I live in Gainesville and drive the dedicated roadcourse/testtrack at the Gainesville Raceway from time to time. It kills me that you guys set up cones in the parking lot for the $200X challenge when there is a perfectly good paved road course on the premises. Whats the deal with this? I'll be there to watch either way.
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July 29, 2008 12:55 p.m. Lof8 None
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July 29, 2008 1:17 p.m. Per Schroeder Technical Editor/Advertising Director
The road course is not as indicative of a local autocross as the parking lot. It favors HP much more than handling.
Per
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July 29, 2008 1:17 p.m. SVreX UltraDork
It involves setting up the GRM booth, trailer, scoring equipment etc, in 2 different places. So it is easier for them to stay put.
I agree that I love the road course. The last time they used it was at the $2004 Challenge.
But I understand the difficulty.
And now that Gainesville has that great pavillion near drag strip (which they graciously let us use in the rain, thank you G'ville), last year evidenced that keeping everything in one spot was a really good idea in the case of inclement weather.
I do, however, miss that road course.
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July 29, 2008 1:38 p.m. Lof8 New Reader
Per Schroeder wrote:
The road course is not as indicative of a local autocross as the parking lot. It favors HP much more than handling.
Per
Well, its time to create a 3rd, intermediate, event then.
I'm a road racer at heart.
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July 29, 2008 1:39 p.m. AutoXR New Reader
Who drives the car at the autocross , a dedicated GRM sourced driver , or a team member..?
Worked on my car all weekend , getting excited!
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July 29, 2008 1:43 p.m. SVreX UltraDork
Your choice.
If you want the fun, you'll drive. If you want to win, or see what your car is really capable of, you'll let one of the champion drivers supplied by GRM take a spin in it.
You get 5 passes. Most of us take a couple of laps, then let the pros take a spin.
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July 29, 2008 1:44 p.m. John Brown UltimaDork
Use the road course for the drift portion of the event, duh!
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July 29, 2008 2:53 p.m. bluej Reader
John Brown wrote:
Use the road course for the drift portion of the event, duh!
brilliant!!!
has there been discussion of including rally cross as part of the challenge before?
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July 29, 2008 3:33 p.m. alfadriver New Reader
SVreX wrote:
Your choice.
If you want the fun, you'll drive. If you want to win, or see what your car is really capable of, you'll let one of the champion drivers supplied by GRM take a spin in it.
You get 5 passes. Most of us take a couple of laps, then let the pros take a spin.
No, you don't. See 2004...
E-
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July 29, 2008 3:41 p.m. John Brown UltimaDork
Eric is my favorite Pro ;)
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July 29, 2008 6:53 p.m. chknhwk New Reader
I'd LOVE to see a roadcourse portion but I understand most on here are cone-dodgers vs. corner-carvers. That's why I'm building two cars. One for the GRM challenge and the other for the UTCC.
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July 29, 2008 9:12 p.m. MrJoshua Dork
Oh its a very little road course. It may not be autocross like, but its definitely not a full scale race track.
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July 29, 2008 9:25 p.m. dyintorace Reader
Having driven it on a few occasions, it is really neither. It was originally designed by the GM of the facility, who taught law enforcement driver training for years in Duval County, Florida. So when he convinced the NHRA to let him build a "road course", he structured it to resemble intersections, etc and included a double skid pad.
See here: http://www.gainesvilleraceway.com/apcm/templates/trackinfo.asp?articleid=1912&...
and here: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=gainesville+raceway&a...
All of which means it isn't really a ton of fun.
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July 29, 2008 9:29 p.m. fastclown New Reader
"It favors HP much more than handling." "See 2004... " Horrible handling was magnified on the road course with the 343. The Alfa proved that it took little talent and HP to win!
But then it's a long walk to the bathrooms... OK I get the point.
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July 30, 2008 7:27 a.m. Lof8 New Reader
I guess the only point of view I really have is that of a spectator. Its a lot more fun to watch cars around a paved course where I can see the track edges and the driving lines.
The smaller, tighter autocross on the parking lot probably tests agility a little better, but is NOT as cool to watch.
The $2000 engineering masterpieces
are easily the main attraction, but I'd be happy to see them put to use on the "test track."
