RE: Course lining.
Seems to me we addressed the situation earlier this year and we
wrote a rule to cover it. While I wasn't personally happy with it, the rule
seems to cover all the situations.
What is being proposed is to solve a problem faced by two or three
people. For this we're supposed to throw out everything we do that's right?
Here in San Francisco Region we have developed a lot of positive
ideas that have made autocrossing better. I think we should continue to
think we are the best at what we do. Because we are. Consistently we are
faced with large fields, the kind the Tour and Pro Solo leadership only
dream about. We have worked out a program that delivers satisfaction to the
overwhelming majority of our members. We have learned to pump a lot of cars
through with a minimum of mistakes by our all-volunteer crew. Because our
people are having a good time, they are learning to drive better and
better. They become confident of themselves. That's how we create National
Champions.
In a not so long ago time frame, one of our members --I think he
was our Solo II Chief at the time--stated we in SFR would make all of our
courses "gate" courses in order to train our people to run at the
Nationals. But then maybe he just said "Some should be 'gate' courses."
I.e. no lines whatsoever, just matched pylons 15 feet apart that gives each
driver a chance to develop his own line through the "gates" and be creative
about it. Just like they do in snow skiing. It's how the game was played
all over the country and the feeling was we should do it like those
strangers do it far, far away because they're smarter than we are. I don't
think so.
In that time frame most of the clubs ran VERY tight courses and
laughed when a Corvette owner showed up and had to back up several times in
order to get around a few of the turns. Ho Ho. Said Corvette owner NEVER
returned. Funny how the laughing by "real" sports car owners got to him. To
this day most clubs out there in the middle do not have very many Corvette
entries. And we are seeing fewer of them ever since our Honda-owning chief
alienated the Corvette crowd and they created the AAS series in
retaliation.
When SFR went into the "gate" mode, with the thought it was
required to "train" our drivers for national, a funny thing happened.
National began using lined courses that very year. Seems there was this
problem with people getting lost in a sea of pylons and there were some
very real safety concerns. So they copied what we do without doing it
exactly because, well you know. "That's how they do it in California."
You missed the obvious at San Diego, Don. EVERY pylon had this
double line chalked around its base. It's spelled out in the rule book.
Look for it. The reason it's written that way is because "I don't care how
they do it in California." (Never mind the majority of clubs use a single
chalk line. Why? Because it's simple and it makes sense.) The
two-inch-apart double chalk line came about because way back when pylon
boxes were being painted at Salina, they had this two-inch paint brush. The
all the way down or out rule applies BUT, under the rule, the pylon is not
charged unless it goes all the way beyond the second chalk line drawn
precisely two inches apart from the first. When drawing boxes, please be
precise. I don't think we have to copy what I think is bad idea.
In my humble opinion, we in SFR have achieved a level of commercial
success in autocrossing because we keep courses easy to follow. At least we
used to. One by one all the good stuff is being eroded. Soon we will be
back to playing gymkhana as our constituents look elsewhere for autocross
entertainment, just as the Corvette owners have already done with the AAS
series. (Did I mention the Porsche and BMW folks?) Right now we in SFR are
the only show in town. By designing our courses and "methods" to be what
some people think are like Nationals, we will soon see 30-60 car fields
just like the majority of SCCA regions. And when we shrink, we will no
longer be able to afford "downtown" sites. That's the long term outlook if
we ignore what made us successful in the first place.
--John Kelly
|