Pre-Published Race Course Designs

[Andy Bittner]

Yeah!! Morro Bay Blvd.! The four blocks above Main St. Go, Jack, GO!

[Wesley Tucker]

Oh, and one other thing about doing a course design: it's really a LOT of fun! Sitting in front of the computer with a simple drawing program, laying out your street, transcribing your landmarks, then getting down to the nitty gritty of placing your cones. It's like the thrill that comes with picking out accessories on your new Porsche!

You can finagle your push box, move up your run out, fiddle with offsets from wide to thin, step and repeat whole sections of the course that will guarantee the racers get the same thing twice and on and on. Then you realize you forgot that damned little reflector in the middle of the street marking a fire hydrant and you have to back up and move everything over two feet.

But once you have your whole course laid out from start to finish, you select all, duplicate and align your two groups of cones side by side in a perfect dual course. Fill one little set of 40 or 50 circles with red and the other with white and you have a gorgeous little scale diagram of some of Turner's nicer cones marking a street destined for racing history!

[Wesley Tucker]

On 2003-01-06 16:37, Jack Smith wrote:
There is no way to set a course ahead of time in Morro Bay. We were on shaky ground at Avila as the hotel owner threatened to sue us for lost business, had to keep a low profile before the event.

Jack,

Well, I can only speak from my experiences, so here goes: I didn't "pre set" the course on E. 5th Street on Folly Beach. I went to the street, checked it out thoroughly, made a few notes of some possible blemishes, measured the length and width and left. Whether there was traffic or it was deserted would have made no difference. All I did physically at the street was get all my dimensions and measurements.

THEN, I went home, transcribed all my measuresments, blemishes and man hole covers to a grid and proceeded to layout my course. If you remember, my course was simple (I'll admit that,) with all 6-foot centers coupled with some 8-foot spacings for wider offsets. (I will admit, though, it was very rhythmic and would have been very fast on that mellow hill.) Those wide offsets, though, were strategically placed to avoid the blemishes and manhole cover.

Sure enough, Friday before the race I went to the hill and for the first time since designing the course 6 weeks previously laid out one lane . . . Ta Da! It fit like a glove. I did one cone at a time, marked it with a china marker and did one whole lane in about 20 minutes. Mirroring it Saturday morning would have been no problem and we could have been racing in by 7:00 in the morning if anyone showed up that early!

Then it rained like hell starting Friday afternoon and all my effort was for shit! But, hey, that's another story!

My point, though, is it's not necessary to close the street, layout cones and mark locations in order to make a race design. It is important, though, to know your landmarks and dings and pitfalls accurately. I think that sort of information can be gathered with or without traffic (hey, even after midnight under the street light.)

[Jack Smith]

Wes,
The only time I take things personally is when I am attacked or when someone distorts the facts, or just plain doesn't know them.

I agree that a pre-race published course description is a great idea and should be done whenever possible. As I mentioned in a post in the TS forum, sometimes this is not possible due to traffic, laws or last minute venue changes.

There is no way to set a course ahead of time in Morro Bay. We were on shaky ground at Avila as the hotel owner threatened to sue us for lost business, had to keep a low profile before the event.

We are working with the city of Morro Bay to get Morro Bay Boulevard repaved for next year's event. This is the street that you would cross if you went through the hay bales at the end of this year's course.

It is much steeper and longer.

[Wesley Tucker]

John, you said, "but then that would send a STRONG signal to a promoter and certainly it would be an incentive to post a course as soon as possible so it could be altered Once or perhaps twice (should reaction of hte racers be very negative) but not near the start of the race----"

This is also an interesting point for another reason. One of the "joys" about the recent slalom resurgence is I think everyone is just so damned happy to be able to race again! What happens, though, when the the "newness" of if all starts to wear off? What happens when promoters actually have to start competing to get racers to attend? What happens when FCR on one coast and a promoter in the East schedule a huge race on the same weekend? Maybe FCR has the advantage of geography, but Mr. East Coast Money Bags is offering a $10,000 purse? Where is a racer to go?

It could be that race diagrams and more pertinent information other than registration fees and start times could be the deciding factor. If a racer can see that at one race is a course just like he's raced all his life, he'll decide to skip the latest West Coast wing ding and fly East. Or someone over here looks at what is going on near the Pacific and says, "man, I got a much better shot with my set up making the cut on that course than I ever could on what's happening here in the East!"

