>From: "Kelly, Katie" <kkelly@spss.com>
>To: <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
>Subject: RE: Nationals Course or not!
>Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 13:22:16 -0700
>
>While I confess that I view course walking as overrated, and two times,
>for me, tends to be overkill, there was a ProSolo at Wendover where I,
>and maybe half the crowd, kept DNF'ing the same spot, over and over
>again.
>
>I felt really stupid and almost quit autocrossing forever. Okay, that's
>a complete lie, but anyway.
>
>So, during the lunch time walk through, I walked that section over and
>over and over again, and DNF'ed AGAIN. Thankfully, so did everyone else,
>and so they did some lining and added more cones, not to make us feel
>better about ourselves, but there's just something wrong when everyone
>keeps DNF'ing.
>
>I watched Patty Yeo nearly drive into my mom at nationals. Except for
>the fact that it could have just been awful, in hindsight, it is kind of
>funny, especially listening to Patty's telling of the tale. Apparently,
>the video crew interviewed her after her runs, apparently oblivious to
>the image of the close encounter. It's one of those things where they
>put your face in the corner of the frame and you add some commentary to
>some footage of your run, and you can buy it later and show it off to
>all of your friends. So, she was visualizing with great dismay what her
>footage would look like, as she's giving the color commentary as she
>nearly crashes into my mom, and decided that's not something she'd want
>to spend money on.
>
>I know that I'm pretty much alone in my course walking technique. Most
>people walk the course over and over and over again, and many people
>DNFed that very same section Patty Yeo did. So, it's not just one
>person's brain fade or driver error. What helped me was knowing that it
>WAS so easy to screw it up, I forced myself to look way over to the
>left, but it was in no way obvious.
>
>This is NOT a flaw of a "nationals style course." It was a flaw of that
>one turn, specifically. I've seen some traditional SFR courses, using
>the mini-racecourse design cause some near disasters, as well. All this
>arguing over "national style courses" versus SFR courses is futile and
>subjective. I say if course designers want to include "national" type
>elements (whatever that means), just keep doing it (many of us thank
>you), make sure it's clearly marked, and if you don't want to hear the
>negative commentary, well, for heaven's sake, don't ask for it!
>
>Katie
Hear! Hear!
-Arnold
"Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try and take over the world!"
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