Challenge Thoughts

MrJoshua wrote:

Per Schroeder wrote: We may also limit the expert drivers to 3 runs in any one car....

What is the situation if a pro driver cones every run?

so drive the car yourself and hit the cones yourself like I did

I made suggestion in the past that the autocross be run like the drags; multiple staging lanes

lane 1, for cars with 0 runs (anycars lined up in lane 1 get staged first)

lane 2, for cars with 1-5 runs (if lane 1 is empty then the cars in lane 2 get staged)

lane3, cars that have already made 5 runs (is the course is cold and there are no cars waiting in lanes 1 or 2, let the cars in lane 3 have a shot at bettering their times)

and we gotta have some real order in the timing trailer and audits posted or streamed to a monitor mounted outside, I had a time disappear and had no idea it wasn't recorded the way I thought until the day was done

and I like the tires outside fo budget idea, this is how the other budget series work, and tires can be a saftey concern (more so on the drags)

also, we can do away with the "drags" and just run pro solo style, adrag start and autocross all in one shot

As for cones expert drivers---part of the challenge to building a fast car is making it easy---so we're counting cones. That said, I allowed cars that had DNFs by pro drivers to get additional runs, as I wanted cars to have as many times as possible. Odd distinction--but there you go.

This year, because we only had a 43.987 total 'dynamic' time with no drags, each concours point was worth about .4 seconds. Normally, it's about .3 seconds per point. 1 point in the concours covered the top SIX finishers in the car show. In contrast, the .4 seconds would get you back to second in the autocross---but that's it.

Concourse - Let it be competitor scored somehow. Logistics, I'm not sure.

DILYSI Dave wrote: Concourse - Let it be competitor scored somehow. Logistics, I'm not sure.

Here's an idea. There is currently the challenger's choice thing right? Do concourse similar to that. Every team gets a list of the cars. They rank them on concourse, and turn them in. You tally the votes, and bam - concourse scores as voted on by the competitors.

Yours may have been one of vehicles I was thinking of. Thanks for posting up the pic.

Also, I don't mean to sound angry about anything. Despite being a back marker ( we had to be there this year, for reasons I don't want to get into, to the point Id've bought a car in Gainesville to run), we had tons of fun, and will be back next year with either a new and better vehicle, or a significantly improved car.

DILYSI Dave wrote: Concourse - Let it be competitor scored somehow. Logistics, I'm not sure.

it could be easy to just add another column to the concourse for "peers" and average the scores of all the other competitors votes on the 1-5 scale.

I think the issue would be that it would mean to be truly fair, everyone would have to actually observe every concourse.

I understand the street tire idea (I think) but I don't like it. It means a set of tires and wheels I will never use again unless I bring the same car back the following year. I sure won't be using them the rest of the year to auto-x on when I compete against race rubber.

It's very hard to get 40 people to turn in anything consistently. Challenger's choice is often not much more than who has more than 1 vote.

I have looked over the concours results for 11 years now and have rarely seen anything totally screwy. The 4th column for 'overall' when averaged across 4 people trying to be objective about the overall creativity of a car really does separate the truly cool cars from those that have just been stripped and repainted. Theoretically, a car with well applied paint and nothing overly amazing in the engine compartment will score about the same as a Jet-engined Yugo with primer. We could do away with the "overall" category in the scoring, but it really helps the judges highlight the standouts from an engineering perspective.

Greg Voth wrote: Basically for those driving their own car and not using the pro's there should be an hour of basically "practice" runs to learn the course.

it's not unheard of that a self driven car take FTD.

(sometimes, I love living in the past.... )

I personally don't think practice or parade laps are needed. Heck, I think parade laps tend to be counter productive.

IF (and that's still a massively huge, not going to happen if) we made another car, I'm pretty sure I'd drive it myself.

As for the tires thing- I know you've backed off, Per, but I too think it's a bad idea to limit the tires. If people can scrounge for super nice cars, then one should be rewarded for scrounging for super nice rubber. Moreso if you can keep the budget tight enough to buy NEW rubber. But my challege days are well in the past, so that opinion is, well, old.

Per Schroeder wrote: It's very hard to get 40 people to turn in anything consistently. Challenger's choice is often not much more than who has more than 1 vote. I have looked over the concours results for 11 years now and have rarely seen anything totally screwy. The 4th column for 'overall' when averaged across 4 people trying to be objective about the overall creativity of a car really does separate the truly cool cars from those that have just been stripped and repainted. Theoretically, a car with well applied paint and nothing overly amazing in the engine compartment will score about the same as a Jet-engined Yugo with primer. We could do away with the "overall" category in the scoring, but it really helps the judges highlight the standouts from an engineering perspective.

Still, it would be good that competitors has something to work toward. If someone spends 100 hours polishing what appears to be a stock Civic, but gets beaten by a nice, but not perfect (like the civic) major powertrain swap- then some kind of direction is needed. You already have an engineering award, so if you take the swap out, and keep it more a concours level kind of scoring, I'm sure it would be more understanding.

