East Tennessee Region SCCA

I just wanted to post up that I thought the event went very well today. I know some of the newer crowd had some trouble staying on course but I thought it drove great. There were a few places that looking ahead really helped everything flow really well and it wasn't exactly the same look at things we have had in the past.

To any of the new people that had a little trouble with the course, find one of the more experienced people and see if you can get some help. In a lot of cases, people are more than willing to ride with you or let you ride with them to help you out.

I had a lot of fun today. Nothing fell off the new car. Nothing broke. PAXed 3rd. Good food with great people. Just wish JB could have been there.

Couldn't agree more with Mark. LOOK AHEAD!

I thought the course was a lot of fun. It really payed if you looked ahead.

Some of those elements might be good for the autox school.

Speaking of autox school. Do we know where its going to be and when can I pay.

MARKP wrote:I just wanted to post up that I thought the event went very well today. I know some of the newer crowd had some trouble staying on course but I thought it drove great. There were a few places that looking ahead really helped everything flow really well and it wasn't exactly the same look at things we have had in the past.

To any of the new people that had a little trouble with the course, find one of the more experienced people and see if you can get some help. In a lot of cases, people are more than willing to ride with you or let you ride with them to help you out.

not just the newer crowd

it was fun

Fuelrush wrote:Speaking of autox school. Do we know where its going to be and when can I pay.

We are working on securing the site and will have an announcement as soon as we have everything squared away.

Agreed, great event! Big thanks to everyone who worked hard to put it on. I liked the course... but never looked ahead enough either .

Had a good time slippin' and slidin' today. Weather couldn't have been better. Whoever found my "S" magnet and put it in my car, thanks!

Thanks JY for chairing; I really dug this course. Lots of speed and slaloms!

As for all the DNF'ing and whatnot - was there a novice walkthrough? We stayed really busy in the timing trailer when novices were running

Yeah Jim did several of them

sent from typotalk

Great Event. I enjoyed getting my butt kicked by Bradley and David.

Here's what the course looked like in slow motion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvuyuz-yLcI

During one of my course walks I set the over under on DNF's at 35% of the total runs. I'm not sure what the total % of DNF/Dirty runs to clean runs was today but it must have been a doosy. The course drove great and was a lot of fun but was VERY visually confusing. There was at least one Novice that DNF'ed every run.

First, it was good to get out and run my first event of the year and see some folks that I haven't seen since last year.

Second, thanks to David for the ride in the M3. I didn't go as fast as I wanted, but the car was a lot of fun. It makes me want some kind of car that I can slide around even more.

As far as the course, I had no problems with it, but it is a course that you had to memorize. I don't know where people were DNF'ing, but I thought the bottom half was tough visually. The chute makes for a "sea of cones". I found looking ahead to almost be disorienting in spots. I think it would have been tough as a n00b, with the added nervousness and the lack of experience to know where you have to just trust where to position the car. That is in no way a criticism, just an observation.

I saw a lot of DNF's on the bottom far side while I was working. There wasn't a whole lot to point you around that sharp turn that cut through the uphill straightaway. A few cars had to be red flagged when they accidentally started up the hill on their first pass. I think a wall of cones on both the side and blocking the space between the islands would have helped. Of course hindsight is 20/20

That was a long course. I kept walking and getting happier the longer I walked. Fast, open, and flowing too. Good course. It had a few areas that were visually different than normal for PSCC. But, no complaints here. I thought it was great.

I think it was a tough course for novices, but aren't they all? For the more experienced folks, I felt like the course did a great job of a new layout for a challenging lot! I liked the offsets at the bottom of the hill, wish we had room to do more of those. The full speed huge offset slaloms they can do at ZMax are the most fun I ever have on an AutoX course heh.

As for the novices, we had a fair number of 1st timers and quite a few 2nd timers, so it's always going to be a challenge for them. I like working registration because I can ride with the novices and help them out when I'm not driving. I think yesterday was a record for me though, I helped out both the brothers in the Z3, the girl in the Mustang, the newer M3 driver, and the '85 Corolla hah.

Maybe next event we can formalize that a bit and have the novice chief point me and a few other drivers willing to ride along out to the newcomers. For instance with the Corolla I didn't find out he was DNFing until his last run, so I helped him get a clean run but could have done a lot more if I'd known earlier.