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Matt,
That speed should be slightly terrifying in any FSAE car from any era. At some level this is still just a situation where you and your buddies got together and decided to build a racecar. Do you completely trust all your friends design and manufacturing abilities with your life..........doesn't matter, got to race.
On the sea of cones approach, I will say that I think it does a better job of forcing people into sustained turns. Now, this isn't always what you want, but when you do, it's I think it's better than the spartan cone approach.
Lawrence
I definitely like the idea of having decreasing radius corners, I think those are the hardest in the business to conquer from a design/set-up/driver standpoint. Braking is definitely the hardest task for a driver to do, and no one will ever be perfect at it. That said, having a good car and a good race engineer who understand how to setup a car will definitely show here. Simply put I would like to see more of them. Increasing radius corners have their place, but I find that in general most of them are very very easy corners to get around simply because it's easier for a driver to increase the throttle than it is to decrease the braking the right amount.
I would like to see less of is small slaloms. Usually they ruin the flow of a course (looking at Michigan here). That's not to say to get rid of them entirely. They certainly have their time, place, and need in the competition, but instead of having 3 of these in one course make some medium speed and some fast speed slaloms. Most cars will handle different in all three and it will be important to have good setups/training for each kind.
In tandem with the slalom idea above, one thing I hate is courses that just constantly make you switchback and forth on yourself. Yet again I look to Michigan as the epitome as this. Granted they can't do much about it, but by the end of the course you feel like you've just been through a blender. Long duration corners are not the devil, and while I know Lincoln has some, I think making some corners that require more than 45 degrees of vehicle heading change have larger corner radii would add another added element to the courses. Currently it seems like most corners in the 45-120 degree range are all tight corners. Yet again, don't get rid of all the slow corners, but allow some diversity.
Trent Strunk
University of Kansas
Jayhawk Motorsports
2010-2014
Now in NASCAR land. Boogity.
Opinions Are My Own
On the topic of Slaloms (and I may have mentioned it already in this thread): Varying distance slaloms. Preferably decreasing distance.
Any views or opinions expressed by me may in no way reflect those of Stewart-Haas Racing, Kettering University, or their employees, students, administrators or sponsors.
Increasing radius slaloms are interesting in their own right. Great cars will stay settled and make their way out in one piece. Good cars will either come out slowly or in a flurry of tire spin. Decreasing radius slaloms is like packing an entire course of decreasing radius turns into a very short section of track. Very exciting section of track that isn't really seen anywhere.
+1 to variable radius slaloms. One thing I've never attempted other than when a course was reset incorrectly is a combined increasing/decreasing slalom. Something that sounds exciting is a decreasing slalom in halfway and increasing on the way out. It'd be sort of like a hairpin turn.
Trent,
As I've mentioned before in this thread, typically we have shied away from decreasing radius corners. This has been mainly to keep less experienced drivers from simply being caught off guard. I think the way decreasing radius corners are sometimes setup in the SCCA can lead the untrained eye to miss this important piece of information. If the course was set up in a way that either made it blatantly obvious or allowed the visual cues to naturally convey the corners uniqueness, I think we would be in the good.
I'd say slaloms are used as very convenient filler for some courses, especially historically for SAE. They're just to darn easy to just throw in there. A good low/med speed and a higher speed slalom are all you need, after that they become pretty redundant quickly.
Couldn't agree more with your comments regarding longer duration corners. Re-watching some of the Lincoln driving vids I think higher deg change corners are where we can make the most improvements. We only had a hand full of spots that amounted to any sustained lateral g's. Though, as soon as we start adding in more sustained duration corners, you will certainly be turning back on yourself much much more. Be ready to be blended I suppose.
Lawrence
Wouldn't this be something that should be picked up not only on a course walk-through but a track map as well? I'm by no-means an "experienced driver" but I've been able to pick up on the ones at our local auto-X pretty quickly. Of course you run into a dilemma here still, how far can you push a track design before you're singling out the good drivers and not the good cars?
Yes and Yes. Some larger sweepers would be great. Also teams that don't have proper oil management will start to see issues as well! As previously stated I'd really like to see a long straight into a hairpin and then could we possibly work that into a bit of a sweeper? I'm thinking a 270* left hand off the straight that opens up into a swept right hander. Also could we use one of the slaloms as more of a high speed chicane? Would be something a little more different than the typical slalom.I'd say slaloms are used as very convenient filler for some courses, especially historically for SAE. They're just to darn easy to just throw in there. A good low/med speed and a higher speed slalom are all you need, after that they become pretty redundant quickly.
Couldn't agree more with your comments regarding longer duration corners. Re-watching some of the Lincoln driving vids I think higher deg change corners are where we can make the most improvements. We only had a hand full of spots that amounted to any sustained lateral g's. Though, as soon as we start adding in more sustained duration corners, you will certainly be turning back on yourself much much more. Be ready to be blended I suppose.
Lawrence
South Dakota State University Alum
Electrical/Daq/Engine/Drivetrain/Tire guy '09-'14
Go big, Go blue, Go JACKS!
Axel, & MCoach
Unless the distance change is severe, I don't think decreasing distance slaloms offer as much for testing vehicle dynamics, as they do for testing drivers. If driven well the change in speed is fairly minimal. I'd say it's only when driven incorrectly that you'll see instances that compare to the decreasing radius corners. Just getting behind in 'the rhythm' of the slalom becomes far too easy, and drivers are forced to play catch up one way or the other.
All of the slaloms in Lincoln have been increasing distance, primarily to be simple for the drivers, secondarily it guarantees minimal cone hits.
The decreasing first half, increasing second half just sounds terrible. I'm personally not all that big a fan of driving slaloms, but that sounds very frustrating. It sounds like one of those things you'll never feel like you did right.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I recall driving a very large diameter sweeper slalom. Now, that was interesting. They had it set up with equal spacing, so overall you are traveling at a steady pace, yet you would be loosing time if you weren't really varying your speed for the inside/outside direction changes. Finagling each direction change to manage how much you've rotated and how much you vary your speed was really fun to drive.
Lawrence
jlangholzj,
Just by having been to an autocross before, that makes you an 'experienced driver' compared to probably a 1/3 or 1/2 of the field who has never been to an SCCA event. Reading a SCCA style cone course especially at FSAE speeds and vantage heights at least takes a little practice to get good. But, you are right, I think most would recognize a decreasing radius corner, either from the map or the course walk. It's when it comes to endurance that becomes pretty likely that many more people are going to cook that corner and push/spin and plow some cones. With a little work on the cone visuals and leaving a little extra space for people to get things under control, I be it could be manageable.
I don't know if we will come up with a sweeper larger than the big left hander that we've had the last two years, but there is definitely room for more sweepers in general. Not sure what you are describing with the slalom as a high speed chicane. Something like the lane change element?
Lawrence
I think this is the Spain course Claude was mentioning earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROxtTJNmsG4
Not too shabby, you can certainly pick out a couple of the 270*+tight radius reverse direction elements. There also seems to be some bumpiness to contend with. It is a bit tough to gauge the available speed range from the video, but it looks like an excellent use of the event space.
Lawrence