Tam said,
> Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 14:46:13 -0700
> From: Viet-Tam Luu <viettamluu@gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Chicago - Thinking "Out of the Box"
>
> >Even with the one second penalty, I was three seconds quicker on the
> total timer.
>
> Which once again brings up the topic of course design--IMO any course
> where it's faster (including penalties) to go through a cone than
> around it is improperly designed... "Sacrifice cones" tend to come
> into the picture more when you have 1-second cones I guess.
I've seen an occasional cone which I thought was worth 1 second penalty,
though I don't think I've ever actually done it on purpose. As long as you
hit the cone, you weren't actually off course, by definition! Sacramento
only charges 1 second. _Never_ seen one which was worth SFR's 2 seconds.
I have seen a competitor choose to drive outside the cones at the start or
finish, then come back in a loop to make it "legal" and not DNF, where they
thought that they could carry more speed through that end by doing so.
Someone did it at Round 7 at the finish - not sure if it benefitted them.
Ben did it once to make a point on a right angle start, and IIRC the event
chair DNF'd him that run on a sportsmanship basis. Another very competitive
guy at Cal Poly did it once at the finish, the event chair just walked over
and put a new cone into that gap after that run to prevent any other
wiseguys from doing it....
PaulT
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