Like I said, the "what ifs" are endless!

[John Gilmour]

You could also post two course diagrams and let skaters select what they would want to enter>.... How's that for democracy?

[John Gilmour]

Well it would be scary to see everyone pull out of a race.... but then that would send a STRONG signal to a promoter and certainly it would be an incentive to post a course as soon as possible so it could be altered Once or perhaps twice (should reaction of hte racers be very negative) but not near the start of the race---- perhaps no changes could be made within 2 months of the race.

You have to give a few exceptions...like lets say they patched a section of concrete- and it was wavy or whatever. But I say you take a digital photo of the race course.

And if some construction does happen- take a photo of that and propose a course change-and as minimal a change as possible.

Better to have 3 less skaters come than 3 angry skaters.

Post the course. Use your diagram- perhaps take a photo of the course as need be. propose a range of gear that might be used. For example.

For Folly Beach Bus Depot. The suface is near perfect. People on the Podium would likely use durometers of 90a or higher- up to 96a. The course is tight and I would suggest running as short a long board as possible. Trucks wider than 156mm will definitely be to your detriment. I run a blah blah blah and Tasos ran a Blah blah blah.

I just would like the racer's first experience to be as good or better than expected.

Certainly the people are nice- though from a BBS you can get different impresssions online. But I assure you you couldn't hang out with a more fun group of guys in a weekend.

Folly Beach... I've been missing those fresh cheap shrimp they have down there. Are there any "all you can Eat Shrimp places" that are fresh?.... - red Lobster.....won't count.

[Wesley Tucker]

Over in the "Tight Slalom" forum Gilmour raised a point near and dear to my heart. He said in a discussion regarding course descriptions and definitions, "The alternative is to do what Tucker did and post a course and stick with it . . .
. . . So perhaps this has all boiled down to expectations and definitions. Posting the course to be set would remove a lot of those problems."

This leads to lots of questions, too. FIrst of all, I think I can say I was the FIRST person in the current skate slalom era to pre-publish a fairly accurate course description and diagram. I did this for Folly Beach and was really happy with the results. Although the course ended up being transplanted from a slight hill to the flat Bus Depot because of weather, most everyone I spoke to was happy with the idea. Although some people didn't like the course while others did, NO ONE came to Folly Beach wondering what kind of course they would face.

Now Gilmour suggests this should be a more common practice. In some sense I agree. Although Andy made some points about paint and manhole covers, I still think Main Street Morro Bay would be an excellent venue for a pre-published race course. I mean, it's a straigh line. How hard can it be to know in advance where to put the cones?

The DOWNSIDE, though, to such an idea is quite simply everyone would know in advance the course. As an example, you cannot begin to imagine my panic when almost the next day after publishing my course design, Paul Dunn pulled out of the Folly Beach event. I was certain he had reviewed my course and decided it was a no-go for him. I e-mailed Paul directly and asked if this was the case. He was very nice and assured me that family and conflicting obligations at home led to he and Michelle changing their travel plans. That made me feel better, but the butterflies still lingered.

By another example, let's talk for a minute about the course at Avila Beach. I hate to discuss FCR events because Jack does tend to take it personally, but this is not intended to be an attack. Just an observation. I don't think anyone came away from Avila Beach on Saturday and announced, "man! What a great course! Let's do this again some time!" The general consencus that I heard was the first cones were way out of place with the starting ramps, it was very hard to find a "hole shot," and the offsets were so wide at the top to turn a slalom race into an obstacle course. The problems were compounded at the bottom of the hill because it was so mellow as to eliminate almost any possibility of getting a good accelerating pump to overcome any deficit from the pinball machine skaters went through at the top of the hill. Whether or not it was GIant Slalom or hybrid or whatever doesn't alter the fact it just wasn't a very good course.

What if that had been published two weeks prior to the World Championships? If everyone would have had a chance to look it over, would it have allowed more people to prepare for what was essentially a "different" kind of course? Would some racers had decided to just skip it and either wait til Sunday or maybe not come at all?

The "what ifs" are endless. Although I can never see any sort of "problem" for a racer knowing in advance what he's getting into, for the promoter it does possibly allow for some sleepless nights. Then again, is it fair to ask people to travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles, pay hundreds of dollars and then "spring" on them a course that even your mother would call insipid? The plusses and minusses go on forever.