Equipe Rapide Event #1, Pennington, 2/27/11

[Squid]

It will be better at the next event.

You all did a bang up job at this event and we all appreciate it!

[nomadtrash]

I wish I could take all the credit. I figured out that my personal pax was wrong and opened my e-mail to send a note to Kenny. When I opened my e-mail there was a message from Rick Ruth the PAX god. I started hearing "Sometimes I feel like somebody's watching me" in my head. I guess we all know where he gets his numbers now, Equipe Rapide!

[nomadtrash]

You all did a bang up job at this event and we all appreciate it!

Us Krum guys watch each other's backs. I think you just won Rapide PAX at event #2 and dropped 10 dBa on the sound meter.

[altiain]

So Andy, why did ER chose to ignore the new sound rules at Pennington this past weekend?

[Robert]

"You all did a bang up job at this event and we all appreciate it! "

+1


Good event as always!

My car had wicked corner entry oversteer that it's never had before, and it would not respond to set-up changes. Late last night I think I figured out what was wrong. I put new brake pads on and I think the rears have to much initial bite. I am going to check the rear alignment and if that looks good, put the stock rear pads back on and see how they play with the Ferodo DS2500 on the front.

[OZMDD]

From the ER website: In October this year I was made aware of a developing situation at the HEB ISD. They are debating on whether they should rent Pennington Field for motorsports activities in the future. We were told that we could not reserve the site for the 2011 season. They cited safety concerns and noise complaints as the reason for the moratorium. Several autocross groups including Equipe Rapide, SCCA, NTAX, and the BMW club prepared presentations for the school board regarding our record of safety at our events and our safety policy and procedures. I also made a presentation regarding sound policy at our events. We were able to convince the school board to allow autocrosses to be held in January and February at Pennington Field. The school board will be meeting in March to take a vote on the issue. I was told by the school board president and a couple of board members that our presentations were very helpful to our position. Now we will have to wait till March to see the outcome.

One of the issues brought up by the school board was noise complaints from residents. Equipe Rapide has always had a noise policy. It was subjective based on whether the board of directors thought that a car was too loud. We have turned away several cars over the years. The SCCA national championships and national tours have implemented a 100 dBa sound policy. Other local autocross clubs have followed suit. Equipe Rapide is prepared to adopt a similar policy. Please watch the website for updated rules.

Very dissapointed that ER chose to risk Pennington Field access for all clubs when it is clear that 100db is the "law of the land" in the autocross world these days. Even more perturbed that 2 of the 3 loudest cars belonged to ER board members who were well-aware of the potential impact of continued noise problems.

My question is: What exactly is ER waiting for? SCCA has put its foot down on the issue, every club except PCA has officially adopted the 100db rule, NTAXS enforced the rule at the same site in January, site-retention is one of the biggest challenges facing the sport...

[CosmosMpower]

"You all did a bang up job at this event and we all appreciate it! "

+1


Good event as always!

My car had wicked corner entry oversteer that it's never had before, and it would not respond to set-up changes. Late last night I think I figured out what was wrong. I put new brake pads on and I think the rears have to much initial bite. I am going to check the rear alignment and if that looks good, put the stock rear pads back on and see how they play with the Ferodo DS2500 on the front.

Wicked corner entry oversteer in a S2000 normally means too little toe in, in my experience.

[Robert]

Thanks, I am going to check rear tow, and see if something moved. Before I change the pads.

[OZMDD]

Robert, I thought you were looking very fast out there. Still not interested in coming over to STR? :)

[mwortham]

Lots of things happened. We had to put out all those barricades and pick them up. That took several additional minutes. On top of that, one of the cleanup crew left early leaving only a couple of us to do it all. I saw a group standing near the trailer and impressed them into service in order to get all the cones picked up. Typically, the corner workers for the last heat will stack cones around their corners. That didn't happen at this event. We had to upgrade AXWare to a new version that supports online registration. The new software gave us a few problems like the printers not working or live timing. Lots of people took the wrong number of runs. Some had three pax runs and three regular runs or three regular runs and only 1 pax run. The audit of the results was a monumantal task with me having to go find people and figure out what runs they actually took. On top of that, a few folks changed classes mid-event or after registering but before running.

