Randy Chase wrote:
>http://www.thehourly.com/autox/
>In looking at the video of this autocross, a few things stand out.
>1. The speed of the car was relatively slow. This is a novice driver.
Not having video of others to compare, hard to say. It looks like a fairly
"quick" section of a fairly "quick" course.
>2. There is something of a straight, with a quick transition towards the
>edge of the course. The transition has the car pointed towards the
The first oversteer instance did point the car toward the edge -- from
there, it was tank-slapper time.
>edge/spectators/paddock. They paddock seems far enough away, if the area
>between them and the course was not grass.
Agreed that the distance would likely have been adequate if the area was
pavement. Not nearly enough for grass. Quite honestly, I think the worst
aspect of this site layout is the paddock/spectator location down that
sides of the course. If the course had been mirror-imaged on the
runway/taxiway, with the "down" leg being nearest the spectator area, and
the "return" leg away, it would have been better. Of course, given where
the video was shot, it looks like they had spectator area down the other
side as well. Yes, restricting the spectator/paddock areas away from the
sides of the course would not give as good of a view, but it would be
considerably safer.
>3. The "edge of the course" is not defined by cones. The area between the
>gates defined by pointer cones is open, so the edge of the course is open
to
>the driver's interpretation. I always find this a little odd to determine
if
>the course falls within the rules, when the edge is not defined.
Generally, I use a line between the outside bounds of the course to
determine the distance to fixed objects (edge of the pavement is definitely
a fixed object). Slaloms are a little tricky to judge, I agree.
I couldn't find anything to tell if this was an SCCA-sanctioned event or
another club with a somewhat different ruleset, so I won't say "illegal",
but it might've given me some pause. Or it might not have. I know Detroit
Region SCCA has run on a taxiway a few times that was, well, not the widest
site we've ever had. We tried to keep the course off the edge (helped by
the fact that the edge of the taxiway was crumbling), minimize transitions
that would put the car toward the edge, and we kept the paddock and
spectators down at the end, away from the sides of the course. Again,
aside from the paddock/spectator location, there didn't appear to be
anything in the course design itself that would give me much pause.
>4. The run off area is a grass field. It appears that the Celica driver
>could not get the car stopped quickly before having to take evasive
>maneuvers among people and cars. Hard to say, but if he had just locked it
>up, it may have been worse.
Looks like he *did* lock it up, but let up enough toward the end to turn
the car a little bit. If it'd been wet grass, it could have been worse.
If there were any ruts, holes, etc. in the grass, it could have been worse.
Take it from a road racing flagger -- if you get into the grass, it's a
crap shoot as to where and what condition you'll end up in.
>5. The driver did very well to not hit anyone or a car. I do understand he
>ran over the one person's (shown in the video) foot, but it was not very
>bad. In watching this, I think luck also played a big role in nobody
getting
>seriously hurt.
This one can be chalked up to luck, absolutely. There was a minimal window
of alignment between all the variables in play. Change any of the
variables ever so slightly, and it's highly likely that significant
property damage would be the best possible outcome.
And that's where the safety standards come in -- you want to increase the
size of the "safe zone" window as much as can reasonably be accomplished,
so that a larger number of variable combinations will still result in a
safe conclusion.
I'm willing to bet that the club hosting this particular event has made a
few changes in how they designate spectator/paddock areas since this
happened.
Jim Crider
autojim@att.net
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