December 2010

Postby Loren » Mon Dec 06, 2010 8:42 pm

Jamie wrote:I'll have to think about that...we've become very reliant on pointers for many things, but in particular for marking apexes. I need to go back and reread some of Roger Johnson's course design manual, but we may not be doing ourselves any favors by over-pointering the course.
We should always use "a" pointer to mark an apex. Multiple pointers just help when the apex is a little out of the line of sight. Something to get the driver's eye to move in the correct direction and NOT go straight where they shouldn't.

Things get really messy with crossovers, though. I've found that crossovers work better when the actual crossover point is undefined. Coning an intersection or X in the middle of a course is just a cluster of cones if you don't approach it just right.
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Re: December 2010

Postby Jamie » Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:07 pm

Loren wrote:We should always use "a" pointer to mark an apex. Multiple pointers just help when the apex is a little out of the line of sight. Something to get the driver's eye to move in the correct direction and NOT go straight where they shouldn't.
I'm not so sure it's that absolute. But I'll dig out my copy of Professor Johnson's book...after I get back, and after my last final.
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Re: December 2010

Postby Loren » Mon Dec 06, 2010 11:21 pm

Oh, nothing is really "absolute" short of basic apex marking and certain safety requirements. The rest is all fuzzy logic!
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Re: December 2010

Postby shakedown067 » Tue Dec 07, 2010 8:48 am

Loren wrote:Oh, nothing is really "absolute" short of basic apex marking and certain safety requirements. The rest is all fuzzy logic!
Now that's a great quote. I'm saving that one...
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