No bananamobile co-drive?Quote:
Originally Posted by ratt_finkel
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No bananamobile co-drive?Quote:
Originally Posted by ratt_finkel
Understood. See ya tomorrow maybe.Quote:
Originally Posted by altiain
I'd off a co-drive, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to make it. If I make it and you haven't found a co-drive, let me know.Quote:
Originally Posted by altiain
and he'll say, "NANA-NANA-BOO-BOO"Quote:
Originally Posted by Miatamoto
Well...
A really big thanks to all those who offered co-drives, but it turns out there were bars on my window of opportunity. Looks like I'm not going to make it tomorrow after all. :(
You kids have fun and go fast! :burnrubr:
Due to my monetary situation, I don't think I'll be racing today. I'll probably bring my friend by so he can see what it's all about, though. See you guys in a few hours :D
It was the best autocross I attended today. :burnrubr: Great turnout of Miatae pilots. Congrats to all the trophy winners!
I had to take off.
The S/C made traction MIA. It was fun!
It was a long day for three runs, but what can you do? It was a good course.
BTW, Greg asked me about covering some of the future Pennington courses. That is fine by me, but if anyone has any ideas about new layouts, let me know. If you can just give me the general idea, then I can try to put it into a course.
It was a long day, but a fun one. Love those Azenis.
Great competition in Tire Class I had a blast!
Here is the video from my best, and third, run of the day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXvlOKwjB9w
It is nice to see so many of you being nice, but I feel the three runs we got today was a bunch of crap. :thumbdow:
Anyone know what cause the new high dollar timing lights to give up the ghost so early in the day?
Really disappointing to have the first SCCA event of the year go so poorly. While it was the best autocross I attended today it certainly was sub-par from what we had seen in the past from the fine folks at the SCCA.
*Your millage may vary see dealer for details.
Tell us how you really feel, POS! :wink:
You guys are making me glad I stayed home.
Quote:
Originally Posted by POS Racing
Be nice to Mick, he is just upset that he did not get his goodbye hug from Jarret due to the fact that Jarret had to "keep up appearances" with his lady present. ;)
I did ask for someone to sit in front of the reflector af the finish first heat.....no takers LOL :)
The stink wore off onto my driving and those 13 cones or whatever I hit as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by POS Racing
Problems I noted with the event:
#1 Crossover point was 2/3 of the way through the course. That caused long overlap times and made the event run slowly.
#2 Timing trailer and stage lanes were on the racing surface. You guys should stage all cars not actually at the start line on the access road. Put the Timing trailer at the outer edge of the property where the exit lane jogged around the curb.
#3 Stop using Axware timing and T-Wire lights. There are better, more reliable solutions. Just because it's new, shiny and makes neat noises doesn't mean it's better.
#4 If you are going to have more than 140 competitors, break the day into two sub-events with two heats each. That way you aren't there all day for 3-4 runs, and you aren't waiting around for one heat with nothing to do. I worked heat 1 and ran heat 2 then left. How long did heat 3 go on? I was told that Texas Region was going to copy the Houston Region 4-heat model. What happened?
#5 I don't have a solution regarding on-site registration/check-in, work assignments, and worker check-in. You guys have the longest, slowest lines for those. Spokes, SASCA and Houston Region all do a much better job.
The effort to reward ratio sucked!
I know, I'm a grumpy old man::Rant::
Long day. I forgot to use my sun screen, again.
Thanks to HudsonHawk for helping with my tire change.
I had never seen three cones hung under a kart before, nice job miata_racer.
As someone said, it was the best autocross I attend yesterday.
Yeah, you didn't miss much. The champ was talking a lot of smack all day but the champ ended up in 3rd with his "participant" trophy. ;)::Banana::Quote:
Originally Posted by altiain
I came in second off of my first run :( with 2 dirty runs after that (I'm starting to make a habit of that). I think I've had 2 clean runs in the last 3 events! :punchout:
J-Fo was flying and put down a smokin' 36.2!
Despite the long day and all the complications, it was a pretty fun course for Pennington.
My advice would be to take PMS off the venue list. Unless you want to run 25 second courses, there's no way to lay one out without an overlap which leads to 1-car-at-a-time syndrome. ::2Cents::Quote:
Originally Posted by jrj512
PS
Maybe next year all the equipment could be checked out the day of the novice school before the actual event.
Oops, forgot about the TX A&M event. Only had 1 clean run there too!
Make that 3 clean runs out of the last 4 events. :(
The overlap is fine, but it is best to put it near the beginning in order to get the second car out earlier. The problem that we run into is that we have pretty much exhausted all of the designs (that we can think of) that have an overlap towards the beginning. However, I am drawing one up now that might be pretty good. Will someone be available the day before the event to help build the ramp? ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by sammm
We were talking about that yesterday general consensus was you need to add a booster to your seat so you can see out the windows.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miatamoto
http://www.harrisonindustrial.com/images/Miata/moto.JPG
;)
ROFL! I hate you!Quote:
Originally Posted by POS Racing
... still waiting! ::Rant::
Are you sure? The other leprechaun didn't have any problems yesterday!Quote:
Originally Posted by POS Racing
http://www.holidayinsights.com/stpat/leprechaun1.jpg
Your welcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by cone-cerned
And the Cart was funny. I think he took out a dozen cones at the finish line. Got off his cart. Picked it up and pulled three out from under it.
