May 13th - Brooksville

[muddy]

And yes, Jamie & Ryan should both be in 'C'.

Ryan normally runs in "A" and I am sure he wants the points for running in that class. There is nothing wrong with bumping yourself up a class.

[rippin mazda]

Yup I wanted to get some points for the day since drew is beating me for the season.

Ryan

[Dave-ROR]

As a reminder, the times on the board are completely unofficial, and the board itself is expendable if the timing crew gets really busy inside. I'll also admit I normally assign a novice as the writer, with hopes that watching and listening to the action in the trailer will teach and interest a few in working timing...we need to grow that talent.

I know that, and I hope that most here do also, however, the board is a required tool as well for drivers that want to improve their time, shoot for a goal, etc. Removal of the board (without a replacement) just means the timing guys are going to get asked "what was my time" every 30 seconds... It doesn't have to be 100% accurate of course, but it was confusing to drivers to walk up and have NO TIMES next to their car number

This is why I make sure there's at least one non-novice at each station...evidently that broke down a bit.

Well, you did what you could. Unfortunately, the non-novice's in some cases were 2-3 event people, still novices as far as how to handle situations since the likelyhood of them seeing every situation in 2-3 events (especially FAST events so far) is extremely low, so when something does happen, they aren't aware of the proper course of action all the time. Nothing that can be truely avoided, but when someone who is experienced (say, Steve) says something about what you did, don't respond with an attitude or comment about how it's stupid (obviously this isn't directed at you Jamie ).

One other item: a driver came to me during the second run group and mentioned a courseworker appeared to motion him to slow down as he approached a cone that wasn't reset.

See comment above

If a courseworker can't reset a cone before a car gets there, get out of the way. The driver has the option of stopping for the downed or out-of-place cone and getting a rerun, or continuing and hoping that the courseworkers don't mistake the cone as freshly knocked down and call it in against him. There's no need to flag the car for nothing more than a downed cone, and no driver on a timed run will recognize a signal to slow down!

Absolutely. Of course (and I think this happened to you?) when there is a car STOPPED on course, RED FLAG the next driver...

Next driver's meeting can we define how reruns will be handled? A lot of times (almost always) in the second run group the grid person wouldn't know about the rerun and wouldn't tell that car to grid, that's not the fault of the grid guy, he had no way of knowing that the car should get a rerun, but if there's a certain path the driver with a rerun should take (example, around the staging area directly back to the line) that would probably resolve itself..

The event overall was great though, can't wait until the July event.. I'll miss next month unfortunately

[vvsinc]

We did our best to get the cones before the next run started. They were starting pretty quick back to back. With a quicker course it makes it a little more difficult or maybe it was the pizza and cake

I thought the course was great.

Nice job!

[Anonymous]

Anyone know how long it was? maybe add anohter 50 feet to it?

I am guessing it was somewhere around 125 ft. I would like to see a minimum of 250ft. It's not like Cat5 cable is expensive, so why not make the shut down area as long as possible?

[rippin mazda]

I didnt think the finish was exceptionally small, I had no problem getting it whoa'd down in time. But this is one of those things were longer is better and like mentioned above, CAT5 is cheap, free actually, I have a box in my garage IIRC.

PS - Thanks to Jamie for letting me co-drive his car it was fun to have body roll again.

ryan

[kickslop]

My personal best is wrong. I hit 2 cones on that run.

Holy crap, man... what kind of tires did you buy? Either I was pretty far off for the day or you were really on + the new tires helped quite a bit.

I was over 3 seconds behind you.

[Anonymous]

Kumho MX 225/50/16 all around.
My car just does well on Brooksville type courses.

[kickslop]

I think a general "rule" is unreasonable. No need to be litigious.

Braking zone length should be based on speed and should be more carefully scrutinized in the future by the Course Marshal.

This course:

* Needed more braking zone because it...

* allowed a surprising amount of speed out of the slalom.

* It also had a deceptive (unintentional) braking zone. There were many cones placed in line before the timing equipment which made it seem longer than it actually was.

I have monster Stoptech brakes with race pads and in hindsight I do recall that I was getting myself stopped *just* 20 feet before I needed to turn to the right. If I'd had crappy brakes or serious fade, I could have easily plowed the cones at the end. Luckily nobody did and it wasn't a problem this time.

It needs to be addressed by the Course Marshal, not a general rule.

[kickslop]

Kumho MX 225/50/16 all around.
My car just does well on Brooksville type courses.

Wow. I could have found .5 - .8 somewhere, but that 36 is no joke. Nice driving.

[Bone]

What a fun day - thanks to everyone that contributed to making another successful and safe FAST event.

I take the blame on the run-off. Rookie mistake. I'll make sure it is longer next time I'm the course marshal... Which is a job I really like by the way. It is a fantastic way to learn from some of the most experienced guys around.

