For no good reason, I was thinking a little more about the $2011 Challenge auto-x event from last year and some comments that were made on the forum about possibly requiring more of the teams to have their own drivers run the cars in the future (rather than the "pros").
One of the big factors in previous years was the full day's worth of experience driving on the same course that the pro drivers got and how this made them even faster, then more people wanted them to drive, etc, etc...
Well, what if GRM publishes the course layout for the upcoming challenge well in advance? Then everyone would have a chance to learn the course at least a little bit before that morning. (Perhaps teams could get their local SCCA/PCA/BMWCCA chapter to use that layout once, or a team could set up the course themselves in a vacant lot, drive through a scale version in a go-kart, whatever...) I realize that this is a big jump from the traditional auto-x which really requires some memorization of the course and a careful walk-through. However, I think this makes the event more about the vehicle performance and less about the driver performance, and as far as I see it, that's really what this event is about (it's more of a car/builder's challenge, not a drivers' challenge, right?).
If everyone has had a chance to drive a similar course or at least a chance to look over the layout in advance, I think there would be a lot more incentive for folks to drive their own cars.
Thoughts?
