stuart1 wrote:
Regarding a speed limited out lap I think that is a good idea if you are a front runner as with cars being released at 5 second intervals you run the real risk of having to pass the last released runners maybe in your first flying lap plus limiting the speed of the front runners on the out lap could if fact give those last released an extra timed lap.
As said you don't need to gap the cars by 5 seconds from the pits. That is what creates the problem of the 1st car catching the last car quickly which is what has happened at other rounds through out the year.
The running order is generally in time order, so that cars can leave bunched which is what was happening on the day and it worked well. I can't believe I'm praising the running of NSWRRC round from previous experiences, but kudos to them for using common sense and trying something that seems logical to me.
The other thing that helped the day a lot, was no double entered cars. That is the grid man's worse nightmare for moving cars and groups around especially on days with high attrition rates. I can't wait till one day they just say no more double entered cars.
You can run more cars per group the way NSWRRC were running yesterdays event as well. 14 on the South circuit was a non issue which surprised me.
From run 2 onwards, starting at the front, all cars basically just left the pits single file with about 1-2s gaps, I could see almost all 13 other cars as I entered the 2nd corner in my mirrors. I then set a reasonable pace, and gunned it for the last 3 corners of the warm up lap.
I was up to 10s a lap faster than some guys in the Group 4, 5, 6 combo and really only ever had to lap 1-2 cars per session.
In my group only the last 1 or 2 cars was losing a lap because of me lapping them. But being a minute slower over 6 laps they should expect that as they literally got the same track time that I got. I know this as I was the 1st car being flagged each time, I could see them reaching down for the flag just as I was approaching the last 2 corners.
In fact I may even re-word this a bit better, and send it to the committee as a recommendation on how they should continue from now on, as it worked really well if you ignored the 40km/h speech to the 2nd corner that us designated front starters received separately at the start of the day. Following the original 40km/h to the cones halfway up pit exit and carrying reasonable pace through all the corners worked well at keeping cars bunched enough.
To clarify my earlier post, my first run, first lap was hampered by the 2 cars in front of me going to slow around the corners on the out lap, not because I was the lead car going to slow.
It would be good to try letting cars out one after the other for club track days as well, which has happened in the past, depending on who's letting cars go out in the pit lane and the ruling of the CAMS official onsite at SMSP days.
Cars in our club days have more honest entry times with the cars having much more similar characteristics than the Supersprints, so it should work even better.
I find it annoying on club days catching someone when you start up front. There is about a 2-3s lap variation in most groups (Group 1 and last group can be much larger) on club days and I catch the last guy and sometimes 2nd last guy when the cars are spaced with large gaps.
Reduce the gaps to 1-2s all the time and it will be a non issue and may even have the benefit of fitting more cars in a group.
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