How are the Autocross Courses Designed?

[bryanearll]

I helped set up the School AX event (tossing cones in the twilight) but how does the AX leaders decide on what kind of course to have.?
b

[kary]

Having been an auto-x chair for a few years in the past I can say it is really up to the designer of the event. A few things that I took into account, which are still serious limiting factors were:

1. Size of lot.
2. Surface issues in theselected lot.
3. run off in straights and higher speed turns.
4. entrance and finish lines
5. proximity to the timing equipement and trailer (limit distance here)
6. number of corner works to cover the track adequately
7. Amount of time to complete a lap (laps per day and car counts)
8. Limiting speeds under 100mph yes, 100mph were attained.

Once these have been dealt with, one can be creative by using on and off camber hills to make interesting turns, open corners to allow for different lines, slaloms with option entry points to name a few. Try and provide tracks that reward handling, horsepower, and driving skill to have something for everyone.

It is not easy to balance all of these factors and there are probably more that I have forgotten over the years. These days I just show up to tracks that are already built I may do more auto-x' this next year though!

[Dan Chambers]

Bryan:

Along with all those factors that Kary mentioned, there's also:

- Trying to include all aspects of cornering, braking, and car control in each design. ie: Increasing Radius and decreasing radius turns, braking zones, slalom sections for smooth handling, fast sweepers/straights, linked corner/rythm sections for deft handling experts.... all in one track with poor surface limitations.

- Bearing in mind that the A-X is an entry level event, so nothing too fancy or too difficult. (I always try to design a track with the thought that a 19-year old is going to show up in a 930 with extra boost and HP, on narrow old street tires, and old brake fluid ... and no previous performance driving experience.)

- Hours of daylight. Summers are somewhat easy. Winters/Spring is a daylight-deprived challange. We don't like to drive in the dark.

- Pleasing all the drivers all the time .... (Someday that just might happen ... )

I would say that one of the greatest rewards, and toughest challanges for me as A-X Chair has been the track design portion of the job. When you get it right, and people applaud your track, life doesn't get any better. When you miscalculate your design and the Forum lights up with grumbles, you think about changing your name, and buying a Yugo

Hope this helps. See you on the 18th.

[sushinav]

I was told track design involved a lot of Guinness, some dull crayons, and a bar napkin.

[Gary Burch]

It's actually Boddington's, #2 pencils( no erasers), and bar napkins

[Dan Chambers]

Hiccup!

[ttweed]

bryan-

If you want to know more about the subject of autox course design than you can possibly need, given our more casual methods in PCA (and no, don't believe these guys that it is just some squiggles on a napkin ) there is actually a manual developed by Roger Johnson of Texas for SCCA Solo2 course design that you can download from the Houston SCCA site at http://www.houscca.com/solo2/course_maps.aspx

It is a 2.5MB Zip file that expands into a 6MB PDF file when you uncompress it. It is basically a Powerpoint presentation that he uses to teach the subject, converted to a PDF for the web. It isn't directly applicable to our style of course design, but it has some nuggets of information that are useful. I think our current and past autox chairs have seen it, and perhaps even used some concepts from it.

TT