Points Event #7 - LOVED that Dallas Box!

[crxmike]

Sounds like we need more "bus stops"!

[pj]

I think the emphasis is on:

Speeds on straight stretches should not normally exceed the low 60s (mph) for the fastest Stock, Street Touring, and Street Prepared category cars. The fastest portions of the course shall be those most remote from spectators and property.

where that statement holds true across all NER classes and courses.  Beyond that, as a course designer I can only say that I will try to take further precautions to keep things from being questionable.  Sounds like we need more "bus stops"!

Further, I would say that the large majority of all cars were not going beyond 65mph at the fastest portion of the course (considering the speed of moderately prepared cars).

[Bob Davis]

NER is working to build our stable of course designers and trying to find ways to make courses fun, interesting, and challenging on narrow runways. That means that sometimes we will try things that will work out differently than planned. We've had sections that work out to be slower than planned, and some that end up being faster. We'll learn from this experience and adjust accordingly. Let's move on from this discussion and get ready for a great event next weekend.

Bob

[Forcednduckshn]

I've seen this phenomenon in many cars, ranging from slowish stock class cars to Stacey's Ford. The faster you take a corner, the longer you have to wait to get on the throttle, the shorter the acceleration zones, greater steering angle for a longer time, shorter line, all of these can contribute to lower peak speeds. This is a sport about shortest time spent between the start and finish lights though, so we aren't concerned so much with peak speed as high average speed combined with short distance.

Agreed 100%.  I've experienced this many times too with other drivers.


On the seperate topic of the course, I'll just weigh in my opinion for everyone.  I found this course to be nothing different than any proper nationals style course.  I think the fact that it was proper nationals speed is what gets some of the people that don't normally do national courses to think "woah, that was so fast, zomg!" It was fast ending, sure.  It was a proper ending.

 In fact, there was one little diggy section that I thought was annoying, that square of cones that really kinked you down before the "slalom" leading to the taxi way.  I think if you opened that section up, the course would have been 100% awesome, instead of 98% awesome.   But it forced you to be patient, and I'll just tackle anything you throw at me, so I appreciate it for that.

In our undeprepared STR miata, i was at the top of 2nd gear, not off the limiter, doing a 50.0 clean.  Figure ~65mph at the finish line, 55mph through the bustop.  Absolutely nothing wrong or unusual about this.  At nationals I easily did more than that in the s2000, lord knows how fast the SM or mod cars went at Nats.  It's totally fine, and there was nothing unsafe about the course.  If we were cornering at 80mph I would feel different, but for a high power car like grants or PJ's to do that in a straight line at the finish, is really not a big deal.  Personally, I wish we had more sections that had braking zones like that, and 55mph cornering speeds.  I have always been a fan of mixing in the road course elements with the autocross elements, it's the best of both worlds.  I had a ton of fun at this event, and kudos to the course designer for a job well done.

I would love to design a course next year.  We'll see about that.

Nick

[Crzy]

In my stock hybrid I hit the rev limiter just before the finish. Turns out that is 56 mph in second. It wasn't worth putting it in third at that point and I crossed the line doing 58. I bet that 58 feels faster in my car than 80 does in the Lotus!

I might have gone faster except I was learning to deal with the back end stepping out. This forced me to brake before the bus stop although I really didn't want to.

I'm all in favor of more bus stops!

[Gus Heck]

If you were hitting 80 through the finish, you should've been close to raw timing Grant

My car being in the vicinity of 1865lbs, of butt almost on the ground, 200bhp and on race rubber it *should* be able to carry lots of speed through that element. Even though I'm only 9.3ish lbs/hp, I shouldn't have anywhere near as far to accelerate, and I'm probably almost on the cams as I leave the "dallas box".

You're right, I "should" but I'm 100% sure that Grant drove the rest of the course a whole lot better than I did for sure. I had issues on my first runs of taking it too easy at the start, and several cases of a bad line through the big S. At least once I got to the little 6 pack after the S and found my self wondering, why it was I hadn't bothered to accelerate.... In the afternoon I think all three runs featured me over-driving the turn onto the taxiway, badly, despite a resolution to break earlier... Which I did, but after having gained more speed so it was a wash. I came very close to spinning there.

