Lots of good input here... especially those that said not to use a set
time. Your starters are the key. They must be aware of who's fast, slow,
likely to spin out, novice, etc. Make sure you have experienced
starters. The location and speed of the first car will let the starter
know when to start the next one.
The thing that hasn't been stressed enough is corner workers. If your
goal is 20 seconds of separation, then the "average" worker has about
8-9 seconds to react and run out to the cone, 3 seconds to find the spot
and replace the cone, and 8-9 seconds to run back to the station so the
next driver isn't distracted.
Assuming that it takes a second or two for most of us to get going,
you've got to figure that you can't place corner workers any more than
the distance they can do a fast trot in 6-7 seconds from cones that are
likely to get hit. You won't be able to provide this level of coverage
for the whole course, but you have to be able to do it for "popular"
cones.
So... one of the most important things to do is to design the course so
that the natural corner working stations (light poles or whatever) are
close enough to the trickier elements of the course that the corner
workers can reset the course in time, while still being far enough off
the course for their safety - very difficult. How far can Joe Corner
Worker run in 6-7 seconds? I'd guess that 75 feet is pushing it when you
consider he has to start and stop. If you go less, then you start
putting the workers in jeopardy is someone spins.
And if the course crosses over itself or reuses elements in different
directions, then the interval at any given gate may be less than 20
seconds!
I think 20 a second interval is really pushing safe course design
limits. We (BMW CCA NCC) ran a 60-70 second course (800x600 foot lot,
about a .8 mile course) recently with basically three cars on course:
stop, start, and mid course. Probably gave us 25-30 seconds between
cars. With that, we ran 128 cars through four runs each in eight hours.
Running three runs, we could have handled 170 cars. So unless your
events are HUGE, what's to be gained by cutting down everyone's safety
margin to the bare minimum?
--
Ron Katona
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