While having people not get lost is A Good Thing, it should be a result rather
than a goal of good course design. I wouldn't agree that it should be pursued
as a primary indicator of a successful program. You could have a simple
straightaway with a pin turn and nobody would ever get lost. It could even be a
rousing success in terms of attracting and retaining new members. It would be a
terrible autocross program.
Yesterday's course was very well designed for the location, expected weather,
and number of entrants. It was somewhat simplistic for a typical SFR and
national course - running it in my head I count 11 notable elements, vs 16-24
that I find typical for an SCCA course.
Keeping the courses overly simplistic doesn't encourage looking ahead, and often
fails to reward proper lines or penalize poor ones - basically allowing drivers
to go point-to-point. I think if we are careful to avoid poor or "tricky"
course design, which annoys drivers even if they don't get lost, the rest should
take care of itself. I'm thinking of things such as entry gates with the same
spacing as the straightaway cones, no/wrongly placed double or pointer cones,
"blind" turns where it is impossible to see the apex, etc.
KeS
(once DNFed two out of three clearly marked runs at a Nat. Tour and still won
the darned thing!)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ba-autox@autox.team.net
> [mailto:owner-ba-autox@autox.team.net]On Behalf Of John Kelly
> Sent: Monday, March 06, 2000 15:56
> To: BayArea Team.Net
> Subject: SFR autocross opener
>
>
> According to the results lady, Pat Kelly, we had 273 entries at 3 Com Park
> yesterday.
> That's a similar number to our Super Bowl Sunday event in late January
> 1999. A key difference is yesterday we had over an hour of additional
> daylight than we had in 1999.
>
> There are some other interesting numbers, too. And we'll get to some of
> them in the coming week.
> The one number that please me most is the Zero for the "People who
> got lost" column.
> If our upcoming season can pursue that Big Zero at every event, we'll have
> a more than successful program.
>
> --John Kelly
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