When I rant about autocross weather...

...this is what I mean.  BMC normally hosts 6 autocrosses a year.  Our April weather was meh.  I preemptively canceled the May event because it was forecast to pour all weekend.  For the June event, the weather was beautiful the week before and then forecast to rain on event day.  In the end it quit raining before setup and the weather was serviceable all day, but the damage was done and I only got half my usual turnout, so I lost a bunch of money.  There was no July event, so of course weather was decent all month.

For last weekend, it's been hot and mostly dry for the last couple weeks, but the weekend forecast was 50% chance of scattered showers, and possible isolated thunder storms.  Because I already had to cancel May I made the call to run the event.  Turnout was maybe 70% of what I need to break even, so I lost money before the first car left the line.  Weather was mixed, with mixed clouds and sun, and a light breeze.  We got a few minutes of literally scattered sprinkles about halfway through the morning heat; not even enough to dampen the course.  Conditions were about like this (video links are still broken, I guess:

We finished out the heat and gridded up for the afternoon heat.  Then, in the span of 5 minutes, we went from that ^^^ to this:

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffacebook%2Fvideos%2F10217467216098520%2F&width=500&show_text=false&height=281

There are 4 laptops, the UPS, and the timing console under those tents.  My daughters got hit in the back and head by that flipping table as they were trying to hold the tent down.  I'm about 100 yards past the tent trying to get a bag over the scoreboard and stop it flying away.  The start / finish eyes and the yagi antennae were on their own.

The tents were maybe 50 yards from the Turn One grandstands at Dover Speedway, maybe 100 yards south of the Monster.  Under the tent we suddenly heard loud white noise, which turned out to be rain hammering on the aluminum stands.  In about the time it took to say, "Is that rain?", it went from no rain to a total downpour.

We got about 3 minutes of really heavy rain.  Then, like a switch was thrown, the 5 mph breeze went to 50 mph gale.  Instead of straight down, the rain was horizontal.  You see the carnage above.  It went on like that for about 10 minutes, then quit.  This was extremely localized.  We were like climbers on the north face of the mountain - it came up from behind the speedway, and we had no way to see it.  It wasn't on the radar.  Areas 2 miles away didn't get any rain.  20 minutes after this, the sun was shining.

And the capper?  Yesterday I had one of the drivers trash talking us because we ended the event instead of resuming for the afternoon heat.  He said we could have at least given fun runs if the timing system wasn't working.  Of course, he was safe and dry in his car on grid, not out there helping keep the berking tent from flying to berking Oz...

So that was my Saturday.  Sunday was disassembling all the laptops, network gear, and timing equipment so it can dry out.

How was your weekend?

Sounds like the driver who was complaining should be the new autocross chair 

Wow that's a really severe downpour in the middle of an autocross, and that means a lot coming from me. A little wind burst did snap a rod in my tent (which was being used as the timing tent) this weekend, but that happens almost half the time anyway. Only drizzled once during the event which is pretty good. I also got a flat tire on my 3rd run, had to do my best run on a spare, but got a decent result. Only found one nail stuck in the tire AFTER getting it back from the tire shop and almost putting it on the car yesterday so that was a bummer. I'll post more in my build thread later.

So my weekend was alright I guess.

When my brother and I were teenagers in the 70's we went to an autocross given by the local Corvette Club.  He had a Volkswagen with one of those 2-speed semi-automatic transmissions.  I am talking 0-60  in 18 seconds slow.  He had oversize tires on it with a semi-baja body kit for wheel clearance.   You literally could not lock the brakes on the car on dry pavement because of the over size tires.

We got there, paid our entry fees, and then it started raining really hard.  The Corvette guys said hey, a little rain isn't going to stop us.   

Being Corvette guys the course was set up with longer straights so they could beat the usual autocross crowd of MG's, 240Z's , Triumphs, etc.