I Had a good time, next time I would like to get a ride if possible. Think its something I could get into.
Don't ride -- drive. Come out to an S2000 event or a BMW event where you get 8 runs if you want good practice. ER events give you six runs, too. Then use the SCCA (and ER) events to really compare yourself to the top drivers in the area.Quote:
Originally Posted by HudsonHawk
I'm not going to make any excuses for the slow start yesterday. We're (TXR BOD) all as disappointed as anyone that it had to happen that way. I will say that the TLinks were checked and tested before the event and we have no idea why they refused to work. Without the initial delay the large turnout would've been fantastic, offering more comraderie and competition. We can easily handle 149 drivers with 4 runs (or more).
Hopefully this isn't a classic case of one bad incident sticking with everyone and making them forget all the good stuff. If this was your first event with us we apologize for the slow start, but ask around and you'll find it's rarely like that at our events.
On edit: We do appreciate the feedback and take most of it seriously :D well, except the whiny stuff and the stuff we dont' like, and the stuff that jrj512 says.:rolleyes:
I saw that one happen, that was hilarious.Quote:
Originally Posted by HudsonHawk
Even though I didn't run, I brought a friend out and he's VERY excited about bringing his RSX out next time :D
Have another friend with a Firebird who wants to start doing this too.
Can't even blame my old tires... Sammy was a solid half second ahead of me as always. Dammit!
Help me with the math. How would moving the crossover closer to the beginning help? The course is only 33 - 45 seconds. You need 15 - 25 seconds between cars for chasing cones. Also having the crossover close to start really only helps to get the second car on course faster, right? With a bigger surface it would help, I think.
I agree with having an AM and PM session. This would require more core volunteers.
Getting only 3 runs was a bummer but I understand sometimes stuff happens. I forgot to turn off my stability assist on runs 2 and 3:( which cost me a little time. I through I was making alot of little mistakes but turns out it was the car trying to help me drive.:confused:
With 160 cars we could have done 4 heats to make the time on course a little shorter.
+another 1 on the split day format I think that would be great.:clap:
What was the average number of cars per event last season??
I think the split day would be OK but I wonder if we have enough people attending events to pull it off.
Part of the problems yesterday were weather related. The wind kept blowing ::turd:: thru the lights, tripping false starts and finishes. That's why there were so many re-runs and other timing issues.
I'm having a hard time posting to the TexasSCCA forum, and there are obviously a few TR-BOD members here...
Somone added my email to the Texas Region email list. While I'm happy to be on that list, I'd like it to go to a different email. The instructions detail how to unsuscribe, but not how to suscribe to the list. Anyone want to fess up to putting me on the list so you can switch to my "list" email?
Moving the crossover would've helped a little, but not too much. A normal overlap interval for a local event is around 25 seconds. We were at 30 for most cars yesteraday, so with our 3 runs and 149 drivers (160 reg'd, 149 with times) that would've bought us a little less than 40 minutes over the day. Not insignificant, but not the real source of the trouble. The course length doesn't have any effect on how long an event runs other than the time it takes you to walk it and a few extra minutes to get your workers at their stations ;). It's all about the interval you can send cars. The course can be 250 seconds, and as long it's laid out so you can send a car every 25 seconds you can still hustle the same amount of competitors through as a shorter course with a similar interval.
Split day works fantastic if there's enough people, but we haven't figured out how to pull it off with the numbers we have. We looked at it hard in the off season, and our numbers aren't big enough (yet) to make it work safely and consistently. We averaged 135 per event last year.
There's another option to get the event moving in a situation like this. The old faithful stopwatch method is advocated by a few of the BOD members. Obviously not the preferred method, but it could've got us going sooner. So the question is, would you rather have one (or a couple) of your times done by stopwatch while we get another timer system in place, or wait?
I would rather wait. The times for some classes (tenths or less) are so close that it'd be almost impossible to record correct times manually IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Solo RX-7
I don't know squat about the timing stuff you guys have; but how much time had clicked off the clock before you guys drug out the old timing lights? Seemed like a lot of time was spent trying to resurrect the dead before "plan B" was brought into action.Quote:
Originally Posted by Solo RX-7
Did you guys ever figure out why the new timing lights died yesterday? I don't recall them ever acting up last season except for a battery issue once and IIRC that was quickly resolved.
Also for the national SCCA event we are having here in Ft. Worth will the national office be providing the timing and scoring equipment?
It was probably about 30 minutes when we decided to switch. That opened a new can of worms - based on how good the TLinks were working we had packed away the old system so well it took us another 20 minutes to get all the pieces located and fired up.Quote:
Originally Posted by POS Racing
Not yet. Tim B and Phil A will be digging into that this week.Quote:
Did you guys ever figure out why the new timing lights died yesterday? I don't recall them ever acting up last season except for a battery issue once and IIRC that was quickly resolved.
Nat'l uses their own stuff for the tours. We just provide the minions.Quote:
Also for the national SCCA event we are having here in Ft. Worth will the national office be providing the timing and scoring equipment?