IMHO, they were both driver courses.
South gave more room to use the horsepower, but also sucked you in to using
too much. While mine is not a horsepower car, I found fast time by giving up
that speed you really wanted to carry into the corners. The fast "Hang on
Jose" slalom and the "Larry Park Way" both would suck you in with their
intoxicating speed. You did not WANT to brake, but you had to. I saw a lot
of people drive the first part of The Ess badly, getting deep into the
pocket and wasting a ton of time. I thought I could take the entry into Moon
River fairly fast ... had to back that down too.
The first turn on the North course bit a lot of people in the butt -- that
fast downhill entry to a sharp 90 had a lot of people going deep and having
to turn back uphill. The chute feeding the slalom was just right for an
upshift I found I did not want. The stairsteps ("Anaconda" was tricky and
took great restraint. And it was so easy to turn that final horseshoe too
tight and end up wrong for the kink that followed.
There was more room for horsepower on the south, but you had to drive it.
The north was more a handling course, but there were plenty of places to get
into trouble if you did not drive it well. Taken as a pair, they equalized
wonderfully, IMHO, and neither was truly extreme by itself.
--Rocky
-----Original Message-----
From: Craig Blome <cblome@yahoo.com>
To: autox@autox.team.net <autox@autox.team.net>
Date: Sunday, September 17, 2000 9:26 AM
Subject: South Course was Car, North Course was Driver?
>Looking at the results in various classes, I'm curious what folks who
>ran thought of the statement Jean Kinser relayed from BSP that "south
>course was car, north course was driver." I went home thinking both
>courses were "car" to some extent, but fooling with some of the numbers
>at <http://ponycar.net/Solo2.asp> has me reconsidering that opinion.
>
>The main thing that I thought affected the south course was the tight
>turns followed by long straights. In C Stock where I ran, this tended
>to favor the MR2 a little as that car can pivot, hook up, and GO
>somewhat more than the Miata can. I had a few observers tell me that
>the several top MR2's were visibly faster than the Miatas in these
>sections. Despite this apparent disadvantage, Andy Hollis was leading
>overall in our (uhh, his :) car through the first two runs 2nd day and
>finished 0.48 sec out of 1st. Likewise, the Corvettes should have had
>an advantage on the south course, yet the RX7 TT's held on. Can anyone
>point to a class that had a clear car-biased trend on the south course?
>
>The north course had a few more transitional elements but still
>required the ability to accelerate hard out of tight corners (and the
>brainpower not to go in too fast! :) In addition, having three 180
>degree turns placed emphasis on steady state g-forces. I heard several
>people call this more of a "driver" course, yet I didn't see a whole
>lot of reshuffling in results as classes went from one course to the
>other. Did both courses favor the same type of car, or were both more
>or less car neutral? I haven't seen enough evidence to conclude one or
>the other, but my gut feeling is neither was really biased.
>
>What's the consensus here? Should the courses be more "equalized"
>among different types of car, or were this year's courses more
>equalized than they looked at first glance? I want to mention this in
>my evaluation form, so I'd appreciate hearing some more viewpoints
>first.
>
>BTW everyone deserves a round of applause for making the largest BY FAR
>Nats ever go off so smoothly. I hope the banquet ticket issues will be
>fixed next year, and I'm sure there were other glitches, but an event
>growing 15+ percent in one year could have had lots more trouble than
>it did.
>
>Cheers,
>Craig Blome
>CS #2 Licensed Professional Tire Warmer :)
>
>__________________________________________________
>Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
>
|