I am hesitant to bring this up for fear of igniting a religious war on
course layouts, but...
While emphatically NOT trying to get on anyone's case -- I thought
yesterday's course was lots of fun, and after my course walks I had no
trouble following it :) -- I did seem to notice a lot of DNFs and I
think I can put a finger on a contributing cause.
In this region we often line courses with cones, producing a "road
course" style; at other times (or in other regions) courses are laid
out using isolated gates and only "safety" walls which are rarely on or
near the part of the course competitors would actually drive on.
Certainly this isn't always an either/or; the styles can be mixed.
Yesterday's course was a mix of closely-spaced cones lining areas of
the course and very sparse cones or isolated gates in other places. I
think either model can work (or at least I don't want to get into that
argument right now!). But I also think that yesterday's mix, combined
with enough rain to dilute the chalk linings, confused some drivers.
For example the hard left turn near the bleachers was lined along both
sides, and then there was a wide gap before the two apex cones marking
the right-hand sweeper before the hard left at the corner farthest from
the finish. It seems that several drivers saw the gap and just drove
through it :). They mistook the "inside" or right hand side of the
course for the "outside" or left hand side.
Also, after that hard left in the far corner there were some pretty
wide open spaces and four cones making two gates in the middle of the
near-straight heading back toward the pit area; unfortunately, the
space between the gates was close enough to the space between the sides
of the gates that competitors had to pick out the pointer cones (both
gates used the pointers-on-each-side markings, sort of "|>A A<|")
markings) to follow the course -- which isn't impossible, but certainly
created another chance for drivers to go wrong.
Anyway, as long as we are going to mix these lined-sides/gates+walls
cone styles I think we need to pay particular attention to the
transitions between the two styles so that we make the courses as easy
as possible to pick out at speed.
A few concrete suggestions:
* pay particular attention to sight lines from corner exits -- in the
corners is where drivers are most likely to be "looking down their
hood" instead of looking ahead
* when switching from gates to lined-course-areas, try to widen the
entrace (think funnel) or give other visual clues to exactly where the
entrance is. This doesn't have to affect the line; to gain width you
can make the "important" side of the entrace wherever you want (perhaps
with a couple extra cones on the "outside" to prevent someone
mistaking inside for outside) and give people room in the other
direction to go as wrong as they want :)
* it's fine if the line (and thus the "key" cones) are a bit subtle/not
immediately obvious, but in/out of bounds should always be as clear as
possible; this is a safety issue not just a novice-retention issue.
When walking the course, if you can see where someone might get it
wrong try to find a way to prevent their error
And now, to prove that I don't have it in for Charlie or the other
people who worked on yesterday's course :): it was a great course -- it
flowed well, had an interesting mix of elements, and I loved the
markings toward the far end of the straight back toward the pits: the
course was quite clear but the line was non-obvious line and there were
interesting decisions to make about where and how much speed to drop as
you careened toward the left at the end. Thanks!
Thanks for listening,
-- Glenn
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