In theory, the only thing that keeps my car from being clearly a faster car than grant's car is the open diff, and the nut behind the wheel. In Super Stock elises and vettes compete quite closely, and except for the diff, I'm beyond super stock now (I have almost 2x stiffer than stock springs now). So if I do get one part more or less right, it's likely that for that one part, I'll go more or less as fast as Grant unless it's significantly biased in his favor, such as digging out of a big slow down. It's the other 80% of the course where he's almost certainly beat my pants off. I occasionally do get things right now... Grant occasionally messes things up slightly and there's the difference Also recall that at the end of last year, without the Chip, CAI and coilovers I've added, Brian did 12th raw time, he did raw-time you (you had a bad day IIRC) and he was only 1.6 sec behind Grant. It's not my car that's slow

As for speed... I'd need to take a string and run it around each of the front wheels to see what the actual diff in circumference is. And then sometime I'll need to to stick the GPS in my car and see how accurate the spedo is on my street wheels (which are not stock and so they may be off as well)...

The more I think about it the more reasons I can find that I actually don't know what my real speed was. I do know that I had a LOT more trouble with the front half of the course than the finish in general. The final element I think was nearly ideal for my car, because my handling and suspension and light weight mean I can carry way more speed than a car weighing twice as much.

[Jenna]

The event you're referring to is the Moss event from last year. Trying to compare a non-Moss person to a Moss person is not a good indication of how fast your car is.

When you run your Moss runs on a chilly October morning, you're obviously slower. You then have to take your next 3 (PM) runs to MATCH your fastest AM time, and you can't go faster if you care about winning the competition. Effectively, you get screwed.

Look at the results - Dave White #3 in the same car as PJ, and was 3 seconds faster than Brian. They were both able to go full out on all runs, since they weren't Moss competitors. Russ, in a SS Elise, was 0.3 ahead of Brian.

Also, Elise vs. Vette is very course-dependent. 1.6 seconds is either no time, or forever, depending on if you're the faster or slower person.

[pj]

Apologies if my statement was taken as an insult.  It was more of a shot at how people seem to embellish their speeds. 

The more I think about it the more reasons I can find that I actually don't know what my real speed was. I do know that I had a LOT more trouble with the front half of the course than the finish in general. The final element I think was nearly ideal for my car, because my handling and suspension and light weight mean I can carry way more speed than a car weighing twice as much.

For the record, to break 80 you'd have to be on par with a 400hp car that can corner at over 1.5G, and has GPS datalogs to back up its speeds (or lack thereof).

As far as Brian beating me, I blame cones (or just 1).

[crxracerb]

whatever helps you sleep PJ . wish i had my car there to show you how its done!!

[Bob Davis]

As far as Brian beating me, I blame cones (or just 1).

The poor little cone was just sitting there minding it's own business until you ran it over...and the cone is to blame?

[DannyB]

careful with the cone jokes there bob 

[Gus Heck]

Apologies if my statement was taken as an insult.  It was more of a shot at how people seem to embellish their speeds. 
For the record, to break 80 you'd have to be on par with a 400hp car that can corner at over 1.5G, and has GPS datalogs to back up its speeds (or lack thereof).

As far as Brian beating me, I blame cones (or just 1).

No worries... I write long posts and emails unless I work real hard to keep them short... I do think however that the following things are true:

I have a maxq that I became irritated with and stopped using, (I should have bought the laptop setup, rather than relying on iPhone). Perhaps I'll try it again, but over a year ago at NHMS I was getting as much as 1.37 G,  and I'd like to think that the stiffer springs, and better surface at devins, newer hoosiers and another year of experience allow me to do a bit better than that these days.

Now I'm curious enough to try messing with the maxq again . Of course if I bring it, that will probably guarantee rain...

[Justin Lau]

...over a year ago at NHMS I was getting as much as 1.37 G...

Peak or sustained? I think it's pretty easy to hit 1.0+ G peak even in a Stock car.

[Gus Heck]

Peak or sustained? I think it's pretty easy to hit 1.0+ G peak even in a Stock car.

7 consecutive frames from that log:

-1.28
-1.29
-1.36
-.33
-1.37
-1.37
-1.31

I blame the .33 on bumpy surface.

I am not counting the isolated readings that I found which I also blame on bumps/transient:
1.88
1.82
1.56

[cmt52663]

Lotus on slicks <==> cat on velcro