Tired of being penalized for being a single driver car!

[Art Rinner]

An alarming trend has been creeping up at the events. The two driver lines are now out numbering the single driver lines.

I just spent a very frustrating day at the event. Things were great weather was cooperating. Then all the good vibes went away once the third run group started for me. The third group was big and had two lines of two driver cars that were both larger than the two single driver line. I unfairly critical of the grid person who was being instructed on what order the cars were to be sent out. I realize now it wasn't his fault and if your reading this I'm sorry for being a PIA.

When the two driver line was a couple of cars doing that line twice to keep them up was not such a big deal, but when the two driver lines out number the single driver lines this makes for an extremely long wait between runs for the single drivers. It being a cool day I did not get a run without at least a 15 minute wait between runs and ran 3 of my 4 runs on cold tires because of that, where the two driver cars were basically hot lapping. The only run where I didn't have to wait that long was my last one because most of the two drivers were gone.

My question is why do the two driver cars have to finish at the same time as the single driver cars? Shouldn't a car that has twice as many drivers take twice as long to do their runs as a single driver car? It will not slow down the event if you allow each car to take its turn, the run group will still still send cars out at approximately 20 sec intervals, and everyone will have the exact same time between runs and it will be fair to everyone. As it stands now the two driver cars have an advantage over single driver cars, and it seems to be getting worse.

The national events don't allow this, I remember working grid at a tour and at the nationals and everyone gets their run in order. Driver 1 of car 1 will not get his second run until all of his competitors have done their first runs. Thats the way we should also do it, if we are going to be FAIR to all drivers.

So rather than just complain and not offer a solution, I have a proposal to solve this. Originally I was going to just post this in the E-Board section but not everyone has access to that.

If we are going to give out awards for competition we need to make it fair.

This is how it would work.

For each run:
Two drivers cars are sent out with first driver, the half of the single driver cars are sent out, then two driver cars are sent out with 2nd drivers and then the balance of the single drivers. This is a simple change and it makes it fair for all competitors. This would eliminated a lot of the gamesmenship and balance the playing field, and make for a MUCH more enjoyable experience for ALL. Also single drivers with X runs should run with the single driver cars and hot lap their x runs at the end of the run group, after all they are just x runs and not competition runs.

[Marshall Grice]

running the 2 driver lane twice as often as the single drivers is exactly how nationals does it. If you're a single driver car at a national event you get 1 run about every 15 mins. where as the multi driver cars get runs about half that. It is an advantage to have more than one driver in the car...thus the reason everyone does it. You are free to buy X-runs and buy your way into the multi driver lane if you feel the need to do that.

The reason we don't just let the multi driver cars all pile up until the end is at that point you cannot send them out every 20 secs. we have to allow for upto 5 mins between runs per the rules, so if you have 10 drivers left, there is going to be a lot of down time waiting for the cars to cool back down.

Ideally every car would have 2 drivers and then no one would feel like they're getting screwed and grid would be far easier to run.

[Art Rinner]

running the 2 driver lane twice as often as the single drivers is exactly how nationals does it. If you're a single driver car at a national event you get 1 run about every 15 mins. where as the multi driver cars get runs about half that. It is an advantage to have more than one driver in the car...thus the reason everyone does it. You are free to buy X-runs and buy your way into the multi driver lane if you feel the need to do that.

Marshall at Nationals you will not get your second run until everyone has completed their first run. The advantage is that the second driver will get to have hot tires on their first run. Still applies here.

[Marshall Grice]

Marshall at Nationals you will not get your second run until everyone has completed their first run. The advantage is that the second driver will get to have hot tires on their first run. Still applies here.

and the disadvantage is that the single drivers will still be waiting 15mins between runs and have "cold" tires. Same applies to the way you're proposing.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

It is probably he ability to buy and run X runs in the same group as your main runs that causes the 2 driver lane inflation. With only 4 groups we kinda need to allow this.. so I don't see a real solution while our number don't allow us to run 5 or 6 groups.

Marshall is right, 2 driver cars do run twice as often per pass at national events.

[Art Rinner]

Marshall at Nationals you will not get your second run until everyone has completed their first run. The advantage is that the second driver will get to have hot tires on their first run. Still applies here.

and the disadvantage is that the single drivers will still be waiting 15mins between runs and have "cold" tires. Same applies to the way you're proposing.

