Ok then. It looks like walkup registration only, is that right?

By the way, I am seriously considering making my region Susquehanna for next year since its about the same distance to Hershey from where I am now, and the lot there is far better than Fedex. The only sad thing is that there isn't nearly the degree of competition. I feel that to make my car "perfect" I need a lot that has representative grip of what I can expect at most events. Fedex was frustrating this year. For example, Fedex likes a super soft front bar (which I hate, and never actually set as soft as I should have), Fedex likes a rear sway bar (every other location is best with no rear bar and 5/6 or 6/6 front sway bar).

But the courses at Fedex are very technical, which helps from a driving perspective - especially when combined with the stiff competition. But I have learned that car setup is everything. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do next year, but likely a lot of NJ and PA events and less to no Fedex events.
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Walk up registration, just show up, pay your money and go through tech.

Car setup has to take into account where you will be running but from my perspective, the most time to be gained is by improving the driver. The only real way to improve the driver is seat time. My recommendation is always to drive at every and any event possible. Little local events help work on lower speed/tighter turns while faster events provide experience in areas that only faster events demand. It is all good for training (and fun).

 

I saw a person get hit by an NA Miata in Verona, VA this year and dialed 911 myself. Yeah, there is definitely the possibility for accidents. You just have to be as careful as you can. In fact, the fact that someone else can hit you is a major reason why I don't let many people co-drive my car. The co-driver could be perfectly in the right, get hit by someone else (like I almost saw a few times on a well-designed course in NJ one day) and then I would have to try and collect from the co-driver for a damaged car that was not technically his fault. This didn't happen with my car (thankfully) but it made me realize that there are major liability issues involved with this sport, and things do happen -- even if they are rare.

Yeah Anthony, nice job. Funny how you can go from top 25 in PAX to like 6 just due to SCCA location changes. My goal is not PAX, but to refine my car. I was reading on the STR Prep Forum about how being able to keep on throttle is a major requirement in having a fast S2000 in STR. I was thinking that I can never be sure because at Fedex it depends on the course and where the slippery spots are, the camber (which is major compared to everywhere else), and so many unique variables. I really only need to convince Brian K, Chris L, or any of the other top five or so Fedex STR people to go anyway in order to have a real challenge. I mean that even if just me and Brian K were to go to the Susquehanna events, I would know basically how I compare since he is the fastest S2000 driver in DC (Fedex) at the moment. So it would be nice to have everyone go up there, but I know most of you all live closer to Fedex than PA, so it is what it is, but that lot is starting to frustrate my goal of refining my car.

 

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what happened?

pics?
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We don’t want to publicly the incident and make it worse for the driver since the driver may be dealing with insurance issues.
Basically a car went off course; luckily the driver was ok, but the car had some damage.
Just letting you guys know to be careful out there, because it was definitely shocking to me.

 

Never though about that aspect of co-driving risk. I've never had anybody else drive my car, but I had considered it a few times.

I've seen two crashes resulting in badly damaged cars, but thankfully no injuries. Both were ~90% driver error combined with ~10% from the somewhat tight confines of the Bowie lot. (Same lot, but different days)

I've never seen anyone even come close to being hit by a car though

 

Yeah, the guy went to the hospital but was released after a few hours. I am graduating law school this fall, so my now instinct was to tell the guy to document everything, not leave the hospital until everything was checked out thoroughly, and to preserve any claims that he may have had in the future should he later discover some sort of initially latent injury. He was hit at about ten plus miles per hour, tried to jump, and was propelled backwards where he landed in the grass. It was scary from the other side of the course where I happened to be watching. I had a co-driver early on in the season (Andy T) and probably scared him away with my Agreement to Codrive, but it was super-detailed and covered almost every situation, how and who would pay for repairs, stipulated values and more. Just sayin' (and Andy's a great driver)

 

Yeah that's the smart way to go about it. I just figured I'd try to ask

I was at Bowie when the girl in the blue TC didn't realize you have to let off the gas to turn more, and understeered her car into a far a way curb.

 

Safety is also sometimes neglected in the course design, like how many clubs run through the curbs into the lower lot at Bowie. I hate to see this, as the reason I autocross instead of doing track days is because it's safer.

 

Apparently neither did the guy in the nice BMW M6, the guy in the Caterham, nor one other person whose car slips my mind at the moment but crashed at Bowie.

Crazy. And then there were the Fedex high speed crashes like the dude in the red Civic that slid what seemed like 100 feet into the pole (people scattering like mice)..

 

I agree. I feel that is the experience level of the administrators though that has a lot to do with it. I like SCCA courses the most for this reason, but it still varies a lot at the smaller SCCA regions. Susquehanna is very good (as is WDCR or course), but others are just less experienced and make course designs that are confusing, fail to meet the recommended guidelines, or both... and that leads to situations that can be unsafe. Generally easy to understand is safer than confusing, and more space seems to be safer than less space. I think part of the problem is also that the smaller groups have more challenges with what they have to work with in terms of lot size and experience level of the designers too. For example, I saw Sam Strano redesign almost all of the Cone Killer Classic day 2 course in Philipsburg, PA after that region's SCCA people had a really confusing course with excessive cones.

I think BMW and Porsche do great jobs at Bowie in creating safe passageways through the islands, but CDC also has a justifiable policy of just skipping the lower half of the lot. Overall it's a game of trying to mitigate risk. Some will be done for us and other risk is incumbent on us and our varying degrees of experience.

 

I have seen perhaps a ~dozen cars wrecked over the last decade at autoXs (including one single event where 3 different cars went off onto a concrete berm). I have seen many close calls where workers ran out in front of a vehicle and nearly got smacked. One of the more entertaining near crashes was a FedX event where I saw a Mini pop up on two wheels and drive by giving me a great view of the underside before falling back onto all 4 wheels.

I have seen many dozens of crashes at the track (too many to count), have been in 4 crashes (3 involving walls and 1 car to car), and had a friend die at the track while I watched. Racing and DEs are more high risk than autoX.

I think in general that racing (at the club level) and DE are more risky to drivers while autox is more risky for spectators/workers.