2018 Season Course Designers & Event Chairs

[94boosted]

We would like to get some more of our SASC Members involved in designing courses for the rest of the season. Designing a course is challenging but rewarding, a good learning experience and of course you have the satisfaction of watching others try to master your vision 


Current Schedule for the Remainder of the Season

May 27 Sunday - YYC  - Ladies’ Day - Reijo S
June 10 Sunday - Fort Macleod - Solo Event #5
June 23 Saturday - YYC - WCMA Regional Solo Day 1 / Solo Event #6 - Stephen H
June 24 Sunday - YYC - WCMA Regional Solo Day 2 / Solo Event #7 - Stephen H
July 1 Sunday - YYC - Solo Event #8 - Jared C
July 28 Saturday - Fort Macleod - Solo Event #9
August 11 Saturday - YYC - 2-Day Challenge Event / Solo Event #10 - Ryan C/Ambrose F
August 12 Sunday - YYC - 2-Day Challenge Event - Ryan C/Ambrose F
August 25 Saturday - Fort Macleod - Practice Event
August 26 Sunday - Fort Macleod - Solo Event #11 - Tom G
September 16 Sunday - YYC - Solo Event #12 - Jared C (July 1 Course Reversed) - Tom G event chair
September 23 Sunday - Fort Macleod - Solo Event #13
September 30 Sunday   YYC - Solo Event #14 - Reijo (July 15th Porsche Course) - Adam S event chair
October 14 Sunday - YYC - Season Closing Practice
October 28 Sunday   YYC - Season Closing Practice


Things to Consider
- If you've never designed a course before be aware that it takes time, more time than you think. Between reading some of the relevant material on course design (below), sketching out your original idea, refining it, checking to make sure it's safe and then physically setting up the course can easily take 5-7hrs.
- If you agree to do a course design you must also be willing & able to help set up the course, this is usually done the day before for YYC events or the morning of for FM events.
- Your course design will need to be reviewed & approved by an experienced & trusted SASC club member to make sure it's first & foremost safe but also to make sure it follows some of the basic rules (minimum spacing, laydown cones, etc.).


Course Design Basics
I would strongly recommend that you read the following guide from Roger Johnson, it's a very comprehensive and well put together guide on some of the do's & don'ts of autocross course design:
https://dk1xgl0d43mu1.cloudfront.net/user_files/scca/downloads/000/013/036/Convention_-_2016_-_Solo_Course_Design_-_Full.pdf?1454611722

Also our very own Stephen H has put together the following guide which is very helpful. You can find it at the google drive below along with a folder containing some previous course designs to help put future maps in perspective.
https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlGgFhfYvU3xhe8gQiQbV_Ti3klTrQ

If you're interested in designing a course please post in this thread and PM me, I will then send you an email with blank course maps and I will cc our Solo Director (Reijo S) as well as our Safety Steward (Richard B).

Event Chair
If there's someone that would like to take a stab at being the event chair for one of this years remaining events please let me know. Some things to consider:

- Must be experienced (4+ years of regular autocross)
- Must arrive on site early (~7:30am-7:45am)
- Must make sure that everything is properly put away and cleaned up at the end of the day and that the site is secured (typically last one off site)
- Give the morning safety meeting
- Ensure the event is running smoothly, adjust schedule and amount of runs as needed, deal with any last minute issues, ensure course/spectators/drivers are safe

[Midnightsky]

I would love the opportunity to try my hand at it, I have a very creative mind and I bet I can design something fun👍

[Midnightsky]

Still very much interested in this, never heard back from Tom.

[94boosted]

Still very much interested in this, never heard back from Tom.

Sent you a PM the day of asking for your email address

[Midnightsky]

Still very much interested in this, never heard back from Tom.

Sent you a PM the day of asking for your email address

Hmm very strange but that PM never arrived lol

[Robp201]

I love in the Link you provided under "DO NOT"
"Include too many pylons creating a "Sea of Pylons"
Someone clearly has not read this section when it comes to Fort Macleod design .... BAHAHAHAHAHA

[94boosted]

Still very much interested in this, never heard back from Tom.

Sent you a PM the day of asking for your email address

Hmm very strange but that PM never arrived lol

I think that bounced back and then I sent a PM

[Midnightsky]

 I see the problem lol, PM sent 

[PedalFaster]

I'm designing the course for the next YYC event, so I put together a little template for myself, which I've posted here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlGgFhfYvU3xhe8gQiQbV_Ti3klTrQ. Feel free to use/share.

I'll be continuing to update the template as I go -- my next planned changes are to redo the Fort Macleod map to include the runway markings, and to add instructions on how to access the live timing once Murray finalizes that. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

[Midnightsky]

These are awesome, thank you Stephen for doing these up, greatly appreciated 👍👍👍

[94boosted]

I'm designing the course for the next YYC event, so I put together a little template for myself, which I've posted here: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AlGgFhfYvU3xhe8gQiQbV_Ti3klTrQ. Feel free to use/share.

I'll be continuing to update the template as I go -- my next planned changes are to redo the Fort Macleod map to include the runway markings, and to add instructions on how to access the live timing once Murray finalizes that. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks Stephen I've added this link to the first post also.

[Sprockett]

Since I'm also working on a design for later this year, I took Stephen's template and put it into Paint.NET to make it more useful for course designers not working on paper.

If you have a PC, Paint.NET is the most popular free editor available for Windows and has every feature you need to create a course design.

I've attached the .pdn file to this post.

[PedalFaster]

I just updated my template. If anyone's started using the one that I posted previously, copy your design over to the new one -- it's *way* more usable because I locked the site map so that you can't inadvertently drag it around while making changes.

It's in the same place as before -- the link to access it hasn't changed.

To edit the text fields (e.g. event name and date), switch to the slide master view and change them there.

[Midnightsky]

Hey guys, so Im not "in over my head" for my course design. But, I would definitely appreciate if I could borrow someone for an hour on a weekend to meet up at say a Tim Hortons and help me get a head start on my course design.  I have a few things in mind and should be able to put it all together fairly quickly.  My biggest problem is that I don't own a computer, so Im trying to do everything on my smart phone, not very smart right?

Any help would be much appreciated, iced caps are on me for anyone who is able to lend me a hand some weekend before August.

[PedalFaster]

My suggestion, having done this for the first time last weekend:

• Chuck your phone. You're not going to be able to get anything done on it.
  
  
• Print out a bunch of the course map templates with the safety buffers on them. I imagine this could be a bit of a hassle since you don't have a computer; depending on where you live, I might be able to print some out and deliver them to you. Send me a PM or a Facebook message about this.
  
  
• Print at least one copy each of the corner radius, slalom, and stop box templates as well.
  
  
• Head to Walmart and buy yourself some pencils and erasers.
  
  
• Hand-draw an initial design in pencil, and iterate with the eraser as necessary. Use the radius templates to make sure the speed of your course is reasonable. Historically our YYC course designs have been heavy on 30 mph corners, which I personally find tedious. I tried to keep most of my elements in the low- to mid-40 mph range. (I'm Canadian, but I spent almost all of my racing life in the States, so when it comes to autocross I think in mph.)
  
  
• When you have a first draft you're happy with, retrieve your phone, take a photo of the map, and send it to a few people for feedback. I reviewed all of my draft designs with Ryan and Jared. In-person feedback is nice, but the advantage of doing it remotely is that you can get feedback on multiple iterations without making the people giving feedback want to kill you.
  
  
• When you're done, trace the final design onto a fresh map template (without the safety buffers) then use that as the official course map.