Thanks to Jeff and Steve for their contributions on designing the course - it was a group effort, and thanks to Jamie for his input once it was coned.

I also take the blame on switching the writer assigned to the board on the second group of runs. The gentleman there was visibly struggling, and being a fellow lefty, he was erasing times as he wrote. He was not comfortable there, and there was quite a bit of unhappiness as people were trying to read their times. A nice lady volunteered to take over, and I asked him if that was ok with him. He agreed, and the swap was made. I hope that was ok.

Not that it matters much, but was Elliott driving the Stalker on his 8th run? He still beats me with his 35.074...... but not as much

I know he drove the Solstice/Sky on run 7, and I thought I heard that he had plans to run the Stalker on run 8.

A big thanks to Muddy for taking a turn in my car with me in it - I always learn from that guy!

RC

[Alizarin]

It also appears that Jamal missed a run. I did go check the sheets and make sure we didn't miss anything, but it appears that he was granted a re-run (for whatever reason) but it either was not communicated to him or he elected not to take it. I'm going to have to assume it was the former since he was driving very well.

I will take care of all the discussed changes when I get home tonight. Jamie and I caught a few class changes in the morning session, and I now remember that Charles mentioned something about somebody needing a class change in the 2nd group (I guess it was Billy).

[Dave-ROR]

Ron, switching the writer was for the best, I think it was ok with everyone involved.

And yes, Elliot did drive the Stalker on his last run.


As for Jamal, he skipped his 6th run to let his tires cool down, I mentioned it to Dan but I guess there's no value for skipping a run in the software.

[Loren]

Surely the software can score a DNS... or at least a DNF (if you DNS, you DNF... right?). If not, 999.999 works.

[Native]

I think a general "rule" is unreasonable. No need to be litigious.

Braking zone length should be based on speed and should be more carefully scrutinized in the future by the Course Marshal.

I fully agree with the last sentence. However, inadequate braking zones have been a consistent "complaint" regardless of who designed the course, who approved it, who set it up, or how much timing cable we have. And by consistent I mean just about every Brooksville event we've had.

An absolute minimum, regardless of speed into the finish, takes the guesswork out of it and guarantees some modicum of safety and less wear on equipment.

I also take the blame on switching the writer assigned to the board on the second group of runs. The gentleman there was visibly struggling, and being a fellow lefty, he was erasing times as he wrote. He was not comfortable there, and there was quite a bit of unhappiness as people were trying to read their times. A nice lady volunteered to take over, and I asked him if that was ok with him. He agreed, and the swap was made. I hope that was ok.

Heck yeah, it was ok. For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is he himself probably wasn't really digging the job...

[muddy]

A big thanks to Muddy for taking a turn in my car with me in it - I always learn from that guy!

I am not sure what you could have learned from me yesterday. I ran my slowest time of the day in your car, which is faster than mine.
You did drive very well, though. 8)

[miazda man]

great job yesterday. that was a fun course and proved to be a good mothers day present for my wife (first time driving) and birthday for my daughters. (merians first time driving also) she's the one that took over the board. thanks again everyone had a blast

[Solar]

I had a great time, Jeff and crew put together a nice course and kept things moving along smoothly. With the drivers meeting at 10 and then the first run group out shortly after was great. 8 runs and done by 2:30 really made the day. I was able to make my friends house in Inverness with time to spare for a shower before Mother's Day dinner.

My only complaint was that I thought grid could've been better on group 2. A couple people weren't at their car when it was their turn to line up, so it was a bit confusing not knowing what they were doing.

[AScoda]

The finish line was 200 ft from the trailer and I think the end of the brake zone was 25ft short of that. Sufficient for the slower cars, but I don't think anyone anticipated just how fast some of us would be going at the end. Another 50-75 feet would have been enough, 100 even better.

Some great teamwork helped everything go really well. In addition to those already mentioned, a big thanks to Brian and Charles for making runs to Wal mart for replacement radios and a computer cable.

I, for one, quite enjoyed the lunch hour "entertainment" from Jeff and Loren. I never would have thought that much stuff would fit in a Sentra.

[jaball77]

The finish line was 200 ft from the trailer and I think the end of the brake zone was 25ft short of that. Sufficient for the slower cars, but I don't think anyone anticipated just how fast some of us would be going at the end. Another 50-75 feet would have been enough, 100 even better.

Yeah, I was topping 60 mph through the finish, and the emergency 60-0 stopping distance listed for my car is about 120 ft. Figure the braking zone was 175 ft... Then figure in the reaction time it takes to get your foot off the gas and onto the brake, and you're pretty close to the minimum 60-0 distance for the car... I think another 100 ft was needed. We don't need to be threshold braking after every run. :shock:

Other than that, the course was really really nice. A little short, but fun!

See you guys next time!