Being un-used to the shifting requirements of that transmission I did horribly but my brother got 3rd place over all against all the Corvettes, 240Z's and other much faster cars that showed up that day and tried to autocross on a wet parking lot.    Rain changes the order of things for sure.
 

Damn Duke, that sucks.  Our Saturday had the monsoon rains come through (Tiger Mom was working a food festival and under a tent when the sky opened up and lightning struck all around).

Sunday autocross was just perfect weather though.

Just out of curiosity though, why are you running stuff from tents?  We have a timing and scoring trailer that all the equipment gets packed into but during events the computers and PA equipment lives inside it so when we have a rain event nothing gets damaged.

In reply to Duke :

That’s crazy! :-0

I do remember an event at Rantoul where it rained so much cones were “floating” around in the currents. Fortunately there was enough warning they were able to get everyone & their cars into the hangar before it let loose. 

It's been a particularly wet summer here in Florida. I've been soaked in three of the six events that I've attended. Yesterday was no exception. While we get lots of lightning with our storms, thankfully no one's been struck. 

However, I haven't been in anything like I see in your video. Serious microburst event. Daughters okay today?

It's a trade-off. My extremely limited skill, unmodified miata and 400 TW tires all combine to work better in the wet, and it's not so hot. 

Fun watching this on it's first run while it was still pouring. 

The group I organize with has figure out a way that if there is any threat of significant weather, we can run timing out of an organizers truck (commonly a chevy avalanche) rather than deal with canopies.  We also do this on really cold events.  our other equipment is decently weather hardened, but with moving from lead/acid batteries to Li-poly to run our wireless stop/finish setup we might have had an anchorage issue.  

I have also seen a wind gust result in a dynamic slalom for someone before.  Whole line of cones went moving across the lot as the driver was going through them.

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

Because our trailer is too small and the board is a little conservative.  We are a small club of between 120-150 members, of which about half are semi-active autocrossers.  When I started as chair about 6 years ago, we were still using a one-car timing system built by the previous chair and doing manual time transcription with pencils and cards.  After my first year I persuaded the board to upgrade to a modern Farmtek system at a cost of about $2500+ all in.  My second year I talked them into investing $2500 in software, computers, and networking for scoring and results, and we borrwed a tiny portable generator from a member.

My third year, I wanted to buy a larger generator of our own so we didn't have to keep borrowing one.  I brought them 2 proposals:  $1000 for a 1000-watt Honda or Yamaha generator, or a govdeals 26 foot step van that already had a 1500 watt generator built in.  The truck was owned by a local municipality, about 10 years old, and was clean with under 75k on it.  At the time of the proposal bids were right about $2000 and it ended up selling for about $3000.  All we would have had to do was cut a window flap in the side; there was even already a bench in place.  We could have towed the trailed with it and it would have shortened setup and takedown immensely.

They only approved the $1000 gennie.  It was a big mistake.  It's already been proven, but Saturday emphasized it.  Unfortunately, we're no longer in a financial position to make that kind of investment.

That sucks.  The Philly region has all of the timing computers in a truck. Only registration is under a tent and that gets packed up pretty quickly after registration closes. I experienced a similar surprise rain/wind storm some years ago.  Amazingly, another racer and I were able to keep my EZ-Up from blowing away.  That was the last time I brought it to an event.  Just not worth the hassle.

Nonetheless, my weekend kinda sucked as well.  I spent most of Sat night in the Portsmouth (NH) Hospital ER thanks to a tiny berking kidney stone. 350+ miles from home and any potential help (all other coworkers went home for the weekend).  "If we give you pain meds, you won't be able to drive home."  "Home is a hotel room, so whatever...."  Of course, by the time they finally got me discharged, the pain med (Dilaudid) had started to wear off so I drove home anyway. 

Kidney stones are annoying.

I did finally get to the Albacore submarine museum yesterday after three years of coming up here for work, so in all the weekend wasn't a total loss.  

