July 6 course design

[conebasher]

Since most people who were at the event know that I altered the slalom headed north, and statements made at the executive meeting and in the post "Important Notice" were, IMO pointed at me, I'm going to respond. On Saturday I offered the measuring wheel to Mike and Steve, Mike's response was "I just wanna get home" and I said I would check it myself in the morning, and Mike agreed to it. The next morning I checked the slalom and the gaps between pylons were 68ft,62ft and 64ft as you headed north, and they were not in a straight line. I evenly spaced them to 66ft and offset every 2nd one 1 pylon width. According to the formula Corey has provided, max speed through this should be 52 mph for a Solstice on R's, well below allowable limits and no faster than 100 slaloms we have done in the past. I also measured the Chicago box and the spacing was 38ft, which is 7ft less than minimum standard according to our rules. Corey was there and I shared this information with him. We discussed a solution and it was decided that moving the middle cone out 2 cone widths was better than moving all the already chalked cone walls. I also informed Corey at this time that I had evened out the north slalom and offset the cones one cone width. There were 100+ runs through the slalom in the fastest cars and there were no troubles, including the auto-x director and the chief course designer-nobody saw any trouble with it. Two drivers spun out on it in their first run and witnesses state that the drivers didn't bail when they should have. The response was to speed the slalom up even more, Art and I were 11 mph FASTER through the slalom after the "correction". So, if my evening out of the slalom and offsetting the cones to speed up the slalom was so evil, why was the slalom made even faster to correct the problem? Also, the slalom as it was when I first saw it was a decreasing slalom with the cones varying 6 inches or more from a straight line, so I don't see how what I did contributed to the spins. IMO, the only problem with the course was too large a gap from the Chicago box to the slalom, which allowed cars to accelerate to speed which they had no hope of maintaining through the slalom. Once past the first cone of the slalom, drivers who were moving too quickly lifted or hit the brake, resulting in weight transfer to the front and a potentially unrecoverable whipping motion. I am at a loss to explain why I am being blamed for the unfortunate accident.

[Kerry]

I am at a loss to explain why I am being blamed for the unfortunate accident.

I do not see anywhere that this has been said.This is not a place for a discussion of this nature. Thread locked.