Fix autocrossing, Pt. 2

We ran into a technical issue on that thread, so I've had to lock it while we figure out what happened.

The discussion is great, so please carry on here in the meantime.

...You were saying?

I was just about to post asking why it was locked, as it seemed to be a very civil discussion. Good thing I clicked page 2 two or three times, because this thread popped up in the meantime.

Autocross at the regional level is all about volunteers. There is no profit to be had, so it relies on die-hard devotees of the sport. The more folks that show up early and set cones, the earlier the fun can begin. The earlier it starts, the more runs you can work into a day. The politics of the club is about like any other club.

Some regions are more anally retentive than others. Smaller groups are much more relaxed.

Who knew that on this of all forums, there would be such response to an autocross thread?

I musta broke it.

I figured people started referring to Ridgelines as midges again. I don't know what that means but people are willing to kill over it apparently.

To stay on topic, I don't autocross because I get vertigo on super tight courses. I don't want to be a drag racer, but does there have to be so many daggum tight turns?

I just want to reiterate that the DCSCC rules seem to be a fair compromise between keeping things "fair" and being manageable for the organizers.

Plus, fun runs are awesome! It gives me even more chance to dial in that nut behind the wheel. It's a real fiddly nut, though.

I just wanted to say that I think there may be a schism is between A) people who are just trying to have a fun day playing with their cars and B) people who are treating this like a training ground for regional/national competition. Different goals mean that the people in group A and group B don't share the same ideas about how to run an event.

Ranger50 wrote: I musta broke it.

Actually, I did. Apparently my post had too much logic for the server to handle.

scardeal wrote: Plus, fun runs are awesome! It gives me even more chance to dial in that nut behind the wheel. It's a real fiddly nut, though.

Down here, it gets too hot to have fun runs in the middle of the year.....we leave that up to the discretion of the course designers each month, but our last two events haven't even had fun runs.

Of course, we have an event every month, all year.....

I have attended events in Oscoda Michigan in the past, and I really liked the way they handled course work for the test and tune days. They put 3 workers on bicycles, and that is enough to cover even a huge course. And while working, you just cruise around in a "holding pattern" enjoying the nice breeze while you watch the runs.

I've been autocrossing for 5 years now, and it does get hard to justify spending an entire day away from the wife and kids for only 4 minutes of racing.

Organization is the real key though. Our local club is really laid back, but events usually get started pretty late. This is mainly due to the fact that there is only one guy really knows what needs to be done, so he's running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, telling others what needs to be done. Pre-assigned tasks would definitely speed things up a lot.

Course design also plays a big role, having multiple cars on course makes a huge difference. But that, of course, depends on the size of the lots you have access to.

I have decided that this year I'm going to take a bigger part in the organization of our events to see if we can smooth things out and get more runs in. I might also propose the "bicycle worker" idea.

I also proposed last year that for our larger events, we split the day up into two races. Notify the entrants ahead of time if they are racing in the morning, or the afternoon, then they don't have to be there all day. This would also allow the hard core members to race in both events if there is room for them (at twice the entry fee, of course).

But at the end of the day it is getting harder and harder to justify spending an entire day at an event in exchange for only a few minutes of seat time. And in that aspect, I agree that there is room for improvement...

The Atlanta Region implemented a two-session program a few years ago. This is a region that pulls 150-200 competitors for autox.

The run groups would rotate so sometimes you'd race in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, but you worked in the same session you ran. Since the rotation was held to a schedule, everyone pretty much knew well before hand if their runs were early or late. Competitors rarely had to spend more than half a day but a lot of them came early or stayed late for the camaraderie.

Split sessions can put a big burden on the staff, but with enough dedicated volunteers that problem is shared and helps with the pressures.

Another good move was to delay handing-out trophies (for the afternoon groups) until the course and gear were picked up and packed away.

I've run with several different groups, some with spectacular organization and others that give you that "It was fun, but what a waste of a day" feeling. Several groups run a three group (run/work/"rest") format. If you knew for sure which you were in (which hasn't happened thus far) you could cut your time at the event by 1/3. Unfortunately, you don't find out until you get there. So that's suggestion #1.

I've also started looking for car specific groups (Porsche/Corvette/Miata clubs) because they don't seem to have the "turn out" of some of the larger organizations. A Miata club I ran with last year managed to get in 18 runs on roughly a 1 minute course and have everyone on the road, awards ceremony completed by about 4:15 pm. That I can live with. A couple things helped. 1. Self tech. If you didn't know how to self-tech an instructor was provided. (Yes, I realize that may not work at larger events) 2. A late fee for anyone who wasn't registered by the official registration time. 3. A 5 minute driver's meeting and shorter course walk time. If you needed more help/information than that, you were paired with a club instructor. The course walk was shortened b/c each person got a pre-printed course map, so the newer people didn't need the first course walk just to figure out where the course went. 4. More than one person knew how to do essential jobs. The run/work/rest was continuious, no 30 minute gaps while the only person who knew how to set up the grid re-arranged things. 5. This seems simple, but they started on time. They had a slightly higher entry fee than some, which was fine, since I got more seat time at that event than the rest of the summer combined.

