Da Groj

Wow, 7 pm and no thread. I had a blast today even though one of those orange pointy things stole my best run. When walking the course it seemed confusing but when running the course it seemed to flow fairly well.

It was fun stopping by and watching and being able to take pictures of the second run group this morning.

Got the pictures up on my flickr. Feel free to use them for anything
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7995180@N ... 8880465392

aw614 wrote:It was fun stopping by and watching and being able to take pictures of the second run group this morning.

Got the pictures up on my flickr. Feel free to use them for anything
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7995180@N ... 8880465392

Nice shots, I like this one of Nate, looks like he is about to lift the front tires.

I had a great time! Missed just one month and it felt like an eternity.

The new tires are brilliant, but I wasn't able to use them as I fell to pieces on all but one run.

Not fully memorizing the pretzel section on the back end bit me in the behind hard. I normally rely on looking ahead, but going into that back side the view is obscured by the observation tower fence and then I would get there blind and forget which side of the cone I was supposed to be on. Challenging.

Big thanks to Joshua for scrubbing in my new tires and then beating me by like 6 tenths or whatever. Looking at the tread wear, there's like an inch of chicken strip between the wear and the arrows on the sidewall, I'm going to have to continue to evaluate my tire pressures. I think we should contest Drew's (freakin') Mustang for missing some bodywork. That big spoiler was clearly slowing him down and the gap in the hatchback caused some kind of unfair aero advantage. Toss his results and we all move up a place in M2!

Great time today. Thank you everyone. Awesome pics too. My blue wheels look phenomenal lol

Brooksville concrete def spoils me. I drove at TBD once a year ago when I barly pushed the car hard but holy. First run I pushed the car as hard as I do at Brooksville and learned right away I had to respect the course, and the dirt.... I learned I need to run on asphalt more often(not as forgiving as concrete). Fun layout, would drive and spin out again.

My last run of 50.346+1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LspKqv5 ... e=youtu.be

My second event in the books and what a blast. Big thanks to Joe and Loren for letting me lurk on their course walks, and David and Bill for some great input from the passenger seat. Looking forward to the next event so I can get some more seat time and start improving my times.

Really fun day. I don't think I've ever seen so many DNFs. Can't wait to see the videos from the first run group. If we do a course like this again we should put blood packets in the cones.

I submit my run of 57.8 for review.

https://youtu.be/652zqmrJCCg

Man oh man, I always love TBD. I have to give a shout out to John (Garage West) for letting me drive lil stinker. That is the best car I have driven and most fun I have had autocrissing!

Sent from my SM-G530T1 using Tapatalk

What a fun, but slippery course!

Pretty much had three highlight moments today... I got out of the shadow of the fastiva in the afternoon (yah yah, I'm a slow learner). I had a most excellent seamless spin/save on the second part of the pretzel, and most of all, I got to record Loren's DNF after calling in & asking Ron to confirm it was indeed off course!

And then there was the Misty conversation, lol.

Glad to know everyone had a good time! Pretty darned smooth day, overall, and while it was hot as all get out, it was not grossly humid - I'll take it!

Not so happy taking that near-miss during the afternoon, though, so I'm gonna take the opportunity here to call it out:
A driver stopped on course after plowing some cones while in the section near the grid. The car following in the pretzel loops continued on, as he should have. At some point, it became clear that the stopped driver, who had by then started slowly on his way, was going to be in the way of the oncoming car at the crossover near the finish. The courseworkers did nothing. Ron was on the radio and out the window yelling for a red flag, and courseworkers did nothing. Luckily, the oncoming car did see the first driver, and slid his car to a stop.

I did speak to the first driver about stopping on course for downed cones being a no-no, and that goes for all of you - if you hit cones, even if they're stuck under your car, you keep going and worry about it when you get back to grid. I'm also calling out 4 stations-worth of courseworkers. I know during the drivers' meeting we ask y'all to use red flags sparingly, but a potential collision and a radio call for a red flag is the exact time you DO flag. Part of coursework is making sure cars don't crash into each other!

We all got lucky today - especially the two drivers on course.

https://youtu.be/OWNWJ7BkJQM

Loren made a working man's course. I had to learn to "Get a grip." I was spoon fed the double circle instructions and walked it 3 times. So did Ken Marion. We BOTH DNF'd the same place going in the first time on the circles. Ken went on to beat me by 4.7 seconds and got FTD (other than the FN bunch) but I'm pleased to have taken 2nd in S0 out of 6 cars with my S2 RX8 with secret setup that Loren figured out. Dave was close behind in his S3 prototype. Well done Dave.

My 2nd lap was clean and okay. My 3rd lap was pleasing to Philip who I had cursed into coning his first two runs and he got personal pix of the carnage I did with 5. Rare footage like filming the Titantic sinking. It was equal to his I think BUT those were the ONLY cones I hit all day so Philip's total was way higher than mine. I didn't have to put a voodoo skirt on my car either. My last run was on target as I saw the light!! Got my tire pressures spot on. Doubt I could have done better than that. Greg's friend who was allegedly jinxing everyone she rode with a DNF was a good luck charm for me. Minus the FNers I finished 24th overall. Cool.

