Since I am an "outsider" from Northwest Region I thought I'd make a few
comments on John's post, excuse me for not getting to this right away but I
was busy racing today.
> Here in San Francisco Region we have developed a lot of positive
>ideas that have made autocrossing better. I think we should continue to
>think we are the best at what we do. Because we are. Consistently we are
>faced with large fields, the kind the Tour and Pro Solo leadership only
>dream about. We have worked out a program that delivers satisfaction to the
>overwhelming majority of our members. We have learned to pump a lot of cars
>through with a minimum of mistakes by our all-volunteer crew. Because our
>people are having a good time, they are learning to drive better and
>better. They become confident of themselves. That's how we create National
>Champions.
Certainly SFR is doing a lot of things right. Your consistantly large
turnouts, the great cameradery and a long string of National Champions show
that whatever you are doing it is working and working well. However, IMHO,
there are a lot of ways to accomplish these goals and other regions may use
different methods to arrive at the same end. One way may not be better or
worse than another, just "different". NWR's record in this area has been
great recently too with (despite our 2000 mile distance from Kansas) our 58
drivers at Nationals winning the greatest number of trophys of any region
(27 with 6 National Champions I think). Are our courses all the same as
Nationals or SFR? No, we use a variety of course styles and designs.
> When SFR went into the "gate" mode, with the thought it was
>required to "train" our drivers for national, a funny thing happened.
>National began using lined courses that very year. Seems there was this
>problem with people getting lost in a sea of pylons and there were some
>very real safety concerns. So they copied what we do without doing it
>exactly because, well you know. "That's how they do it in California."
Yup, We can *never* do things the same way you do it in California :-) :-)
:-).
Seriously we went through this same thing in Northwest Region. We had
always used gated, unlined courses up here and ones that were usually
tighter than what was common in Salina. We made a determination to do more
open courses and ones that were of the "mini road-race" type in an attempt
to give our drivers more experience at the courses we see at Nationals. It
reaped big rewards not just in trophys but Nationals attendance in general
since people knew what to expect in Kansas and weren't worried that they'd
be surprised.
> You missed the obvious at San Diego, Don. EVERY pylon had this
>double line chalked around its base. It's spelled out in the rule book.
>Look for it. The reason it's written that way is because "I don't care how
>they do it in California." (Never mind the majority of clubs use a single
>chalk line. Why? Because it's simple and it makes sense.) The
>two-inch-apart double chalk line came about because way back when pylon
>boxes were being painted at Salina, they had this two-inch paint brush. The
>all the way down or out rule applies BUT, under the rule, the pylon is not
>charged unless it goes all the way beyond the second chalk line drawn
>precisely two inches apart from the first. When drawing boxes, please be
>precise. I don't think we have to copy what I think is bad idea.
Actually the reason for the 2" chalk line was invented for a totally
different reason than to be different. Though it originated long, long
before I started autocrossing Rocky Entrikan told us once on Team.net how
the rule came to be. Seems that originally _any_ displacement of a cone was
a penalty, no matter how small. Now of course pylon placement is not always
totally accurate and it became impossible to tell which cones had been hit
and which had simply been misplaced. Well some region (Chicago? Salina? I'm
not sure) came up with the idea of a second line 2" from the first. The
idea was that you could displace the cone 2" but no further. However the
rule was misunderstood or corrupted and became our current "cone touching
the box" rule. Oddly enough this rule is not used for ProSolo, Pros use the
single chalk line we all are familiar with for local events.
Just thought I'd clear this up just in case anyone out there thought that
it really was done just to annoy Californians :-).
> In my humble opinion, we in SFR have achieved a level of commercial
>success in autocrossing because we keep courses easy to follow. At least we
>used to. One by one all the good stuff is being eroded. Soon we will be
>back to playing gymkhana as our constituents look elsewhere for autocross
>entertainment, just as the Corvette owners have already done with the AAS
>series. (Did I mention the Porsche and BMW folks?) Right now we in SFR are
>the only show in town. By designing our courses and "methods" to be what
>some people think are like Nationals, we will soon see 30-60 car fields
>just like the majority of SCCA regions. And when we shrink, we will no
>longer be able to afford "downtown" sites. That's the long term outlook if
>we ignore what made us successful in the first place.
Now this statement isn't true IMHO. While some regions are seeing
decreasing attendance, many are growing by leaps and bounds. Certainly that
is true here in the Northwest where we set an all-time attendance record
for our WWSCC series this *February* and then broke it again a month later
in March! What keeps people coming back is a good solid novice program,
good competition and good friends. Sure courses are important but as long
as they are not too tight and of reasonable length people will keep coming
back. I think that rather than insisting that one style is better than
another the best tactic is to use a varity of courses in a variety of
styles. I cetainly wouldn't want to do what San Diego does and use slight
variations on one course style week after week. Give me a variety of fun
interesting courses and I'll be happy.
Ok, I'll get off my soapbox! Just wanted to give another perspective on
this subject.
- Alan Dahl
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