[alfabender]

Regarding the issue of whether or not to announce track configuration in advance. I speak as Bruce Colby's predecessor as Competition Director, so there's some history Bruce is not familiar with.

The tradition of not announcing the direction in advance goes back way before Bruce's time, to when Charlie Thieriot was Competition Director. He didn't want people setting their car up for one configuration or the other, he thought it gave people with adjustable suspensions etc an unfair advantage, so he'd wait till the morning of the event to make the announcement. Not even his Time Trial Director John Cote would know.

All this only applies to tracks that are reconfigurable, which pretty well narrows it down to Buttonwillow for AROSC (although I believe we may someday run at Thunderhill which I believe is also reconfigurable).

At Buttonwillow it's pretty well established that CW is much safer than CCW so I doubt that AROSC will ever run CCW again there. And, we don't use the "bus stop" for reasons Bruce mentioned earlier. And, we want to keep a fixed configuration so that track records don't get too confusing. So you can pretty much count on CW, no bus stop, and the "sweeper" at the West Loop hairpin.

As for what the general policy of AROSC will be regarding announcing track formations in advance, Bruce should probably bring this up as an item at the AROSC Competition Board meeting late this year. Knowing what I know now, I think I would recommend making the announcement in advance and let people use the information any way they can.

Doug Bender
AROSC Competition Director Emeritus