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July 30, 2008 7:47 a.m. GameboyRMH Dork
Yeah you're better off with a parking lot, most of the autocrosses I run are done on tracks, and in order to prevent the cars from simply being stratified by 0-60 times at the end of the day, the course needs to be ridiculously tight. One time the course was relatively wide open, and while it was a lot of fun, if you looked at the standings at the end of the day you'd think they were from drag races.
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July 30, 2008 2:14 p.m. alfadriver New Reader
Lof8 wrote:
I guess the only point of view I really have is that of a spectator. Its a lot more fun to watch cars around a paved course where I can see the track edges and the driving lines.
The smaller, tighter autocross on the parking lot probably tests agility a little better, but is NOT as cool to watch.
The $2000 engineering masterpieces
are easily the main attraction, but I'd be happy to see them put to use on the "test track."
From where you are allowed to stand, you can't see most of the track details anyway.
The course was pretty cool- the hard part was to keep raising the rpm limit so that I didn't have to upshift in the middle of the sweeper. Both of the last two runs, my Alfa hit 8000 rpm (ECM rev limiter). From a 5500rpm redline.... I figured if it blew up, so what- it was worth nothing...
I enjoyed the track a lot- got to drive Angry's Corvair (you can see pictures of me driving it in one of the ads in GRM). While I give him a hard time about some of the details, it, too, was a blast to drive around it.
OTOH....
These are $2000 creations. Do you want to corner at about 70mph in one? (think grass only a few feet away...).
I sometimes wish I actually worked on my second Alfa before buying something else and moving on. I think I could have made that thing do pretty well. I KNOW I could make it autocross faster than the Spider did.
Eric
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July 30, 2008 4:36 p.m. AngryCorvair HalfDork
alfadriver wrote:
I enjoyed the track a lot- got to drive Angry's Corvair (you can see pictures of me driving it in one of the ads in GRM). While I give him a hard time about some of the details, it, too, was a blast to drive around it.
is enshrined within my avatar. look closely, beneath the Alfa Romeo sunshield umbrella. he muscled that ill-mannered pig to 18th place out of 79 cars, and is forever on my list of cool guys because of it. i'm looking forward to his driving and providing feedback on the Porsche 1299 (that's 944 + 355), and i hope it's early enough that i can improve the car before dragging it to florida in ... (consults clock to left) ... sixty two days!?!?!
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July 31, 2008 10:43 a.m. MadScientistMatt HalfDork
I'm not too sure the road course favored power cars all that much... my Probe did a lot better on the road course than the drags, that's for sure.
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July 31, 2008 12:20 p.m. Per Schroeder Technical Editor/Advertising Director
In the world of autocross, that road course is a power course, no matter how much you cone it down.
in fact, coning it down actually makes it worse.
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July 31, 2008 12:38 p.m. John Brown UltimaDork
We left more oil on the dragstrip than the road course.
I remember the XR stalling when I lifted off the throttle then booming back to life once the engine found ground again and making a corner worker nealy poop (as well as the driver)
Think
WHAAAAAAAbrrrrrrrrr___BAWHOOMWHAAAAAAAAA
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July 31, 2008 2:13 p.m. wheels777 HalfDork
The road coarse is great for a first timer like we were in 2004. I had absolutely no idea what it would take to run an "auto-x". The grass made it very easy to identify the coarse and go out there and run. I probably would do the Gainesville A-x portion if the coarse was easy. Not suggesting that it was a hard coarse the last few years, but, more than I could afford to take the chance on after a long build and long haul with only 5 runs available. Someday I will be more experienced and do my own driving, but coarse complexity or simplicity will dictate if I drive. WIth the road coarse, I would be quick to do it.
I hope Alan and Ian are coming back again this year. They really are a energizing influence on the whole experience in Florida. I know they enjoyed the junk I drag down and I enjoy there willingness to try to get a good run in for us.
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July 31, 2008 2:22 p.m. poopshovel Dork
To those suggesting that the road-course was more friendly to high-powered cars in '04, our piece of E36 M3 crx had fastest raw time +1 tipped slalom cone. I'm just sayin'.
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July 31, 2008 2:40 p.m. Lof8 New Reader
CRX with the fastest time?
The Road course is better!
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July 31, 2008 2:54 p.m. poopshovel Dork
Did I mention Mike King was driving? :wink:
