-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Blankenship <jblanken@itds.com>
>I got the same feeling at Divisionals my first year - I chickened out
>big-time because I was not used to the awesome wide-open spaces that enable
>some good-sized straights. To make matters worse, the newish wording in
the
>rulebook has led our club to not take advantage of the one opportunity we
>have for making a fast course. We run at an airport and get half of one
>runway and a couple of taxiways. In the old days, the story goes, the
>outbound leg used to resemble a slightly downhill dragstrip, since there
>is nothing hazardous nearby. Everyone loved it. Nowadays, it gets
>clogged with stuff that pisses off the V8 drivers.
Chanute AFB? Sorry -- "Rantoul Air Center?" I was autocrossing there in
the "old days" (or at least in the early '80s) when we shared the
north-south runway with a kart club. A typical course had a "technical"
section up front, a long, loose set of offset gates out to the halfway
point, a hairpin turn and a slalom or another set of offset gates coming
back. Couldn't ever really characterize it as a drag strip, but our local
muscle-car drivers seemed to have a good time anyhow.
Jamie
'92 Prelude Si
Speed Demon Racing
http://www.mindspring.com/~jsculerati/sdr
So we lose year-round,
>because some national caliber course designers know the rule is loose, and
>set up courses which actually are fun _and_ fast. But the fun can be a bit
>over the heads of us who don't get to use such large venues, or have
>interpereted the rulebook as setting a strict upper limit.
>
>The issue of top speed and applying 2.1 comes down to two questions for me:
>1. Is it fair for course designers to take advantage of the space to make
>a safe course that exceeds 65mph?
>
>2. Is it legal for course designers to take advantage of the space to make
>a safe course that exceeds 65mph?
>
>Not idle, theoretical questions for me, who is also a SSS in training,
>and a fledgling course designer who rarely gets to drive a course that
>actually approaches even 60 mph more than once a season.
>
>It seems to me that the "normally" part of 2.1 means the answers are "yes".
>
>I'm torn between wanting all autocrossers to have an equal footing, and
>preserving the freedom to use a great site to its full potential.
>And as someone who has done two non-SCCA Solo I (the safety equipment would
>make my car too expensive and not a practical daily-driver), I jump at the
>chance to run a fast event.
>
>To truly mandate that all autocrossers have an equal footing, the rule
>would have to be more objective, and probably more work to apply. So the
>status quo does sound alright to me, but I have to accept that those who
>get to run fast events will sometimes have an advantage.
>
>I think the key to applying the rule is safety - what hazards are there,
>and is the maneuver at the end of the fast section likely to upset a car,
>especially one driven by a novice? This is _always_ critical, but it takes
>some experience for a course designer or a safety steward to judge this as
>speeds increase. Keeping top speeds in the realm of normal highway speeds
>does serve to keep the risks in line with the definition of Solo II.
>Unfortunately, "normal" for me makes me eligible for tickets!
>--
>Jeffrey D. Blankenship Senior Technical Consultant
>jblanken@itds.com ITDS - TRIS
>Neon Enthusiast #478 Champaign, IL, USA
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