Feedback Championship Event #1

[fc-racer]

Hi all,

Please take a moment to provide feedback, both positive and constructive in regards to today's first Championship event of 2003.

Thank you all for coming out and racing with us in a very fast paced day, we truly appreciate it!

The official results will be posted soon.

[Sead]

Well run event. Good length course, fun design, flowed well. Worker changeovers were very quick, but same old problem of workers not coming out in the afternoon. The communication from the stations to timing/scoring was terrible at times. I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of cone calls were missed.
The last problem was not knowing what to do since we were done by 3! I'm used to everything wrapping up at 5pm... Good work guys!

[Race Miata]

I'm glad that we finally got a chance to implement the 4-run-group idea we've suggested last year. With Richard's excellent job of COW and everybody else's cooperation, run group switchovers were quick. I think if we can have one PA speaker facing the pit area, it'll be more effective to get all course workers out ready for switchover.

With 4 smaller run groups compared to 3 bigger ones, we're able to use more space for a longer course which means longer possible overlap. Even with 110+ competitors and 40s runs, we managed to finish so early. I can see that 50s run is feasible.

The course was fun with fast sections that didn't seem so. I think that separated great drivers from really great drivers like Damon. Congrats on your FTD, Damon! After finally getting a pretty fast run for the day in the afternoon on drier pavement, I realized there were places that I could've pushed harder even in the drizzle.

[arthurc]

I had a great day, except that the rain came at all the wrong times for my all wheel drive. Everything seemed to run very smoothly, and the early finish must really be an indication of how well things went. On the communications side, I agree that there's probably some room for improvement there. I've worked with META in the past, and I do realize that it's probably not feasible to have in-depth training when there's so little time and so many workers.

I think that what may help would be if the responsibilities of the person working the radio at timing were better defined. Here's a starting point, and I do know a lot of timing-radio workers do this already:

1. Perform radio checks with all stations prior to starting runs
2. Acknowledge receipt of incoming cone/DNF calls
3. Verbally forward "hold next car" requests to starter
4. Anything else???

Maybe all this could be put onto a reference sheet to be given to the timing radio person... Just some thoughts.

Art.

1999.5 Audi A4 1.8TQMS

[Sead]

At the Boeing site in Washington, they had a laminated instruction sheet posted at all the stations. They included brief but very good info about working at that particular station.

Do our starters have a radio?

[Race Miata]

I think the problem with communicating cone counts lies within the radios themselves. Some cheap FRS radios these days have really bad audio quality (or maybe RF quality). The Uniden (white/light-blue) ones are especially bad. I worked the cone count position on saturday and many times I had to guess what words were coming in from the workstations and/or watch from the timing tent how many cones were picked up by the workers. I specifically asked the workers not to speak too close to the mic but no help. Maybe they couldn't even hear my instructions.

[dov]

I it would have been cool to see 5 runs/person I think that that could have been done with the new 4 run group setup. and we probably would have still finished around 4:20 if that was tried.

[Audi200tq]

According to CACC rules, championship events can only have 4 official runs. Anything after that would be considered a fun-run.

[Cliffy]

Originally posted by Audi200tq:
According to CACC rules, championship events can only have 4 official runs. Anything after that would be considered a fun-run.

Actually there's no maximum number of runs specificed by the rules. There's is only a minimum of 2 runs to make it 'official' for scoring. Run limits are usually specified in Supplementary Regs or by decision of event chiefs at the drivers meeting.

See: CACC SER 5.8.D & E

[Cliffy]

Originally posted by Race Miata:
I think the problem with communicating cone counts lies within the radios themselves. Some cheap FRS radios these days have really bad audio quality (or maybe RF quality). The Uniden (white/light-blue) ones are especially bad.

Yep, the Uniden's are not as good as the Motorola units. Plus we should be refreshing the batteries more often on all our radios (oops). I think what we'lll do in the future is use the Motorola's for on-course duties and the Unidens for pit/grid and Start/finish areas.

-c.

[Mike-L]

The event ran very smoothly. The four run groups seemed to speed up changeover considerably. Probably should allow a little more room for grid, though. There was barely enough room, even with the smaller groups.

The course was quite fun and drove a lot faster than I thought it would when I walked it. The limiting factor seemed to be keeping up with all the squiggles. The car didn't have a problem, I did. Reflexes aren't what they use to be.

Thanks to everyone for a great event!

--Mike

[Sead]

Originally posted by Cliffy:
Yep, the Uniden's are not as good as the Motorola units. Plus we should be refreshing the batteries more often on all our radios (oops). I think what we'lll do in the future is use the Motorola's for on-course duties and the Unidens for pit/grid and Start/finish areas.

-c.

I dunno about that either. There is a lot of noise in the background at the timing tent/start area. When the starter did pick us up on Sunday, his/her replies were not understandable.

[Race Miata]

Originally posted by Sead:
When the starter did pick us up on Sunday, his/her replies were not understandable.

As least we can yell between tent and starter. Don't think I'll want to yell at the workers out on the course.

[aglover]

So what happened to Peter Scheck's 240z? I noticed that he DNF'd run 2 and doesn't have any further results...

[B2L2]

Originally posted by dsp240:
So what happened to Peter Scheck's 240z? I noticed that he DNF'd run 2 and doesn't have any further results...

I believe Peter didn't run in the afternoon session. I saw him packed up his stuff after the morning session.

- Brian