Da Groj

Events like the Enduro, or the Duel... and now especially the EnduroDuel, are a handful to put on. They always run a little longer than you plan for them to, no matter how well you plan. But, in the end... if you do it right, they're always worth the effort.

Today, we had 37 drivers compete in the first ever EnduroDuel! As expected, it was all the fun of an Enduro raised to the power of a Duel. It was a LONG day, but that's typical of an Enduro. The competition was intense, but that's typical of a Duel. Things didn't play out the way a lot of people expected, and that's typical of both a Duel AND an Enduro! Huge fun, though.

I'm going to type up the results all pretty-like here in a little bit.

Will we do another EnduroDuel? Yeah, probably. Hard to say if we'll do it exactly the same way, though. A typical Enduro gives each driver maybe 2 runs of 4-5 laps each. Basically two 3-minute runs. It's a lot, but it usually leaves you wanting more. We plugged this event as giving every driver a minimum of three three-lap runs, which it did. What we didn't consider (and I don't think anyone else did, either... even the many of us who have done our share of Duel tournaments in the past) is that a lot of the folks who are WINNING will end up doing 6, 7... even as many as 9 runs! 6 3-lap runs... plus the 3 practice laps. That's 21 runs, with the majority of them being run back-to-back! That's a lot of abuse for a car... and a driver.

Personally, I did 6 runs. And if I didn't make a silly miscalculation on my last run, I'd have had 7 runs... plus possibly at least one "Run-off" run. I could have done 8 runs... of 3 laps each. Damn!

Anyway, hope everyone had as much fun as we did. We'll carefully consider what we learned from this event before we attempt it again.

Time to start typing...

It was a fun, yet grueling event. I would do it again in a heartbeat. The seat time was awesome. It will be interesting to see how you tweak the format based on what you learned today. I think it has great potential. I won't be sharing my car on the next one though. Between me and Tyler, we had both the coolant and the power steering fluid in my car boiling. Don't want to do that again.
Dave

Yeah, sharing a car in the same run group for this event was a bad idea. Which is why I went to great pains in setting up the run/work order to keep co-drivers in different classes AND not on the grid at the same time. The only people who ended up doing it were people who made last-minute changes and opted to run with someone in their class.

Maybe we need to do an EnduroIROC? Buy a cheap Craigslist car. Everybody runs the same car. A lot.

Tonda and I had a great time! Driving that format was more challenging than regular autocrossing but I think that's a big part of what made it so fun.

*Organizing* this format was probably a lot more challenging than driving it though. FAST events are always well-ran, but this one was particularly impressive from a difficulty standpoint.

Great job!

Was there still light for the final runs?

Congrats to Cliff. I was starter when he was doing his bracket and he was dead solid on all his runs. One little bobble in the slalom by the trailer turn-around cost him that one loss to Matt.
Elliot was, as usual, the fastest out there and I was lucky enough to have to run him twice! Tagging a couple of cones when he otherwise had Randy beat kept him from an undefeated day.
Ryan Sauer gets the unlucky dog of the day award with a rock stuck in a caliper that locked up a wheel and slid him into a cone wall when he was winning his race against Jack.

We need to have a white flag and a checkered flag for the sides of the course closer to the finish. Would be easier for the drivers to see. I never noticed Jaime waving the white flag. I just looked for him when I thought it was the last lap to see him wave the checkers.
Also the white flag we have isn't really white. Kinda dingy and beige-ish.

Big thanks to everyone that made this event happen, I’m sure organizing something like this wasn’t easy. This event was crazy fun. Loved the elimination style format, brings me back to my drag racing days.

Here’s my vid of the Group 3 Final against Andrew. I knew that wasn’t going to be an easy win and was able to put together what felt like my best run of the day (killed one cone though, he came out of nowhere).

https://youtu.be/IJCM3ulu3Ic

Kshader wrote:(killed one cone though, he came out of nowhere).

That cone is gender neutral and you have offended it!

Good times!
Thank you much to all of you - as you know, this stuff can't happen without a cast of, well, many!
Lunch was great. Clean-up help much appreciated.

AScoda wrote:That cone is gender neutral and you have offended it!

You could tell there was a lot of thought put into running such complicated event.
Great job... and thanks for all the hard work.

cab33 wrote:You could tell there was a lot of thought put into running such complicated event.
Great job... and thanks for all the hard work.

Thanks!

Credit where it is due: As Steve mentioned, it takes a lot of people to make this happen. Steve, the FAST Crew of Ron, Drew, Ben, Matt & Philip, and a bunch of other people who do their part and more.

And, as for the thought and planning... I learned from the best. The "Mirrorkhana" concept was started in the early 70's by Rocky Entriken of Salina Region SCCA. They ran the Mirrorkhana as an annual event for 30 years. That was the template for the FAST Duel. It's all been tweaked buy us over the years to suit our own realities, but it is still recognizable as a "Mirrorkhana", even certain elements of the course pay tribute to the original Mirrorkhana course. (like that evil single-apex walled-in 90'degree turn that puts you in the grass if you blow it)

The Endurocross was lifted from an annual event that I found on a website from the Cal Poly Sports Car Club back in the 90's. Really small club. They ran their Endurocross with like 20 cars, and did like 10-12 lap runs! I couldn't see going to that extreme, but I liked the idea, and it's always been a fun one.

Combining the two... yeah, pretty cool.

This event was fun from the get go. Drivers choosing whom to duel first was a comedy show --beyond the usual one-- More than one driver rose to the challenge and produce some very inspired runs. Dan gave us unexpected thrills. The near near hit was handled well by corner workers and drivers. Philip, not to be outdone by the front wheel lifting Mirage, lifted a rear wheel in his Miata. Feel bad for Ryan S and his caliper mishap; he was one of my picks for top dog, along with Cliff and Elliot, but no one was taking my bets. All in all drivers and vehicles went home in one piece. Good times were had by all.

Pictures! Not a lot and only a few cars. I was trying to get some "different" types of pictures from what I usually take. https://flic.kr/s/aHsmyjm3N6

Great photos!

Looking at the photos, I'm reminded of something that I saw during the event. It was a cluster of 5 or 6 people at the center workstation nearest the grid. Two of them were holding big umbrellas. And there's not way 5 people are there paying full attention to what's happening on course! In addition to that, anybody else who's trying to see what's going on can't see PAST that cluster of people. And they're right where the outgoing cars need to get out onto course.

In short, they were IN THE WAY, and I didn't feel that it was a good place for a big group of people to be congregated. So, I asked that they be dispersed.

In response to that, I heard 2 or 3 people asking "why?", and "we've been here for a long time, why do we have to move now?"

HEY! Just because we don't recognize a problem immediately, or get around to correcting it immediately doesn't make it any less of a problem. Don't bitch. Just fix the problem!

And any experienced autocrosser should know better than to be standing out there creating a big cluster of people and distracting the course workers, anyway.

[/end rant]

^^
My bad. I told Philip he could get pics there with his spotter.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/133057342 ... 180475385/

Really dig the blurry finish line pics!

Speaking of flags, we might ditch the white flag. It's not that the flag is dirty. It's just the lack of contrast. White just isn't highly visible. Will have to ponder what to replace it with.

Best autox event I've done. Did anyone take any pics?

5 posts back.