Results anf feedback for June 22, 2019 event at Fort Macleod

[Shifting gears]

Despite that, whether we compare averages or medians, the acceleration zones at our events in this data set are 50% longer than those at SCCA national-level events. The SCCA classing system and PAX indexes aren't designed for courses with acceleration zones that long; they're designed for more balanced courses. Unless/until we adjust our courses to be more aligned with the SCCA's, people in lower-power cars are going to be disadvantaged at all of our events.


Thank you for pointing this out as there has been many conversations amongst some of us members that I have been involved in and that has not gone unnoticed.


I have done massive upgrades in handling added as much power as the rules would allow and added huge tires to try and compete with the powerful cars in the club.
 I’m told my car should do this and that, even with better driving skills it will never compete competitively as long as we have courses that suit powerful cars.
 At the end of the day I only have 150 HP and can’t compete with the powerful cars in the club.
It was very noticeable in Saturdays event. I’m aware my driving skills are not as good as they could be, but I and the car had the best performance to date in the afternoon but missing the power for acceleration leaves us 4 cyl guys way behind, and takes away from skill and more towards a drag race.
That is my observation and opinion only and we all know what happens on the forum when I voice my opinion but that’s my 2 cents.

[PedalFaster]

I only have 150 HP

You know, there is a fix for that.

Buddy of mine:

http://www.directedconsulting.com/destinationssm/

http://www.directedconsulting.com/ssmmiatawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

[Shifting gears]

I only have 150 HP

You know, there is a fix for that.

Buddy of mine:

http://www.directedconsulting.com/destinationssm/

http://www.directedconsulting.com/ssmmiatawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Yes thanks for the info Stephen, but That shouldn’t be the solution when the solution is simply course  design.

My point is a more even course design which has already been stated in this thread would even the field as The pax is meant to even the field.
If you look at Saturday’s results in Pax times only 2 or 3 out of top 20 weren’t either a BMW, Porsche, V8 car or one of the 7’s, that is typical results as of late as big power prevails due to course design.
If I knew more on course design I would offer a idea, but I don’t so I won’t even pretend to.
But to add another point. We were asked to tighten the grid in the afternoon as the guys sitting at the west end of grid by the slowdown lane were uncomfortable about the speed people finishing with and were stated such. That in itself should have been a sign it was to fast/unsafe or whatever you want to call it.

[94boosted]

I wanted to provide some context here, if memory serves correctly that's the way FM courses have been for years and years. If anyone has course maps or better yet solostorm data from any of the 2015 FM events I'd be very curious to see what the acceleration zones looked like. I say 2015 because that was the year that Cam won overall PAX in a CSP Miata (and the car wasn't even at the pointy end of CSP nationally).

Designing a finish at FM is very tricky with how narrow the runway is (remember we have less than half the runway to use for the finish). You're either going to have a nice long, straight finish where the speeds will be higher or you're going to have some sort of a lane change or offset before the finish which as has been said brings the speeds down but can unsettle the car. I personally can't remember a finish at FM that didn't fall under Column A or Column B. 

[Shifting gears]

Yes Tom, I do understand your point.
I have personally asked Cam when he has a chance to take my car out. I think that would give a good indication. Buts it’s more for all the others members with low powered cars that are left behind as my car is truly separate beast than most.

[PedalFaster]

This topic has generated enthusiastic discussion offline.

I wanted to provide some context here, if memory serves correctly that's the way FM courses have been for years and years. If anyone has course maps or better yet solostorm data from any of the 2015 FM events I'd be very curious to see what the acceleration zones looked like. I say 2015 because that was the year that Cam won overall PAX in a CSP Miata (and the car wasn't even at the pointy end of CSP nationally).

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's impossible for someone to win in a low-power car locally. Given enough talent, you can make up for any disadvantage. I do think that it's important to try to keep the playing field reasonably level, though.

Designing a finish at FM is very tricky with how narrow the runway is (remember we have less than half the runway to use for the finish). You're either going to have a nice long, straight finish where the speeds will be higher or you're going to have some sort of a lane change or offset before the finish which as has been said brings the speeds down but can unsettle the car. I personally can't remember a finish at FM that didn't fall under Column A or Column B.

I think it's doable. Have a medium-speed (~65 km/h) multi-transition element, like a slalom or a series of transitional gates, followed by the 100' / 30 m straight to the finish suggested by the course design guide. That should give us a finish roughly in the 100 km/h range, which is still fast, but still a lot slower than we've been seeing recently. Recall that stopping distance is proportional to the square of speed -- supposedly it takes about 40% more distance to stop from 120 km/h than it does from 100 km/h.

[Shifting gears]

Again thanks Stephen, your always the open minded realistic one as always👍

[MurrayPeterson]

I agree with Stephen, although I would like to state it differently:

If your speed isn't excessive coming up to (and going through) the finish element(s), then a nice straight acceleration zone into the finish will neither upset the car nor result in excessive speed.

As to Tom's point, yes, I believe that FM courses have almost always been very fast.  In 2015, I was driving an AP1, and did very well with a car considered to be be un-competitive.  However, its very long 2nd gear worked a treat on faster courses (VTEC yo! )

[Reijo]

We had effective solutions to the stop box issues over the lastfew years that worked just fine.  The problem was a number of years ago.  You can also make the stop box longer .... something we did not always get quite right ... then there is no problem and your speeds will be a bit lower as well.  There are more ways than one way to "skin a cat" as they say. 

There is a lot more to this topic and I'm not going to get into it here.   Cheers,  Reijo

[Midnightsky]

Make an extra turn around right at the finish, full 360. Sure its slow, but its an extra challenge and obviously solves the speed into the finish issue.

[Shifting gears]

I’m not sure if the course design for yesterday’s event in Airdrie was a result of this conversation but...I think that was the most level playing field course we have had besides YYC. It had pieces for every class and car plus had some tricky spots.

With that said I would like to thank everyone that organized and participated in Airdrie yesterday.🍺

A special thanks to Stephen Hui for the awesome course design and thanks to Reijo Silvennoinen for co-driving the miata.

That was the most fun I had all year and thanks to Reijo confirming my miata is really capable of being among the top cars.

Now the fun part is to get it there👍

Thanks again everyone..... you rock !!!!

[Jackal]

Hi Team.  I got the sound kit back and have the sound results to report. 

Sound by Duane Jacka, on Flickr