From: Matt Miller <mmiller@wt.net>
To: autox@autox.team.net <autox@autox.team.net>
Date: Thursday, April 12, 2001 12:21 PM
Subject: Speed Creep
>Being an infrequent reader and having never posted here before, I
>don't know with whom it is politically correct to agree or disagree
>with in this forum.
Nonsense. Sacred cows are not the ticket. Facts and fair arguing are the
tickets.
>nobody
>should confuse course length with the top speeds attained on the
>course.
Well said.
>With two exceptions, every single
>incident I have ever seen at any autocross anywhere has always
>been the result of transition maneuvers that were supposedly
>designed into the course to lower speeds and increase safety.
Exactly. If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times. On a
site with runoff problems (and the FW site seems emphatically not to be such
a site) there is no safe way to slow down a car that is going too fast. You
must design the course so that the car never gets going too fast. Just as
Matt points out here, the trouble starts when the designer wrongly tries to
slow the car down instead of correctly preventing the car from going too
fast. That's how we get these goofy problems at finish lines. Design it
properly, and the cars can be freely accelerating through the lights. If it
is done correctly, it is not only very safe for cars, people and timing
equipment, it also feels good to the driver.
Phil Ethier Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 Triumph TR4 CT2846L
LOON, MAC pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/
Daughter Amanda has presented us with a second grandchild. Sirena Mae
Stremski
arrived on the first day of Spring 2001, weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces.
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