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Looking at the preliminary results from the first day of competition at Nationals, there are certainly a few surprises.  How were the conditions for the run groups?

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EP 82 - 1987 Toyota Corolla GTS
RMDiv. SEB

If you were here, you'd know.  But I'm not telling you....:)

DaveW

(No weather issues, I didn't run today so I don't know about the sand)

Not there either but this should help...

a t e	Time (cdt)	Wind (mph)	Vis. (mi.)	Weather	Sky Cond.	Temperature (ºF)	Pressure	Precipitation (in.)
Air	Dwpt	6 hour	altimeter (in.)	sea level (mb)	1 hr	3 hr	6 hr
Max.	Min.
16	18:53	S 7	10.00	Fair	CLR	75	51	79	75	30.18	1021.6
16	17:53	S 7	10.00	Fair	CLR	78	50			30.18	1021.7
16	16:53	SW 9	10.00	Fair	CLR	79	50			30.18	1021.7
16	15:53	S 9	10.00	Fair	CLR	79	49			30.20	1022.1
16	14:53	SW 10	10.00	Fair	CLR	79	48			30.22	1023.0
16	13:53	SW 9	10.00	Fair	CLR	77	47			30.24	1023.7
16	12:53	S 9	10.00	Fair	CLR	76	48	76	48	30.26	1024.3
16	11:53	SW 10	10.00	Fair	CLR	73	48			30.28	1025.0
16	10:53	SW 9	10.00	Fair	CLR	70	47			30.29	1025.5
16	09:53	SW 8	10.00	Fair	CLR	65	48			30.29	1025.3
16	08:53	Calm	10.00	Fair	CLR	56	50			30.29	1025.5
16	07:53	Calm	10.00	Fair	CLR	51	47			30.28	1025.3
16	06:53	Calm	10.00	Fair	CLR	49	46	52	48	30.28	1025.0

From http://www.crh.noaa.gov/data/obhistory/KTOP.html

 

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Jeff Hurst, NYR SCCA

Pictures posted  show peeps with jackets.  and shadows on the ground.

=

not hot and not raining.

 

Just keeping it simple

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Want to go faster, please send money.

It's been coolish at sunup and quickly warming to near hot every afternoon. We haven't seen a cloud since Sunday afternoon. Winds have been almost nil and the course has been vacuumed at the end of each day. Beyond 1st heat the weather is almost a non factor... it's those pesky cones that are killing people. Both courses have a few gotcha cones that are killing people... I heard someone say that 45% of the drivers were dirty and I know more than a few that were dirty on all three in a day.

Tom

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Tom Holt
FP199 280Z

When I walked during the day yesterday, sand seemed fairly minimal.  Much less than in the past.  They went out and vacuumed the surface again at the end of the day (which they're doing everyday), so I would expect the surface to be reasonably clean again today.

East course in particular is cone intensive.  One section in particular really invites cone hits.  I would hope the orgainizers, etc... are taking notes of this in order to avoid sections like that in the future.  People can say whatever they want about "everyone has to drive it", etc..., but that doesn't fix the problem of corner workers running their a$$es off replacing the same cone 5-10 cars in a row (which I saw happen while watching yesterday).

Dave G.

Nicest weather we've had for a couple years.  ~50F when arriving in the morning and ~80F by mid-afternoon.  It was still a bit cool early.  Those of us in 2nd heat still had some issues getting the tires warmed up - even cars with co-drivers were using tire blankets to retain heat.  However, some cars in later heats were spraying their tires.

The cone density was definitely a bit high on the East course. 

-Steve

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Steve Garnjobst
#75 XP
'99 Mazda Mutant

MNbiker:

Nicest weather we've had for a couple years.  ~50F when arriving in the morning and ~80F by mid-afternoon.  It was still a bit cool early.  Those of us in 2nd heat still had some issues getting the tires warmed up - even cars with co-drivers were using tire blankets to retain heat.  However, some cars in later heats were spraying their tires.

The cone density was definitely a bit high on the East course. 

-Steve

Agreed. The temps were too cool for spraying in the early heats, and not having a co-driver was detrimental. My tires stayed cool to the touch for all three runs.

Also agreed on the East/Babb course having a glut of cones. There's "slalom intensive" and then there is "nothin' but slaloms".

The corner workers really had to run their butts off to keep up and there were a number of red flag induced reruns, a lot of DNFs, an a lot of coned runs. I have talked to at least a dozen people that coned every run on a given day - that doesn't happen often, especially at Nationals. Isn't that one of the red flags about a course that's in Roger's course design book?

Personally I like ultra-busy, super technical courses most times, but the car narrowness factor really came into play on East.

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Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com - www.ast-usa.com
'93 E36-LS1 (XP), '97 BMW M3 (so long STU!), '91 318is (STS)

My 2 cents worth...

The east course was fair but busy and it favored the smaller narrow cars but there were more than one Kenny cones (even though only one had Kenny's picture on it!)  The weather was very nice but the grip level was no where near wwhat it got to be later in the week.  I walked the east course with a friend of mine that drove SS and all I couold say to him was that CP must have really laid some rubber down on Thursday!  I really would have loved another crack at that course with that grip level.

Oh well, someone has to go early and someone has to go late.  If it would have rained later in the week I doubt I would have complained ;-)

 

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Greg M.
148 DP Miata
Supported by:
AtTrack Graphics/Skull Motorsports/Karol and the kids!

I thought the overall grip was pretty good this year.  It has gotten better every year but the improvement was greater this year.  This was the first year I ever got more than 100 degrees F of tire temperature too.   

I also have looked at data logger files and noticed that the grip level seemed noticably better on Thursday/Friday. 

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Steve Hoelscher
#27 DP - Toyota MR2
http://www.terriehoward.com