Previously, in another thread, I said something to the effect that if you didn't go to this event you are a wuss. Well, maybe you were smart instead. It rained and was in the 40's the whole time. It was the worst weather I have run in next to last year's Peru National Tour. We even had a small lake at times on the right course. The left course only had small rivers.
I was very glad to see good participation from the region including several faces that hadn't done one of these before. I hope the new people had fun. The first Pro Solo you go to is a little confusing but they get easier. Sorry I wasn't able to help the newcomers as much as I would have liked but with driving an unfamiliar car and working impound, I didn't have much time to sit.
Mark Pilson
03 Z06 - Sword
09 Mustang - Club
01 Excursion - The safe you dropped from the 10th story
OOOW beat Geoff in his own car. Congrats, and a little FWD VW beat all the AWD cars in SM. Neal hasn't put the rallye Golf rear in that scirocco yet has he?
Sounds like y'all had about the same amout of fun as everyone at the Roebling Road drivers school. It was a Dirt Stocker kind of weekend there. One guy picked up 30 seconds a lap slapping on a set of them. Rain SUCKS, cold rain SUCKS MORE, in a bad way. When I left there sunday at noon, Dick was still doing good in his Spec Miata. Hope he finished out the rest of the day OK.
At least no one had to compete in the snowy slop we had to drive back home in.
TedV wrote:OOOW beat Geoff in his own car. Congrats, and a little FWD VW beat all the AWD cars in SM. Neal hasn't put the rallye Golf rear in that scirocco yet has he?
Yup, I guess I'll have to add that one to the list that nobody will let me drive again.
Neal didn't have dirt stockers so he borrowed Geoff's for Saturday afternoon. He went from 5 seconds out to leading. It was too funny to see a Scirocco whooping up on the Subarus in the rain. The car that won the Challenge was an 89 BMW. All the AWD cars got eliminated before the last round. I was somewhat responsible for one of the eliminations.
Mark Pilson
03 Z06 - Sword
09 Mustang - Club
01 Excursion - The safe you dropped from the 10th story
Congrats again Mark on your win. It also takes skill to be 19 sec. behind and trick the Subaru to red light.
John had a big win too.
The only thing I have to add is a big thanks to Doug and cold rain sucks.
I would also like to thank Doug for all his help Friday and Saturday. Overall the event was very good, except the F'ing weather. Am sure I would have been able to deal with the weather better if I was not sucking so bad. Oh well I gave it a shot.....When I got up Sunday and saw that it was raining harder and the wind was blowing I said "Screw it!!" and went back to bed. I was not going to spend another day being wet and miserable and on top of all that be bring up the rear of the group . Tony most be rubbing off on me
I am so good I will race you and only use one hand.
Yeah, "real" rain tires sure do make the rain a lot more bearable. When on the dirt stockers, the Rabbit almost handled like it was dry. Even "Lake Gwinett" and "Slalom River" didn't bother them much.
Mark Pilson
03 Z06 - Sword
09 Mustang - Club
01 Excursion - The safe you dropped from the 10th story
In Pro-Solo, all the ladies classes are combined into L1 and L2. It looks like L2 was probably combined with L1 at this event due to a lack of entries in L2.
M1 is an experiment. They are combining several of the prepared and mod classes at the Pros because of a lack of participation. They are indexing this class if I remember correctly. It is the only index class in Pro Solo.
Mark Pilson
03 Z06 - Sword
09 Mustang - Club
01 Excursion - The safe you dropped from the 10th story
I guess Brian Garfield did figure out how to make a Mini S go in GS. But I notice that the HS na Mini Cooper was faster than all the GS cars. Same conditions?
Something showed up in my e-mail that might interest those of you who competed:
__________
Attn: Tasha Goodale & Howard Duncan
Dear Tasha & Howard:
Just wanted to start by saying it was great to see the SCCA gang at this weekend's event in Atlanta, unfortunately for us the weather soured the social aspect of the weekend.
We feel the need to write this letter based on the numerous accounts of strange timer glitches - for lack of a better description. We witnessed several instances of what appeared to be in accurate times throughout the event. From several vantage points, we watched competitor's cars in relation to when each passed the finish line. The times reflected for these cars, did not coincide with each respective car's position to one another when they crossed the finish line. It was our understanding that several other people witnessed the same thing we observed.
We specifically called this seemingly glaring timer error to your attention, but were not really given any explanation. On Sunday morning, Dennis Grant who informed us that he was in part responsible for programming the new timing system approached us. He felt that for some reason the timing system was running in "drag race mode" and that the reaction times were not counted in the total time per run because the timer was not starting with the green light but was actually starting when a car broke the starting light beam.
Even if this was the case - why didn't the SCCA personnel make an announcement to this effect? We all know that reaction times can determine whether you win or lose a run. Dennis Grant's explanation made sense to us for awhile, until we witnessed a few pairs of cars come across the finish line so close it was hard to say who should have had the faster time - however when the times were announced, one car was timed ahead by approximately 2 full seconds. That's what made us really start questioning the validity of times at this event.
When two cars start the timer together, it should not matter how far of a distance they have to travel to finish, if they both finish and go thru the timing lights at the same time, the times should be fairly close. When two cars cross the finish line in almost a dead heat and yet one car has been timed with a 2 second lead it appears most likely that there is some form of timer error. If you do the math, based upon the relative speed of the cars crossing the finish, which for example is 30 mph - in 2 seconds they would have traveled 88 feet. That distance is certainly noticeable, and was not evident when we witnessed where the cars finished in relation to one another.
This exact situation happened to Larry and Brian Garfield in the 2nd round of the Super Challenge. They had very similar dial-in's, both in the 7's on reaction times and very close at the finish. And yet the timer tells us they were 2 seconds apart. Clearly there is an error somewhere that potentially caused an improper result.
In closing, it does seem as though the SCCA has put some time, money, and thought into the SOLO timing system for this year. However, we feel that there was a problem at the Atlanta event and no one from the SCCA staff addressed this to the competitors in any fashion. We hope that when a logical solution is figured out that the competitors will be notified.
Well, maybe you were smart instead. It rained and was in the 40's the whole time. It was the worst weather I have run in next to last year's Peru National Tour. We even had a small lake at times on the right course. The left course only had small rivers.
. Tony most be rubbing off on me 