I posted in the other thread about HPDE being a better fit for me, so I won't reiterate that here.

I've also noticed that events around here seem to use WAY too many corner workers. While it's always nice to have someone to talk to, it isn't necessary to have 5 guys slagging cones at each corner. Really, there should only be one guy that holds the flag and works the radio and at most two guys to run cones. It always used to piss me off having to stand out on course for 3 hours and do nothing just to get my work "credit".

For people that complained about not being able to read the course (way back in that other thread), you need to make better use of the novice walk and other time to walk the course by yourself. That isn't time to spend talking to your buddy or conversing with people around your about car setup. You need to be figuring out your braking points and the line before you drive the course. If you're trying to do it during a run you'll never be fast.

Agree with finding marque-specific club events - coming from a NCCC Corvette auto-xer. Three things seem to distinguish the NCCC racing from SCCA racing: entrant cap, dedicated course workers, and course design. NCCC events typically feature 10-14 runs per day compated with 3-6 at SCCA.

Capping entrants keeps the day much more manageable. Not sure I've seen many NCCC events with more than 60 cars or so.

Usually there are are enough spouses or retired racers or non-racing club members to put on an NCCC event w/ dedicated course workers, which saves time. Once in a great while we have hired a few workers if we've known we would be short ahead of time. It's a culture thing, I guess, that the club supports the events even if not racing, because it's profitable and funds charity, better equipment, shows, etc.

Finally, and I know not everyone agrees that it's a good thing, but for better or worse NCCC course design typically uses fewer cones. SCCAers arguably can develop a higher level of driving skill than NCCCers as a result of their more-technical courses and no-wasted runs imperative of only having a few chances to get it right, but SCCA courses typically have lots of non-critical cones to sort out from the important ones. The number of cones on a course is not predictive of how technical it's layout is. The fewer cones struck, the faster the next run can start and in the case of multiple cars on course, the fewer re-runs in case the cone can't be replaced quickly enough. To me, there's a lot to be said for course designs that produce fewer cone strikes - the racing is just as fast, close and fun. [runs away as angry mob forms]

Much respect for SCCA racing and drivers here, just sayin' how to help the day go faster. Tom

Very interesting thread so far. Heres my .02

10 classes at most with a pax penalty awarded for trophying, accrued towards the rest of the seasons events (RE:weight penalties in road racing). It would give the "losers" an incentive to come back because their competition would have a harder time winning. Also it would give everyone an incentive to attend more events, make completing a "season" with consistency a challenge and maybe even sandbagging a bit if need be. It could add an interesting dynamic to the sport.

I also agree the work part of autocrossing is broken. It's a huge time waster, signing people up, tracking down people who don't sign up, changing groups of workers, etc.... The list goes on and on, I spent a few years as a worker chief, don't get me started.

I wonder if it would be feasable to hire some workers and raise the entry fees slightly. I bet for $10 a person you could "pay" a crew of workers to run things for the most part. Pay folks $10/hr, hell my autocross car has been broken since February, I would even consider doing this myself to pay for the new engine I need to build. I bet there are others like me who know the sport that would work for pay at an event that I am not driving in, for extra beer/car/whatever money.

That $10 would likely buy you 2 more runs with the time saved thus making it a very reasonable cost.

One last thing, pre registration and annual tech should be enforced and streamlined. Leave online registration/entry fee payments open till midnight the night before, then ideally the registrar would download the entry list into the timing software for the event. Everybody would have already paid online so there's no need to even check in. Except for the first few events of the year tech would only be a few cars. Just be in grid when its your turn to run with your printed registration taped to the windshield. Maybe a small barcode that could be scanned in at the starting line and some identifying info on there so there's proof that you have paid and its the right car and all.

In the events that my club,AMEC, hold ,no driver has to work. We have volunteer workers and our course layout needs only three or four corner people. Fewer cones also makes for less work. We are talking of solutions to the very thing discussed here. I wonder if there is one that will please everyone.