Trying to roll-in new classes, president, payout features, sound, online registration, and a new version of the software all in one event proved to be quite a challenge. We did make it through and still got done at a reasonable time. I know it is tough to sit and wait for trophies but at least you all weren't still out working the course. I was the last to leave the site at 4:30. I can remember the days where 75 entrants with 4 runs each would have us giving out trophies in the dark. We made 75 drivers with 6 runs and done with trophies before 4.


It will be better at the next event.

I was doing the audit at the end of the event, which was a major part of the delay. Sorry about that everyone. The results were just messed up though and had to be straightened out before we could do trophies. Some of it was AXware issues, and a number of other issues that Andy mentioned. I'm sure it will go a little smoother next time.

Oh, and thanks Andy and Kenny for helping me get it straightened out!

[nomadtrash]

There you have it. It was all Mark's fault.

[Robert]

Thanks OZMDD. It's very temping to go to STR, but I tend to throw money at cars when I have the chance, and you can spend a lot on an ST car. You don't have to spend a lot but you can and I would. I have also been hearing that some guys are spinning AP2's too 9000 rpm's. One good driving nut does it and everyone has to do it too keep up.

[jrj512]

There you have it. It was all Mark's fault.

Classic.

[nomadtrash]

I don't want to discuss sound policy over a public forum. I will say that we have very good evidence to support that no cars went over the 100 dBa limit.
If you want to PM me, especially if you were concerned about personally being too loud, then I'll discuss it in private. Away from Google's all seeing eye.

[altiain]

We didn't record any sound readings. We only notified the folks who went over.

I don't want to discuss sound policy over a public forum. I will say that we have very good evidence to support that no cars went over the 100 dBa limit.
If you want to PM me, especially if you were concerned about personally being too loud, then I'll discuss it in private. Away from Google's all seeing eye.

That doesn't jive with what I've heard "off the record" from people who were working in the trailer, and it doesn't jive with your own previous statement.

I'm not trying to crucify you personally Andy. I just want to know why ER chose to disregard the sound enforcement rules you had previously publicly committed to, especially when the future of the site is at stake and noise was one of the cited issues.

The local autocrossing community has a right to know why the decision was made yesterday not to enforce sound limits.

[ratt_finkel]

Lots of things happened. We had to put out all those barricades and pick them up. That took several additional minutes. On top of that, one of the cleanup crew left early leaving only a couple of us to do it all. I saw a group standing near the trailer and impressed them into service in order to get all the cones picked up. Typically, the corner workers for the last heat will stack cones around their corners. That didn't happen at this event. We had to upgrade AXWare to a new version that supports online registration. The new software gave us a few problems like the printers not working or live timing. Lots of people took the wrong number of runs. Some had three pax runs and three regular runs or three regular runs and only 1 pax run. The audit of the results was a monumantal task with me having to go find people and figure out what runs they actually took. On top of that, a few folks changed classes mid-event or after registering but before running.

Trying to roll-in new classes, president, payout features, sound, online registration, and a new version of the software all in one event proved to be quite a challenge. We did make it through and still got done at a reasonable time. I know it is tough to sit and wait for trophies but at least you all weren't still out working the course. I was the last to leave the site at 4:30. I can remember the days where 75 entrants with 4 runs each would have us giving out trophies in the dark. We made 75 drivers with 6 runs and done with trophies before 4.


It will be better at the next event.

Andy,

This is certainly not a stab at you. But I remember when we had twice Tha number of people and would be done by 4.

[ratt_finkel]

P.S.

Excellent course!

[CosmosMpower]

P.S.

Excellent course!

How's the new chariot?

[nomadtrash]

Would have been 3 if the guys in the EVO didn't waste so much time.

[POS Racing]

I've got about 200 pictures... or 200 versions of the same rather mediocre picture, taken from roughly the same spot. I'll go through them and if there's anything decent they'll be on shutterfly sometime soon.

Well??

Anyone else got any pictures from the event??