We allow 45 minutes for course walking. That's enough to walk the course 4 times--more than what you get at a typical local event.

Don't worry--I won't take your R-comps away.

In reply to Alfadriver

No doubt, a self driven car took it this year. I will likely always self drive as that is the majority of the fun for me. I just happen to think it would be a little more fair. You can try to focus on the car rather than learning the track. Thats an advantage the pro driven cars have.

That and having a skilled driver.

A pro took out our car this year ran two seconds off my slowest run. In all fairness the car was a freaking handful and I am vastly more used to the chassis and quirks of the car.

That being said I am very happy with our car. On 2007 production date Goodyear Eagle F1's we came in under 2 seconds behind the Laguna Seca Mustang running P Zero Corsas. And the Mustang was driven by a pro

In reply to Per Schroeder: Per, I don't think you should get rid of the "overall" category, but maybe consider separating it in two. What if in addition to interior, exterior and engine bay, there were "overall creativity" and "overall engineering". This may help some of the Jet-engined Yugos out there place a little better... seeing those kinds of cars/builds are what make us love attending this event.

Per Schroeder wrote: We allow 45 minutes for course walking. That's enough to walk the course 4 times--more than what you get at a typical local event. Don't worry--I won't take your R-comps away.

Walking is good but it doesn't give you a good idea what speed you will be carrying or any seat of the pants feeling. Basically no substitute for driving it.

--Silence--what you're suggesting would actually take it further down that road--and further away from someone just polishing a Civic (not that there's anything wrong with that)

Man this gets me fired up.

I am working on a 57 year old import car for the event. The glass is real foggy/cracked and is impossible to buy clear glass in the US. The lexan windshield allowance is great for me and allows help with an interesting vintage car canidate.

How about a parade about town? I have raced a few old NMRA events where we had to go on a 20 mile drive before racing. Cars needed roadwortlhy working lights, tires, cooling system, etc. and were fairly well thought out. That helped even the playing field. Just a thought.

In reply to Per Schroeder:

Just knowing what scores points.

BTW, did a non pro win this year? Shoot- I was going to make something for that and send it down. Just haven't been in the glass studio for many months.... Maybe next year.

Who did it? Could GRM forward something if I got some studio time?

I believe the Vorshlag car was driven by one of it's team members. He reportedly is a hot shoe in his own right but not one of the pros.

It was Paul Costas of the Vorshlag crew--he's got a lot of seat time in that car. He's on the board here--

Gasoline wrote: Man this gets me fired up. I am working on a 57 year old import car for the event. The glass is real foggy/cracked and is impossible to buy clear glass in the US. The lexan windshield allowance is great for me and allows help with an interesting vintage car canidate.

I agree with this. Maybe just put a height restriction on the windshield.

Gasoline wrote: How about a parade about town? I have raced a few old NMRA events where we had to go on a 20 mile drive before racing. Cars needed roadwortlhy working lights, tires, cooling system, etc. and were fairly well thought out. That helped even the playing field. Just a thought.

HAHAHAH!!!!!!!!

I LOVE it!!!!

Per Schroeder wrote: It was Paul Costas of the Vorshlag crew--he's got a lot of seat time in that car. He's on the board here--

Well, I'm still planning on making something for a team member to take FTD. But, as common on this board, planning and doing are different things.

I was picturing a plate kind of trophy. Or maybe a bigger cone than the one I did for the most cones hit I did a few years ago. Quite a few, now.

Per Schroeder wrote: --Silence--what you're suggesting would actually take it further down that road--and further away from someone just polishing a Civic (not that there's anything wrong with that)

Yep, i think the engineered cars should rank higher also. No suggestions on how though.
Also rewards for those that do not break might be considered.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:

Gasoline wrote: How about a parade about town? I have raced a few old NMRA events where we had to go on a 20 mile drive before racing. Cars needed roadwortlhy working lights, tires, cooling system, etc. and were fairly well thought out. That helped even the playing field. Just a thought.

HAHAHAH!!!!!!!! I LOVE it!!!!

I love the idea too. In fact, that's one of the things that makes DragWeek so cool. Pretty cool to have an 8 second 1500 whp twin turbo big block running down the highway for a couple hours before being able to take a pull down track. They also mandate no support vehicles, and you must bring all tools and spare parts with you. I love the added twist of required reliability.

BUT requiring cars to be street legal unfortunately presents a moving bar state to state, and even county to county in certain states. My car might have headlights, a horn, and turn signals--but it's far from being road legal in terms of emissions compliance, safety, registration, and insurance. If you live somewhere that has lax registration requirements, then great--but most of the populated country has some sort of inspection that a race car would fail, and we're building race cars, not cool street cars. These road legal requirements are kind of the opposite of what is required of a race car, and would unfairly handicap those who live in areas that require emissions and inspections--especially at the price cap of the competition.

True...

When i show up, i'll have driven my car all the way there, about 15 hours. Does that mean it's technically street legal to every sense of the word? Of course not. Is it street safe? Yep.

As a matter of fact, it's my DD. Just no shop will work on it due to some... federal emissions legality issues.