[Wichita-SCCA] June 10th Solo

[Greg Laws]

Yes, Marcus did a great job yesterday.  Only those of us who have done it 
before know what a demanding job being a solo event chair can be.  Thank you 
very much Marcus, and kudos to Mike Herrick as well.  It was just a shame 
that the rain came along to mess things up but that's just the chance that 
we all take with the weather vs. event dates set well in advance.  I hope 
that the M & M team will honor us again in the future.

Okay.  The nice words have been said -- and I sincerely meant every one of 
them -- but now its time to discuss course design.  I first want to clearly 
state that there is no blame whatsoever to hand out to anyone in particular. 
With that disclaimer I have to say that I was disappointed in the course 
designs of both the divisional and the WGP event.

The divisional course on Saturday was boring.  It was very fast, yes, but 
autocross should involve skills other than just holding one's foot to the 
floor while madly steering.  The divisional's Sunday course was better and I 
appreciated the changes to slow it down with more emphasis on transitions, 
best line through the corners, and so forth.

The WGP course was the opposite.  It suffered from two common mistakes and, 
trust me, I've been guilty of each more times than I care to remember.  The 
first of the two issues was that there were too many elements spaced too 
closely together so that the course became tight and very busy.  This 
usually comes about because the designer doesn't want to "waste" any 
valuable surface space so he/she crams as much into it as they possibly can.

The second issue was that the course did not flow well.  This is in part 
related to the first issue but it is deeper than that.  Proper design 
requires that one should find the next element directly in one's view when 
exiting the last element.  The divisional course was reasonably good on that 
score but the WGP course had serious problems with this.

There might be a third issue too, at least with the WGP course, and that is 
that sharp turnarounds are strongly discouraged for a number of reasons. 
Only out of dire necessity should a course have even one sharp turn in 
excess of 90 degrees but WGP had four or five of them.

Okay, so course designers do their best but can make mistakes or misjudge 
something.  Now what?  How do we more consistently have excellent course 
designs that attract customers and grow the club?

My thought is that we might want to have a course design committee.  Its 
members could walk through a prospective course with the event chair making 
suggestions regarding style and flow so as to have a more consistent result. 
This would happen prior to final safety check of course.  Maybe the 
committee members would commit to being on site during initial setup to 
review the Chair's basic plan and to help with actually setting the course 
up.  All comments and suggestions from the committee would have no force 
other than persuasion but I think that most Chairs would appreciate the 
help.  I know that the rest of us would sincerely appreciate the results.

One last thought is that the course designer should be given permission to 
slowly drive a pickup or van or other large vehicle through the course so as 
to see the course from behind the wheel and then make suitable changes to 
the course as needed.  This permission would be granted even when the course 
designer intends to run in the event.  Things look dramatically different 
from behind a steering wheel.  Course elements that seemed to be just fine 
while walking suddenly become w-a-y too tight or too busy or just don't flow 
correctly when seen from behind the wheel.  Let's quit being bull headed 
about this and fix the course problems before we run the event!

Besides, I can't see any advantage that might come to the course designer 
from putt-putting around in a large vehicle because everything will again 
change when running at speed in a small vehicle.

Your comments?

Enjoy,
Greg Laws