The second driver has an advantage because they only make them wait 5 minutes before before sending them out. The first driver still has to wait until all the other drivers run before they get to do their second run. Not so here. Also there are not X runs at the nationals, how would you like them allowed there that way a single driver driver can get all their runs in quickly with hot tires and if the conditions change (like rain) during the group they can also avoid that by getting their competition runs in quickly.

[Art Rinner]

Just to make my position clear, this is what I am proposing:

1: X runs are run at the end of the run group, not during competition runs.
2: Two driver cars must alternate drivers and second runs for either driver can not be made before every other driver in the run group has completed their first run.

[Jayson Woodruff]

Just to make my position clear, this is what I am proposing:

1: X runs are run at the end of the run group, not during competition runs.
2: Two driver cars must alternate drivers and second runs for either driver can not be made before every other driver in the run group has completed their first run.

Both of these are going to slow things down, maybe not always, but in plenty of situations. I know fairness is important, but so is efficiency.

Jay W

[Michael Smith]

Just to make my position clear, this is what I am proposing:

1: X runs are run at the end of the run group, not during competition runs.
2: Two driver cars must alternate drivers and second runs for either driver can not be made before every other driver in the run group has completed their first run.

Both of these are going to slow things down, maybe not always, but in plenty of situations. I know fairness is important, but so is efficiency.

Jay W

Fairness to regional members should come first.

I agree with Art's proposal.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

Just to make my position clear, this is what I am proposing:

1: X runs are run at the end of the run group, not during competition runs.
2: Two driver cars must alternate drivers and second runs for either driver can not be made before every other driver in the run group has completed their first run.

Both of these are going to slow things down, maybe not always, but in plenty of situations. I know fairness is important, but so is efficiency.

Jay W

Fairness to regional members should come first.

I agree with Art's proposal.

Well.. at what point do you stop. Actual fairness pretty much requires a national style grid with 3 grid workers, pregistration only so that printed grid sheets can be made up. you could add sweep in there too. Stopping half way seems kinda arbitrary.

[KJ Christopher]

At some point, if the two driver lines outnumber the single driver lines, the need to run the two driver lines twice as often really lessens. When one of four lines is two driver, it makes sense, as you want to spread the runs out over the group so you don't end the session on six cars basically hot-lapping. If twenty of the forty cars in a group are two-driver, we don't really have this issue. The key is having enough two-drivers that the wait time in grid is enough to rest a bit between runs.

[Jayson Woodruff]

Fairness to regional members should come first.

Sucessful events is what comes first. How you get there is debatable.

Jay W

[Art Rinner]

Just to make my position clear, this is what I am proposing:

1: X runs are run at the end of the run group, not during competition runs.
2: Two driver cars must alternate drivers and second runs for either driver can not be made before every other driver in the run group has completed their first run.

Both of these are going to slow things down, maybe not always, but in plenty of situations. I know fairness is important, but so is efficiency.

Jay W

At nationals you only have five minutes to change drivers, you will have more time than that to do it at one of our events. Should not slow down at all, and X runs at the end would not add time as the drivers who buy x runs should just do them quickly with only a couple of minutes between runs being sufficient. Might save time.

[Michael Smith]

Well.. at what point do you stop. Actual fairness pretty much requires a national style grid with 3 grid workers, pregistration only so that printed grid sheets can be made up. you could add sweep in there too. Stopping half way seems kinda arbitrary.

Increasing fairness does not.
Having drivers switch between runs is not a lot to ask.
It is not arbitrary.

[Art Rinner]

Fairness to regional members should come first.

Sucessful events is what comes first. How you get there is debatable.

Jay W

An event cannot be successful if 3/4 of the participants are not treated fairly.

[Art Rinner]

Well.. at what point do you stop. Actual fairness pretty much requires a national style grid with 3 grid workers, pregistration only so that printed grid sheets can be made up. you could add sweep in there too. Stopping half way seems kinda arbitrary.

Your not thinking out of the Box Aaron.

You just count the single driver cars, divide by two and thats all the math the grid person needs. Run the two driver line, they change drivers while first half of single drivers run, then two driver second drivers go, you know this by checking off their run sticker. Then run the balance of the single drivers while the two drivers change back to first drivers. Simple, what we are seeing here is the two driver faction trying to keep their unfair advantage.

[Davin Swanson]

Just curious: what specific rules are we bound by when setting up the grid logistics? The national rulebook? I didn't see anything specific in our local supps.

[Steve Lepper]

If you want to win, buy x-runs, get in the 2-driver lane. If you're worried about tire wear, nobody says you have to take all of them.

