Temporary Track Change at the Last SCDA NHMS Day

So last Thursday I headed up to NHMS with the SCDA. Pretty much the entire infield was under construction, I believe so that the fencing can be updated. This meant that the Turn 1 and Turn 2 chicanes were unusable. We ran the South Oval, but a series of chicanes had been erected out of cones. I presume this was done so that people wouldn’t go into Turn 3 at extremely high speed. That braking zone can be problematic enough at the 80-100mph that people normal enter at. Were you able to carry the speed from the South Oval, entry speed would be MUCH higher, with pretty much zero room for error if you (or your brakes) fail.

There were 3 chicanes that were setup, using pretty heavy duty cones. We were warned in the driver’s meeting NOT to hit them - someone with the Porsche club had done over $10k worth of damage to their car by hitting one. (granted even if the cone caused my entire car to explode it wouldn’t come to $10k worth of damage, but the point was well taken)

The chicanes themselves were not nearly as remarkable as that they were marked with cones. People would of course drive the fastest line through the chicanes, which is right up against the edge of the track. People would then overshoot slightly and lightly tap the cones demarking the chicane. The cones would of course move all over the place when this happened, meaning the track and thus the line could change drastically over the course of each session, or even from when you entered the chicane to when you exited.

I imagine that this setup is temporary while they fix the fencing, but of course I don’t represent NHMS so we shall see. Regardless, it certainly taught you to look ahead, literally so you would know what the course looked like!