autocross etiquette?

[cueball89]

I went autocrossing today with a new to me region. There was an incident I hadn't ever encountered. A driver blew through the slalom and his run would have been very poor or a dnf. After missing the slalom the driver intentionally went off course and cut through the rest of the course making a b line for the finish. There were 2 cars on course, luckily the other driver saw the idiot and managed to stop in time. This region is pretty damn competitive with many very fast drivers. The driver who cut the course was experienced, he was flying around the course.

What's the standard or expected discipline for this type of behavior? I saw a few people go over and talk to him after the incident. If I was the other driver I would have been pissed.

[14stu]

You are always supposed to finish the course and not skip sections, since doing so is dangerous for corner workers and anyone else on course.

If you DNF or screw up you finish the course at 70-80%, don't hit anymore cones, and don't go off course again.

[cjd]

You are never allowed to drive anything but the official course. You can not cut corners.

If you are red flagged or stop on course for a downed cone or a safety reason (like the other driver you mention,) you are allowed to do something like straight-line a slalom to avoid piling up cars behind you and causing more reruns - however, you should be going ~80% speed and should still be following the course correctly.

C

[renfield90]

What a tool. In my region he'd get chewed out by a safety steward and watched very carefully for the remainder of his runs. If it was egregious enough, like ignoring red flags or actually placing corner workers in harms way, might get parked for the day.

If you've DNF'd or whatever and don't feel like beating on the car, sure you can straightline slaloms, offsets, transitions, etc. But you need to stay on course i.e. where the course workers are expecting you to be, in case they need to fix cones from the guy ahead of you. Cars also need to finish in the order they started, otherwise you'll cause a shit show for timing and scoring. Lastly the fact that you get to see the course so few times at speed is one of the biggest limiting factors in the sport; you're much better off using the run to practice/learn the rest of the course.

[strat61caster]

I've seen some people get blacklisted before, straight up, no you're not running with us again, period. Depends on the group depends on the circumstances.

Maybe whoever headed up safety had a conversation with the guy, he knew what he did wrong was apologetic and there was confidence it wouldn't happen again, we all have bad days. Maybe someone oblivious just needs a talking to, a few runs of time out to cool down, maybe someone needs to just go home early, every scenario is different.

[Locust]

The only times you come straight off course:

1. Mechanical that would potentially make a mess of the course with fluid/oil if you stayed on it (proceed to side of course as fast as possible).

2. There's no way for you to finish the course due to: a.) Hazard somewhere between you and finish. b.) Someone demolished the finish + lights and there are workers all over trying to fix it (DO NOT drive through finish).

3. You lose your brakes. Turn off car immediately and coast it to a stop whereever you can.

4. You red lit in the challenge at a pro solo.

This is just general guidelines for regional level stuff but at a national course there are specific rules to follow with regards to this. I've seen someone drive straight off the course before but that was a very special circumstance where he uses hand controls and his brake stopped working. As always, it's at the discretion of a safety steward whether to lambast you or not. Of course... some clubs don't even have that position. SCCA always does though.

[Pat]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

I've seen some people get blacklisted before, straight up, no you're not running with us again, period. Depends on the group depends on the circumstances.

Maybe whoever headed up safety had a conversation with the guy, he knew what he did wrong was apologetic and there was confidence it wouldn't happen again, we all have bad days. Maybe someone oblivious just needs a talking to, a few runs of time out to cool down, maybe someone needs to just go home early, every scenario is different.

Yep, we had a guy in NASA briefly that was kicked out of SCCA. He didn't last long in NASA, either, because he couldn't seem to follow rules and keep his ego in check. Safety is non-negotiable in my opinion.

[cueball89]

I agree with you totally ^. This was an scca event, I'd hope he was at least chewed out by the safety steward. With it being his last run of the day you couldn't really penalize him other than dq his earlier runs, or ban him from future events.

[FX86]

he just took a shortcut or maybe he had to go to the restroom real bad

[xwd]

A couple of events ago I had a new guy in front of me on course who was completely lost. He was headed right for me at one point so I just turned around and drove off course through the timing lights ahead of him. I did get a rerun.