Joe,
SCCA SFR sweeps the GGF before every event; it's been a custom for
several years to do so. Obviously PCA didn't want to spend the dollars.
Remember, that site has been used for parking only during the horse
racing season, and gathers loose material. We sweep it and it gets better
and better.
However, the absolutely worst event at GGF was when the track management
piled a bunch of sand in the NE corner by the maintenance buildings, and the
wind blew from that direction (very unusual) directly onto the course.
Speaking of Desert Storm!! :)
Yet we came back, swept it some more (actually pay a full-strength
sweeper) and it improved tremendously.
I realize the search for the perfect surface leads us away from the Bay
Area. So what would you have us do, stage everything at Atwater? Would you
be willing to travel to the eastern side of the Central Valley for run an
autocross every Sunday?
--Pat K
----------
>From: Joe <joe@bea.com>
>To: ba-autox@autox.team.net
>Subject: Gravel at Golden Gate Fields
>Date: Mon, Jun 3, 2002, 9:25 AM
>
> Hi all.
>
> I just ran in an all-day autocross with the PCA at Golden Gate Fields
> yesterday and it was very irritating, almost to the point that I would
> skip events there. There is so much loose gravel all over the lot that
> the first group must have bead-blasted their undercarriages to clean
> a line. The 'line' was essentially point-to-point because with no traction
> that's the shortest way around. Even in the afternoon, this was a
> 'drive-a-stupid-line-as-fast-as-you-can' event because any
> attempt to vary put you into the drifts of displaced marbles. There was
> a typical thirty-paces slalom where the cleared 'line' was precisely
> straight from one side of one cone to the other side of the next cone.
>
> Have we ever paid someone to sweep a lot? I would gladly chip in
> for this, rather than be chipped away by the gravel.
> Joe Weinstein
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