NICE JOB PSCC!

[Steve Eguina]

Hi Gang!

Well run event.....very nice course........and I'm sure the first group appreciated it was cleaned prior to their runs :gpower:

Thanks again for a fun day! Steve

[Mako Koiwai]

Really like the course! Those mid course sweepers were challenging ...

Thanks for getting the course cleaned up before the first run group.

Did anyone think it was a bit too long? Were the workers spread out a bit too thin? Since we're doing the next El Toro course, we wanted some feedback ...

[Bob Pl]

Really like the course! Those mid course sweepers were challenging ...

Thanks for getting the course cleaned up before the first run group.

Did anyone think it was a bit too long? Were the workers spread out a bit too thin? Since we're doing the next El Toro course, we wanted some feedback ...

A well designed course (as this was) will be worker friendly. I worked area 1 for 2nd group & a few cars pushed out thru the wall and clipped the end cone, one driver got 3 plus one more for a bonus as he reentered. But really not overly busy there.

As I recall the divisional was pretty long.

OTOH a long course + champ + worker "clumping" will end up with many reruns.

A little birdie told me that some Z shoppin might be goin on.

[Mike Simanyi]

Really like the course! Those mid course sweepers were challenging ...

Thanks for getting the course cleaned up before the first run group.

Did anyone think it was a bit too long? Were the workers spread out a bit too thin? Since we're doing the next El Toro course, we wanted some feedback ...

Thanks for the compliment Mako. Do you still think it was similar to the PCA course now that you drove it?

Those sweepers were for Toby. He requested a canyon run and I think they were a blast. There was lots of room to really screw up yet not take down cones, but your times were wiped out by the error.

I think the course was a bit long but I was married to a couple elements at both ends and didn't want to cut them.

Mako, I think it can work well in that space if the course has lots of runoff room so the workers aren't scrambling on cones. The big tip I can give you is to go with 5 worker stations though. With the default 4 on our worksheets, it makes for a very large amount of turf each workstation has to cover.

Also, plan to line the course for the Championship. We have two liners now so two people can team up and get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

Mike

[Kurt Rahn]

Also, plan to line the course for the Championship. We have two liners now so two people can team up and get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

+1 The lining really helped as I tried to show a couple novices how to follow the course and not get lost.

[Paul Wehrman]

Really liked the long course. Any long course will be difficult to work. Worked section 1 group 4, it was a long work group but only reset 5 cones! Loved the sweepers in middle of course but couldn't go fast there. 180 turns in section 1 and 4 were hard to go fast but were easy to work as nobody knocked those cones down. Great course and look forward to next one at El Toro.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

Mako, I think it can work well in that space if the course has lots of runoff room so the workers aren't scrambling on cones. The big tip I can give you is to go with 5 worker stations though. With the default 4 on our worksheets, it makes for a very large amount of turf each workstation has to cover.

Also, plan to line the course for the Championship. We have two liners now so two people can team up and get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

Mike

and DO set up everything you possibly can and get everything ready you can on the practice day. Try to never say, "we'll just do that in the morning on Sunday."

Try and do what Tom Berry does for the Pro, pick good chiefs who know what they are doing for each post and make sure they know what they are in charge of doing. They should have no job other than being chief of their section, otherwise they are much more likely to forget to do something. ie. in the best case scenario chief of workers needs to know how the groups are going to be workerwise sunday and needs to get everything ready that the workers will need on Sunday by Saturday afternoon (worker sheets, etc).

Assign a Grid chief who should have the grid ready to go on Saturday evening, shouldn't have any job other than setting up the grid and preferably should run in the afternoon if they are going to reset the grid Sunday morning so they aren't getting their car ready and registering.

Do have someone who has been a worker chief before doing your worker checkin, worker checkin can set the tone for the entire day and can effect every other chief in one way or another.

Post a map of the course on the side of the motorhome with worker stations and the boundaries for those stations drawn on it.

Another thing I learned from Tom, Aggressively Recruit your workers, don't just ask for volunteers, you know who's good and who you can trust, ask them to do the job you know they will do well, even if you know they haven't done it before. Make sure they know you are putting your trust in them because you know they can get the job done, and you know they won't let you down.

[Kurt Rahn]

Great list, Aaron. I wish I'd known a couple of those things for our event. They got filed under "live and learn."

[Webster Jessup]

I had no idea what I was missing. Thanks Mike for introducing me, and good seeing you again Ekstrand. I should have been autoxing since college. This was my first autox event ever and I have to say thanks to everyone who contributes to making these events happen. Good ethics on everyone working. I like how the whole system works.

I know I new to this, but some things I saw during the event were:

1) Too many x-runs. They should be limited to the end of the day like a group 7 if this happens quite often.

2) I hear that this was a long course and based on other event times, IT IS! I don't think the groups worked well. There were fast cars ending up catching the slower cars and re-running 2-3 times. I worked grid 4 at the end and when the cars catch up to each other and the slower one knocks a cone down, workers don't have enough time to put back the cone before the fast guy comes around -> re-runs again.

3) Allow space for Novice drivers. The starting guy should wait a bit for the next car if a Novice driver is out. This is probably what messes up the groups.

4) Along with what Aaron said about the grids being clearly separated so workers and chiefs know what they are responsible for; there also needs to more print outs of the works grids.

Thanks again everyone,
Web

[Steve Ekstrand]

Great to see you come out to an event Web!

I found the PERFECT car for you!
http://sccaforums.com/forums/thread/325291.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Webster Jessup]

Great to see you come out to an event Web!

