Steve Towers wrote:Anyone have an idea for width and length to allow for each car in a nationals style grid? How about lane width?
Bill S. can attest to this better than I can because he was officially in charge for several years. I helped a few times before he took the task on. In the case of the S D National Tour, the National staff tells you how many grid spots they will need in advance in the largest run group, because they know in advance their total entry (save one or two onsite signups cancellations.) You then lay it out, massaging it to get both grids to fit (remember you have an A & B grid.) Space length, width, etc varies to some extent based upon how many spots you need, and the space left for you. There is no cookie cutter formula. It varies every year. Sometimes spaces are nice and wide, sometime you take two shots to get your Miata into the space, not because the space is to narrow, but because the isle was. Etc, etc, etc.
Let me preface I personally like the format. It has been used both in SD and LA off, and on over the years. But it has way more negatives than positives in my personal opinion.
Some of your complaints don't go away.
1.)People still pull into your spot. (Always happens)
2.)People still dump oil, and you have to go around it. With this format, it can actually be more difficult go go around than just moving over a lane. You may actually have to move the entire grid, when they drop an entire line down the middle of what was the drive lane. (Though rare, has happened more than once.)
3.)
You HAVE TO chalk it. No way around it. If you don't every other car WILL FIND A WAY to pull between cones some way other than intended. (Note every National Tour is chalked, every Nat Tour I have attended has cars facing the wrong way, sitting across chalk lines anyway. People are just stupid, what else can you say!?)
4.) It takes twice the space, as it has to be set up to work for start and finish lines both days, without moving, as we often do, and can easily change for our "line" system we normally use. Personally I'd rather more space be given to the course, than grid. But I may be in the minority.
5.) We don't have the benefit of total entry numbers of our biggest run group. How often have you attended an event were the lines are not long enough, and cars are piled out the back of the lanes. Some times we deal with it, sometimes we have the benefit of adding an additional lane. You just can't easily add spaces in a Nat style as you can a line style if your estimate of the biggest group is off.
6.) And this is the biggie that IMHO is why we don't do it more often. Unlike Nat. events with a person sitting on your car with a stopwatch, and / or a DQ if you don't go in order, 2 driver cars go even less often. There is no pressure of the line behind them waiting to go out, so they take more time, and in return run groups take even longer.
I personally quit Chairing events because of number 5. I got tired of badgering, and the gruff I received in return while a limited few of our two driver long timers held up events, because there was no pressure for them to return to the course. For this one reason alone, because we have no teeth to force cars (drivers) out when they want more time, and we no longer need them to move out of the way, I'm against going back to Nat style grids.