Mario was second fastest of the day outside FN.

Steve was fun to watch. He put on too much sunscreen and it affected his grip and he got some in his eyes too.

Thanks for another great day of racing.

Doug

Native wrote: Ron was on the radio and out the window yelling for a red flag, and courseworkers did nothing.

I feel like we might want to see if we could improve the walkies. It can be intimidating to use the red flags when there is squawking on the radio. It might also be worth it to make corner captains dedicated to the flag and radio. As for solving the off course issues; Don't we have some sort of line thing we could use to map out the course? It would've really helped today.

CaptainSquirts wrote:My last run of 50.346+1

Just a little bit choppy with the steering inputs, but otherwise VERY nice!

Thanks to all for coming out to play today and putting up with my loopy course. TBD is a really difficult site to design a good course for. Aside from being slightly challenging to navigate (if you weren't looking ahead enough... I rode with a first-timer on his 3rd run, and HE was looking ahead and nailing it!), it was an excellent course for the site. Got over 100 drivers four 50-second runs without running late. Can't complain.

Results are posted, if ya didn't know.

jbrannon7 wrote:When walking the course it seemed confusing but when running the course it seemed to flow fairly well.

I inhabited a parallel universe as when walking the course it seemed to flow very well but when running the course it seemed loopy as advertised. The one run I really needed to review (3rd) did not record in any of my equipment, and the 4th, my one valid run, I crowned with cones. Cake and ice cream for supper and all is well. Even a bad day of racing beats a day at home cleaning.

Inspecta wrote:Man oh man, I always love TBD. I have to give a shout out to John (Garage West) for letting me drive lil stinker. That is the best car I have driven and most fun I have had autocrissing!

Sent from my SM-G530T1 using Tapatalk

Your reaction after your first run was worth the entry price!

friskyflea wrote:

jbrannon7 wrote:When walking the course it seemed confusing but when running the course it seemed to flow fairly well.

I inhabited a parallel universe as when walking the course it seemed to flow very well but when running the course it seemed loopy as advertised. The one run I really needed to review (3rd) did not record in any of my equipment, and the 4th, my one valid run, I crowned with cones. Cake and ice cream for supper and all is well. Even a bad day of racing beats a day at home cleaning.

Oh come on, Soraya, you'd have had an ice cream supper regardless of your racing outcome and still let the dust bunnies do their own thing.

kirkendsley wrote:I feel like we might want to see if we could improve the walkies.

Radios were not a problem today. They got a significant workout with all the DNF's and cone penalties. FYI, our radios are on the order of $30-40 each. The next step up from there is to get out of FRS radios and into professional radios... which would cost $200+ per radio, and require us to get an FCC license. What we have suits our needs well enough.

It can be intimidating to use the red flags when there is squawking on the radio. It might also be worth it to make corner captains dedicated to the flag and radio.

Corner Captains SHOULD be manning the radio at their station unless they have a qualified worker who can do it. If they're handing the critical part of their job off to a newb, that's a problem.

As for solving the off course issues; Don't we have some sort of line thing we could use to map out the course? It would've really helped today.

Yeah, a chalk line could have helped this course some. Maybe. We used to line most of our courses at SPC back in the day. We got away from it at some point when it became obvious that a lot of novices were relying too much on the chalk line and not learning to "read" the cones.

There were two primary DNF's that I saw today:

1: Driver cutting in TIGHT on the first loop (putting them into the exit of the second loop). That's a total noob mistake. The only turn on that course that's anywhere near that tight was the one near the finish by the pole. To have to slow down that much and turn that tight... shouldn't have felt "right" at all. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it!

2. If they got past that mistake and through the gap in the cone wall... people were sometimes cutting to the inside of the green apex cone. Hello? Pointer cone?

If you recognized and accepted the flow of the course, it was VERY easy to drive. It wasn't a "point-to-point" course. (most aren't) It was a "go with the flow" course. Those skidpad loops were designed to be driven as mostly constant radius turns, and if you approached them that way, they were easy to follow and you were FAST through them.

That said, I did botch up one run, myself. Was busy listening to/talking to Soroya about where she had gone off, lost my focus, got sloppy through the section mentioned above. (didn't DNF there, just got off-line and messy) Then I let myself stay out on the cone wall leading out of the first loop a little too long and had to yank the car in to miss the end cone where that wall curves in... that pitched the car sideways a bit, pointing it about 30 degrees to the left and made it impossible for me to get outside of the first apex of the outer loop. So, I shot the gap between the first and 2nd apex and accepted the DNF. Fighting for it would have just caused me to either spin or hit a cone! Gotta know when to say when.

aw614 wrote:It was fun stopping by and watching and being able to take pictures of the second run group this morning.

Got the pictures up on my flickr. Feel free to use them for anything
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7995180@N ... 8880465392

Thanks Andrew! These 2 shots made up for today's strangeness

Here's Ken Marion's street tire FTD run. Watch this video with sound. Notice how smooth his inputs are? Notice how he doesn't overcook the entry to the skidpad turns? Notice how he isn't trying to go full throttle everywhere, but instead is mostly just maintaining speed? That's what this course was all about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP6fsO2Avrg