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Originally Posted by tysonK
I know you can't have like 300ft straight sections IIRC.
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It's not quite that simple. We had a straight nearly 400 ft long in our course last year, but we made sure the turn leading to it was extremely slow, allowing up to keep top speeds at the end of the straight down.
As far as the NT course. I'm guessing that course, or something very much like it, had been used before. Just no one cared about the high speeds. We've have courses that are way "too fast", but they're not necessarily "unsafe". Hell, I remember one course where I spun at about 85 mph and ended up with a rear wheel across the yellow line that separates us from the runway. IIRC, Dean spun in that same spot, twice. Was the course too fast? Yep. Was there a problem with the layout? Yep, the designers used a manuver at high speed to "keep speeds down" instead of a manuver at low speed to lower the enterance speed onto the fast section. Was the course "unsafe"? I would say no... between me and Dean, we had 3 big "offs" on that course, and the end result was just some long sliding. Would I suggest running that course again? Nope, not because it wasn't safe enough, but because it violated the charter for Solo speeds.
Another example: Hawthorne. That event every year is "famous" for its high speeds... they're probably one of the reasons the event's so popular. However, because we're afraid of things getting out of hand, and because we're afraid of Nationals killing the event for high speeds, we made a very direct effort to reduce speeds at that event. So what happened at the event? Someone ignored the gates, then made a rediculous manuver at much higher speeds than they should have been at, and hit a course worker. Was the course too fast? Nope. Was the course unsafe? Nope, it was by the book. Does shit happen? Sometimes.
My point is that a course with high speeds aren't necessarily unsafe, and that courses with lower speeds, even ones that are designed well, still can't prevent all incidents from happening.
But my guess is that at that NT event, someone had a bone to pick (seems to be pretty common in Solo at the upper levels) and noted that the course was technically too fast. They protested, and the protest was upheld, because it was a valid protest. My guess is that there wasn't anything unsafe, or the safety stewards *would* have said something about it before or shortly after the 1st runs at the event.
But then again, I wasn't there, and I too have no 1st hand knowledge of the particular situation, or the region that it was run in. All I know is what I've seen here in Reno/Sac/Atwater, which is that there are some damn fast autox courses that are perfectly safe... you should see the type of events AAX puts on... 100+ mph for the faster cars, and less intimidating than going 70 mph at Lovelock.