The last time Trial Format...

[kary]

....what did folks think this year?

I loved it, we went out and spread out very nicely. In our group (at least where I was) no one passed or was passed from my perspective, though I think some did pass up ahead and it looked like Jack pulled off behind me (I must have been slowing him up).

At any rate, just wondered what folks thought since this was the second time we tried this.

[martinreinhardt]

The Time Trail format was great, almost no traffic. I really liked having a full session for the timed run. Jad passed me in the turn #1 right after the green flag all I could do is watch him go on his 275's

My goal for the weekend and first time at the Speedway was to go under 2:00:00 and I made it. I learned alot about the car especially that without camber plates and at least wider front tires it will be very difficult to keep up with my KP friends. The car is fine for AutoX but at high speed I really need to have full tire surface to make contact with the track.

I had a great time and will be at Bottomwillow to learn another great track.

[glenn_993]

I also thought the format worked well, even though we didn't get the 2-3 sec gap between cars coming off the grid. Not sure if it was needed or would have helped. Most definitely liked having a full session for the timed runs. Looking forward to next year's Speed Festival already. Gotta find the b***S to hold the speed through the banking.

[Jad]

The Time Trail format was great, almost no traffic. I really liked having a full session for the timed run. Jad passed me in the turn #1 right after the green flag all I could do is watch him go on his 275's

I had a great time and will be at Bottomwillow to learn another great track.

Martin,

Really check your suspension. I forgot to mention that when I was following you as you entered turn 5, your car was clearly jumping left-right in ways it should not have been moving. Looked like a Jordan under braking I will check my video to see if it happened in other corners, but nice job keeping it under you.

Buttonwillow will be a very different big track experience. Generally a lot more spins, offs, dirt, and elevation change, but no wall (at least no high speed bank wall, the pit wall can be very scary when you drop a wheel coming onto the front straight!)

Looks like aircooled wins in parking lots and watercooled dominates the real racing on big tracks (incoming )

[mnettles]

Hmmmm...... I passed 6 cars in the first 15 minutes out, (some due to lap traffic) and came in (while looking at a bunch more lap traffic....) Not much in the clean lap catagory for me..... mostly due to my own failure to lay down a good qualifying lap (I thought the first session on sunday morning was the one that I had to do well in so I spent the early part of the weekend not driving the banking at anything close to speed....)

If we use this format again could we PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE announce early in the weekend which session(s) will be counted as qualifiers for the grid. That would have resolved my situation and probably some others as well.

thanks

mj

[Jad]

I agree with MJ. The session the times were taken from, I had rain tires, a passenger and was playing so I was 2 seconds slower than the previous session and 4 seconds from what I expected to run, not representative at all. I was close enough to the front, that I was able to pass everyone and get 1-2 clean laps before lapping the back of the pack and pulling in early, so it was fun, but I think I was a bit lucky.

I still prefer the single car 2-3 lap method, otherwise the timed runs are identical to the previous 3 days and involve luck beyond your control. For a 1 day event, this would be great as track time is so valuable, but with 3 days, I gave up 1-2 sessions anyway and would prefer the pressure of 2 clean timed runs to 30 more minutes of playing.

[Red Rooster]

I thought the format was just fine, although if I remember right it was 30 min sessions for timed runs....I didn't need that long. 20 min would be just fine (for me) Plenty of space in my run group Jad Mark Witcham & I jousted a bit but it more like catch the rabbit !!!

New format gets my vote !!

[Mike]

As a spectator I watched the timed session and enjoyed it very much. Much more entertaining to watch than single spaced cars.

As a driver I would also prefer Sundays TT timing program.

On the other hand perhaps at smaller tracks with fewer passing zones the chance for being help up would be greater?

Jad better leave the chip in, or the red 911 in your rear window might move up beside you.

[martinreinhardt]

Thanks Jad, I would love to see the video. I could feel the car jumping around also coming down into turn #2. I may have to look at my swaybar setting.

[JHPGT3]

I was very skeptical and concerned because I always run a few seconds faster in the timed runs than the practice sessions.
So, I figured I'd be passing a few cars and possibly getting held up. As it turned out, the passing (strategizing and doing it at the highest speed possible) actually added a new level of excitement and interest that I didn't expect. I also found I was chasing someone around the track who was very close to my time --someone I hadn't discovered in the practice sessions, and that was probably the best part of the enitre event for me. All in all, I thought it worked out quite well. We may not have done our absolute best times that we could have with a clear track, but that was offset, at least in my case, by the fun of joisting with others who were doing the same times. I don't think I'd want to do it this way all the time, but I won't complain when we have to. Nice change of pace.

[kary]

I suppose we could just look at the times for each person during the timed sessions and make a general determination as to how many folks were really held up? We have the session times.

[gulf911]

I suppose we could just look at the times for each person during the timed sessions and make a general determination as to how many folks were really held up? We have the session times.

No need for that Kary, I have in car video to prove it. I was held up twice in the beginning laps by 2 different cars, which for me meant no brakes for later in the session. If the cars were spaced out more I would hope that wouldn't be a problem. I did like the format, but 20 min should be sufficient.

I'm with martin as well, I have a great ax car but for high speed still need lots of changes.

[Robert]

I've asked Tom Brown to provide us with an additional function for our timing software that will allow us to print up a grid order based upon the best times from any previous session. Once we have that ability, we can announce which session will count for determining grid placement in the timed runs session. That way people can put on their tires, etc. in the qualifying session for better placement during timed runs. In a perfect world, it would be the session immediately before timed runs. When there are other groups running, like at CA Speedway, that will work. If we are by ourselves (say at Willow and we want to run the same format), we'll need it to be two sessions before timed runs so that we have time to run the reports and post the results.

This past weekend, everything had to be done by hand, which is why we had to use times from the day before.

[Chuck Hasel]

Kary, I for one loved the format. Even though I almost missed my timed session and as a result was placed at the back of the grid I made the best of my predicament and went out, hung back during the yellow flag lap to open up some space in front of me and then went for it as soon as I saw the green flag on the front straight. While I did need to pass more people this way they were so spread out that they really didn't affect me on most laps and I ran my best times all weekend during timed laps. The dry track sure helped too.

I vote to do it again this way in the future .

[Tawfik]

Great Robert. I hope Tom can have this improved version before the next event.
Doing this by hand was quite painful for us in the timing room.
Another improvement would be if i could export the runs in tab delimitted format so that they can be imported into Excel.
I could then do progression graphs, etc....