Here's my -0.2cents...if you have a proper solution, start your own club and prove to the world it works, otherwise you are going to have a bunch of frustrated individuals that are irritated that something is going against the grain or out of order to their mundane lives. I on the other hand really don't mind as long as I get my runs and get there early enough to sign up for morning course work. I'll have my single serving conversations, work the course, make my runs, go home and be happy I got to thrash the car around for a bit.

i've never done an autocross event, but i have done a few "street nights" on a 1/8 mile drag strip. there was no real structure- just get in line and run as many times as you want with as much or as little time in between as you wanted.

when i first started reading up on autocross a couple of years ago, i kind of went in assuming that it was done the same way- i can see no reason why the classes would need to be grouped together for something that is based on time and where the cars run one at a time.

the scoring computer should just be programmed with info on which car goes in which class, and categorize the runs accordingly.

i know i'd be morel ikely to want to spend the money and spend a whole day if i knew i was going to get enough runs in to make it worthwhile to me. i have timeslips from a couple of the street nights at the dragstrip where i got almost 20 runs in over the course of 4 hours, and didn't need to do a damn thing to help keep the track running.

i want to try autocross sometime, but i can't see myself wanting to pay the same amount of money i paid for up to 20 runs on the dragstrip to get 3 or 4 runs around a cone filled parking lot and have to work the track when i'm not driving my car.

novaderrik wrote: ...i want to try autocross sometime, but i can't see myself wanting to pay the same amount of money i paid for up to 20 runs on the dragstrip to get 3 or 4 runs around a cone filled parking lot and have to work the track when i'm not driving my car.

Then don't bother going to one, because that's exactly what it is. Sorry if that sounds brusque, but you may not be cut out for the autocross thing. Drag racing is cool, too, but you don't get to use the steering wheel much. Different strokes for different folks.. that's why they make ice cream in vanilla, chocolate,and strawberry.

NYG95GA wrote:

novaderrik wrote: ...i want to try autocross sometime, but i can't see myself wanting to pay the same amount of money i paid for up to 20 runs on the dragstrip to get 3 or 4 runs around a cone filled parking lot and have to work the track when i'm not driving my car.

Then don't bother going to one, because that's exactly what it is. Sorry if that sounds brusque, but you may not be cut out for the autocross thing. Drag racing is cool, too, but you don't get to use the steering wheel much. Different strokes for different folks.. that's why they make ice cream in vanilla, chocolate,*and* strawberry.

i'll go watch a couple and decide if it's something i'd want to try, but i think i'd rather do something with more seat time for the $$$ spent. open track days and Chumpcar racing at BIR sounds more my style.

After my first autocross, I quit drag racing. YMMV

I'm not sure how to answer this...

As one who primarly plans around attending national events, I'm pretty much burned out on local events.

In the past, I was helping out with local events quite a bit, but I've taken a few steps back. Sometimes, I was getting to events at 7 in the morning and leaving at 7 in the evening and people that were showing up at 10 and leaving at 3 or 4 were complaining about spending too much time at the site. That made me bitter.

Honestly, I feel like these people are going to complain about something regardless. These tend to be the same people that complain about classing, get the changes they want, and still tend to complain. I want to run this class, I don't want to work, its too hot, the surface is too slick, whatever.

The only solution I know is to run small crappy events or make your events big enough and get enough core people that you can split the event into two...

Always thought the point of autocrossing was instant performance, no practice and being able to put it all on the table. Like sprinting or 50 free versus marathons.

Having said that, our club is able to run all day sessions and usually get 6 to 8 timed runs with fun runs. We do run in a relaxed manner by not requiring competitors to run in any particular order and we don't take lunch breaks. We do require marshaling from people,but often the organizers will work for a couple of hours then make their runs. It does require organization, but we are able to stay very flexible as well. I've often been able to register latecomers without disrupting the day. Disclaimer, our numbers are usually less than 60 and we encourage a relaxed fun atmosphere with the driving experience as the goal. We also have access to a track and can run through up to 40 in a 2 hour evening session. Again we don't run in order,but supply competitors with a set number of tickets. When the tickets are gone you're done. Everyone has to co-operate by marshaling etc., but this hasn't been an issue as people who don't help are counseled to get with the show.

The more people that help out and cross train, the better the event runs. When I started autox, there was one guy who set the course, one person who ran reg, one techie etc. If they didn't show up on time, or at all, total cluster. More people got involved, some by force, and now there is a fairly large group that can do most things. We all have our favorites, or specialties, but the timers can tech, the course guy can classify, etc. We also only have 1/2 hour work assignments for most jobs. We timing around with a group of people, so we all get our runs in pretty much on time. Volunteer, and see how much better it can be.

lateapexer said: we don't run in order,but supply competitors with a set number of tickets. When the tickets are gone you're done.

This is a great idea. I don't mind marshalling, in fact I like it, but the reason I don't autocross, is the seat time. I won't give up a whole day for 5 minutes of seat time. On the bike I pay my $30 and get 100 minutes, in the stock car, I pay nothing, and get 60 minutes. 5 minutes of seat time just isn't enough.