SCCA regional practice & championship event at El Toro in two weeks. I'm a bit nervous.
Mark D.

I hope everything goes well.Good luck!JJackson
BTW-I still remember how I screwed up the finish on my first course.'87 I think-Funny thing is I can't be sure on the year but I remember the course.

Post the course here and we'll review it for you. I'm sure you'll get a lot of constructive criticism

Do the finish 1st. Leave your self plenty of runn off/ shut down room.

Then do the start,

Then scribble a line of arc's and squiggles connecting the start and finish.

Then decide which types of elements will make the cars follow your course.

Now revise the course using half the number of cones.

Done.

Thanks for the tips, Joe. I know basically how it's done. I just hope I get the scale of things right so it's not too tight or too wide open. On a championship day we generally have about 200 entries, and as a friend told me about course design, everybody has an opinion... Of course, there's a couple elements that I'm putting in just to make enemies.
Mark D.

Some distance rules I try to follow.
Slaloms = 22 paces
Arcs 50' radius

Try google maps satellite image. see if you can find references like concrete blocks how big are they?

Lane changes no more than 25' at a distance of 50-60 ft long

Chicago boxes used sparingly total 80 ft long with single or double cone to set speed through box. easy to adjust by moving cone in an out.

L box or double L (L
7) can be used to control speed

the new popular SCCA feature lately is the Wallom (I love this one) as it is really just a slalom that is dressed up fancy with a wall of cones in line.

and a variation is slalom with row of pointer and standing cones to the outside or inside apex of each slalom cone.

What are some other features that we all love to hate?

I've seen a curved slalom before "Epic fail"

I always drive it with my Super Duty and sometimes with an FJB kart (my son's). If the kart is banging the rev limiter start to finish tighten up some cones. If the Super Duty (25 ft long) feels pinched then open it up. Testing is the only way to be sure it's good.

Had a group of vettes show up one morning and after watching me sweep, chalk etc. they proclaimed the course was too tight for thier cars. I jumped in the truck and whizzed through on full boost never touching a cone and posting a fairly good time. They all shut up .

Joe,

Do you have any favorite track layouts that you have retired that you could post? I'd like to build a couple of autox tracks in my Live for speed game.

Not my courses but this should keep you busy
http://houscca.com/solo/courses.php

Well, it was tons of work, but a huge success! Totally worth it. Fun to drive, and I got lots of good remarks. I'll definitely do it again once I recover. Sorry. I can't figure out how to upload a track map. The flow turned out well, and my team owner said that it drove more technically than it looked when he walked it. Which is kinda what I was going for. The only glaring problem is that it was a bit faster than is typical for SCCA. Some people ended up getting stuck between gears. Other than that, good times!

Saturday Practice layout: Steve Abbot driving XP Corvette.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP31pQ92LCw

Saturday Practice: KJ Christopher in his A-mod car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDi8rOAZgAY

Sunday Championship layout: Steve Abbot in a different Vette on Street tires
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-1X59AnxkY

Sunday: Jonathan Lugod (an excellent course designer) bumping me out of second spot in STX in his Civic Si
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiODY4vBBuQ...utu.be&hd=1

Thanks again for all the advice.
Mark D.

Looks very fast from what I'm used too. What gear we're most people using? I imagine I would be shifting a lot between 2nd and 3rd. Nice venue!! Course looks like a lot of fun.

Nice design. You had enough room to allow for a very fast course, which looked to be great fun.

Only (constructive) comment was that there wasn't much out there to slow anyone down, so more like a windy road course as opposed to a classic autox course with more "transitions" to test overall driver skills.

By the way I've sent all of the courses I designed to Roger (SCCA Guru) down in Houston for comments. He gets right back to you and gives you valuable feedback.

That A mod car looked like fun. Got to build one of those!

Agreed... partially. I think there's plenty of transitional stuff, but I didn't want it to just be slalom, corner, slalom, corner, ect. So I achieved the transitions a different way; with the walls, and compound corners. That being said, there was a little too much flow, and not enough pinch points. This made for a "crowd pleaser" course, as Tom Berry put it. I could've choked down the turn-arounds and the box a bit more to help this. Although Tom also said it drove more technically than it walked. All in all, I'm happy with it as my first design.
Yes, Bill, El Toro is an awesome venue. Tons of room and tons of grip. We were actually sharing with PCA last weekend, and had room to spare! It was a little faster than usual, but not by a whole lot. We run pretty fast at El Toro. However, I would've still liked to choke it down about 3 mph on average. Most people were just hitting the rev limiter in 2nd, but those who weren't afraid to grab a gear had a distinct advantage. Tom hit 3rd in his BSP Evo 4 times, and took top PAX out of 167 entries. I'm still waiting for that video.
Mark D.

I would say it was very technical in that if you weren't looking way ahead and setting up the next corner from the corner you're in, you would be losing time.

Again, nice job.