Floating Doc said:

However, I haven't been in anything like I see in your video. Serious microburst event. Daughters okay today?

Yeah, they're OK - thank you for asking.

This storm could only have been a mile across, tops.  The cars and tent in the immediate forground are tucked up tight under the lee of the grandstands, which are maybe 100 feet high at that spot.  Our course area is off to the left of the Monster.  The video is shot from right next to the base of the first elevator tower:

https://goo.gl/maps/53KbxnnASvA2

In reply to Duke :

Ours is only about 18’ long but holds everything we need.  The biggest problem with this trailer size/setup is that everything needed to run an autocross is HEAVY and the trailer loaded weight is nearly 10,000 lbs.

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to Duke :

That’s crazy! :-0

I do remember an event at Rantoul where it rained so much cones were “floating” around in the currents. Fortunately there was enough warning they were able to get everyone & their cars into the hangar before it let loose. 

Also luckily the timing is in the truck. Roll down the door and you're protected. 

In reply to KyAllroad (Jeremy) :

Yeah, our trailer is maybe 12' and single-axle.  We also don't regularly have access to something that would tow 10,000 lbs.

We get nasty cells like that fairly frequently in Florida.  I've been in situations like that now and then, and I sympathize with you.

It's very rare here that we get light, steady rain all day long, which is what happened in May at Daytona.  That went well for me! 

Well, at least there was no hail in that video...

Streetwiseguy said:

Well, at least there was no hail in that video...

That's for sure. When the video started I really thought there was hail. 

In reply to Floating Doc :

Speaking of Paul getting wet, he managed to stay on course during even worse conditions last year: https://youtu.be/hVNJn8qOuR4?t=2m43s

mtn said:

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to Duke :

That’s crazy! :-0

I do remember an event at Rantoul where it rained so much cones were “floating” around in the currents. Fortunately there was enough warning they were able to get everyone & their cars into the hangar before it let loose. 

Also luckily the timing is in the truck. Roll down the door and you're protected. 

CCSCC has grown so much since I started - it was a wooden-sided 4x8 trailer with a stretched rubber top & a chalk board to hang on the side - it’s wonderful to see their current participation levels. 

jharry3 said:

When my brother and I were teenagers in the 70's we went to an autocross given by the local Corvette Club.  He had a Volkswagen with one of those 2-speed semi-automatic transmissions.  I am talking 0-60  in 18 seconds slow.  He had oversize tires on it with a semi-baja body kit for wheel clearance.   You literally could not lock the brakes on the car on dry pavement because of the over size tires.

We got there, paid our entry fees, and then it started raining really hard.  The Corvette guys said hey, a little rain isn't going to stop us.   

Being Corvette guys the course was set up with longer straights so they could beat the usual autocross crowd of MG's, 240Z's , Triumphs, etc.

Being un-used to the shifting requirements of that transmission I did horribly but my brother got 3rd place over all against all the Corvettes, 240Z's and other much faster cars that showed up that day and tried to autocross on a wet parking lot.    Rain changes the order of things for sure.
 

Steve Hoelscher and I went to a Corvette Club event in the early '90's with our X1/9s and of course it rained pretty hard.  It was at an old airport so it had sweepers and straights and only about 4 cones that did nothing.  We were an easy 1 - 2 in the morning by a huge number.  I was flat through the start and first sweeper and was probably 70 or so in the rain by the first braking point.  In the afternoon it started drying and we fell down the order, but I think we still both managed top 10's.  

I love to road race in the rain (In enclosed cars anyway.  Not so much in an open wheel) but around here rain usually comes with lightening and it's my understanding that corner workers get cranky (or at least ineffective) when they get hit by lightening so I don't get to do it often.

I got stuck out in that mess. We were supposed to have an outdoor "sunset" party for Wolfgang Puck. The lady who was to yay or nay it waited till 4pm to nay it.. I was outside scrambling around trying to get all the important stuff indoors when the heavens opened