We may see a day (and we almost did yesterday in group 4) where all of the cars are two driver / X runs.

The only way I see to equalize that would be to adapt a "pro solo" format where you do your four runs back to back. Problem is, that is completely at odds with what we do now so would require a complete re-thinking of our process.

[Marshall Grice]

so your proposal is to make sure that multi driver cars alternate drivers? I'm not really sure I see the unfair advantage to taking two runs in a row (they should still have to wait approximately 5 mins)....the single drivers take all of their runs back to back. everything else in your proposal is already standard practice, or should be if the grid worker knows what they're doing.

Also, X-runs already have to be run at the end of the heat if they are being taken in the same heat as competition runs. And if they're not taken in the same heat as the competition runs then who cares when they go out for runs?

[Art Rinner]

If twenty of the forty cars in a group are two-driver, we don't really have this issue.

Let's look at this numerically:

40 cars, 60 drivers.
As it currently runs:
20 two driver cars go out, two lines 10 cars each.
One single driver line then goes.
2 driver line goes again, under current rules it could still be the first driver (and if your smart and want to take advantage of the rules this is what you would do and if you bought X runs this is by default the way its run) and the first car in line has waited for 30 cars to run and will get his second run. So two driver cars that have all runs done by by first driver first averages 30 cars between runs for both drivers throughout the run group.
2nd single driver goes out after the first 50 cars have run before their first run.

2nd time through
two driver line goes and 1st drivers are finishing their third run while single drivers still haven't completed second run. Still have to wait an average of 30 cars between runs.
1 driver line 1 goes next and the first driver has waited 50 cars for their second run and will have that wait until the end of the run group.
two driver goes again and 1st drivers are completing their fourth run prior to 2 single driver line who hasn't even done their second run yet.
2nd single driver line goes out for 2nd runs

Under my proposal, there will still be an advantage for 2 driver cars because the car will go more often on warm tires but the wait between runs will be equal for the drivers and you won't get a competitive advantage by buying X runs (which is totally not what we want).

[Art Rinner]

Also, X-runs already have to be run at the end of the heat if they are being taken in the same heat as competition runs. And if they're not taken in the same heat as the competition runs then who cares when they go out for runs?

When X runs are run in the same group, you get into the two driver line and take X runs at the same time as other drivers are taking competition runs.

[Art Rinner]

[quote="Marshall Grice"]so your proposal is to make sure that multi driver cars alternate drivers? I'm not really sure I see the unfair advantage to taking two runs in a row (they should still have to wait approximately 5 mins)....the single drivers take all of their runs back to back. everything else in your proposal is already standard practice, or should be if the grid worker knows what they're doing.
quote]
What if the conditions are changing during a heat. Then you can game by making the un-competitive driver take their runs in the wet and the other guy gets dry conditions. By alternating two driver car drivers everyone gets the same conditions. Not just on rain days either, not running first in the first run group is an advantage also.

[Mike Simanyi]

Art,

How do you propose to change the protocol for extremely hot days, when it will be to your disadvantage to go out frequently?

Mike

[James Yom]

well, I've been meaning to talk to the board about the way we do grid here at Cal Club. It might help alleviate this problem as well, as it would help immediately identify how many two driver and one driver cars there are. I'll start it in another thread.

[Ed Holley]

Just to make my position clear, this is what I am proposing:

1: X runs are run at the end of the run group, not during competition runs.
2: Two driver cars must alternate drivers and second runs for either driver can not be made before every other driver in the run group has completed their first run.

I'll admit that I may not be fully understanding what Art is trying to accomplish. And, further, I will admit that I may not be clear on what our local rules say regarding when each driver makes their runs in a two-driver car. But here's my view...

Single drivers pay for 4 runs (sometimes 3, but not often). And, aside from the time between runs, they get their runs back-to-back.

Two-driver cars also EACH pay for 4 runs. And, like single driver entries, they should ALSO get their runs back-to-back aside from the time between runs.

Consequently, I am NOT in favor of requiring two-driver entries to be forced to alternate between drivers after each run if that is what is being proposed. That would create an unfair advantage because that would be different than other single driver competitors. Alternating drivers between runs in two-driver cars would, and is, psychologically disruptive to what is already a tremendous mind game.

I'm not sure what alternating accomplishes anyway, as long as EVERY DRIVER gets 1 run before ANY driver gets a 2nd run regardless of single or two-driver cars.