I found the PERFECT car for you!
http://sccaforums.com/forums/thread/325291.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

LOL, I already have plans for my own hatch to compete in SM, but first I'm gonna aim for STX and see how that goes with the stock motor before I swap it and go SM.

My car already has integra brakes, so I kinda have to start in STX. No problem though. I love a challenge, HAHAHA.

[Bob Beamesderfer]

I know I new to this, but some things I saw during the event were:

1) Too many x-runs. They should be limited to the end of the day like a group 7 if this happens quite often.

That would raise other complications.

[Bob Pl]

I know I new to this, but some things I saw during the event were:

1) Too many x-runs. They should be limited to the end of the day like a group 7 if this happens quite often.

That would raise other complications.

Agree,

x runs need to be spread around & most clubs are doing an ok to good job.

[Webster Jessup]

Agree,
x runs need to be spread around & most clubs are doing an ok to good job.

Well, like I said, only if it happens quite often.

Also, PAX seams to be a large group so they should only be group with a few others. Novice is a big group, but they are spread out which is fine. I don't think PAX should be spread out as it would lose the competitive feeling.

I also noticed that the run-work schedule was not efficient at all. Groups 1,2,4,and 5 all had work immediately following their runs. It should be arranged so that there is a minimum one group gap between runs and work. That way workers can be ready to go and same with the cars.

Run Work
1 3
2 5
3 1
L
4 6
5 2
6 4

[John Fendel]

I also noticed that the run-work schedule was not efficient at all. Groups 1,2,4,and 5 all had work immediately following their runs. It should be arranged so that there is a minimum one group gap between runs and work. That way workers can be ready to go and same with the cars.
Run Work
1 3
2 5
3 1
L
4 6
5 2
6 4

Your interest and suggestions are good. However, we try to allow people to either run and work in the morning or afternoon (some people do have a life outside Solo). When we used to have larger turnouts (300+), we split the groups so there were 4 in the morning and afternoon. Then we were able to allow a group in between working and running. With the smaller turnouts we have been having lately, that just isn't possible. If the turnouts increase, we will do that again.

[Steve Ekstrand]

We do have the problem that we seem to need more and more and more entrants to get enough workers.
Back out X runs and we had over 200 entrants with 6 groups.
Yet we were still calling out a worker shortage a couple of times?
That should not happen. 200+ is the territory where you can start considering an 8 group breakout.

[Aaron Goldsmith]

I also noticed that the run-work schedule was not efficient at all. Groups 1,2,4,and 5 all had work immediately following their runs. It should be arranged so that there is a minimum one group gap between runs and work. That way workers can be ready to go and same with the cars.

The reason people had to work right before they ran was because they moved some of the groups around for this event to make the worker load more even. That should be fixed by the next event, the board just needs to permanently move a couple classes around which will move their work groups and even things out. I agree running right after working isn't fun.

[Rick Brown]

I had no idea what I was missing. Thanks Mike for introducing me, and good seeing you again Ekstrand. I should have been autoxing since college. This was my first autox event ever and I have to say thanks to everyone who contributes to making these events happen. Good ethics on everyone working. I like how the whole system works.

I know I new to this, but some things I saw during the event were:

1) Too many x-runs. They should be limited to the end of the day like a group 7 if this happens quite often.

2) I hear that this was a long course and based on other event times, IT IS! I don't think the groups worked well. There were fast cars ending up catching the slower cars and re-running 2-3 times. I worked grid 4 at the end and when the cars catch up to each other and the slower one knocks a cone down, workers don't have enough time to put back the cone before the fast guy comes around -> re-runs again.

3) Allow space for Novice drivers. The starting guy should wait a bit for the next car if a Novice driver is out. This is probably what messes up the groups.

4) Along with what Aaron said about the grids being clearly separated so workers and chiefs know what they are responsible for; there also needs to more print outs of the works grids.

Thanks again everyone,
Web

Thanks for the feedback Web. Things that new people see are important to us. In this case, we have already discussed those issues and others, on the private Executive board. These are things we come up against periodically and sometimes there simply isn't an easy fix at the time it occurs. Part of being an all volunteer organization with varying groups of people putting on events. But feel free to continue giving us feedback, it helps to make us better (and eventually gets you nominated for a Board position ).

[Mako Koiwai]

Radio people need to take it upon themselves to make sure that their newbie workers have a clue to what's going on ... especially when the workers are spread out on a long course. When I was out shooting, my spotter Karen was constantly distracted by having to remind the worker at the "lane change" between the last two turn arounds that he had a down cones. That it's NOT a DNF if the cone is still in the box and real DNF's have to be signaled right away. He also didn't understand what was going on when Jeff Wong almost came to a stop because he was catching up to the person ahead of him. Jeff pointed at the car ahead of him and then continued on. But the worker never signaled a re-run ... so Jeff didn't get his earned re-run. He was clearly distracted by the slow car ahead of him.

Also, the Chief of Worker needs to remind the Starter to pay attention to who is a newb, especially when he's followed by one of our fast regulars.

Again, that issue contributed to the time problems at the end of the day. Together with a couple of unusually slow worker change overs we ended up in a time crunch that doesn't necessarily reflect badly on our money earning X Runs.

[John Edwards]

Nice course once the Fiat got running, sorry about the game delay. The throttle cable stop slipped on my first stop and the jesus clip that holds the throttle rod to the bellcarnk fell off later in the run. Lots of 3rd gear action for the little Sedan. With the new head I was able to reach right up to 9000 rpms!

Sessions seemed a bit long w/X-runs and two-driver cars, but hey... I'm not complaining!!!

JE...