Request to consider some options for the Autocross program.

Gwen Habenicht · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:52 am

OK, in the vein of sounding like "change sucks" here I'll play Devil's Advocate.

Graham Jagger wrote:

Ok so I'm thinking of getting back into AX. So I was wondering if the officers would consider a couple of options:

1a./
Offer an optional entry where you pay double the fees to not have to work.
Run and leave. Points count in standings. The person registering choose which shift they want to run.
This has the potential of ending up with more money in the pot, and fewer workers. Ultimately, those who only wish to pay the normal fee, or who have season passes could end up doing twice as much work. Fewer workers shagging more cones, etc. Capping the concept by making it 3 per event, etc, would be a nightmare to keep track of, I suspect.

1b./
Offer the option where a person can pay someone elses entry fees or somthing to work their shift.
Allow posting in the AX section or email list that entrants are on.
I know some people do their SOs shift for them. Maybe some people wouldn't mind doing 2 shifts to get out of paying entry fees and such.
Perhaps this has potential, I don't know. However, this thread was started because Graham prefers NOT to work at all, which is probably the more popular desire. You'd have to trust that your partner would work twice, and if he/she didn't both the payer and the worker would lose their points. Meanwhile, someone would be working 2X as hard.

2a./
I'd also like to ask about doing split-day event where people can sign up and work/run 1/2 or 3/4 shift.
That way it is only 1/2 day for people who don't want to be there all day.
In theory this sounds like a good idea, until July and August. How many people would actually sign up to run/work the afternoon heats?
2b./
Allow people to pay a premium to sign up and work/run specific shifts of their choosing, ie, 1/2 or 3/4.
They still work and run but don't run with their run group.
You assign them to run 1 work 2 or vice-versa to balance out the run/work groups.
Same as 2a. Except, isn't this supposed to be a competition where, at least for the most part, you run with your class, compete, heckle, talk smack, talk cars, talk autox, etc. Also, this is supposed to be, in part, a social event where like minded people share, one day a month, the sport that brought them together.

Honestly I don't want to work chasing cones. Partly lazy, but mostly the running/bending is a physical issue.
I won't ever be running again so chasing cones isn't very realistic.
Graham, I understand your situation with your back. That's a special circumstance. But, I will say that for the noob-at least the first couple of years-shagging cones is one of the best ways to watch what drivers are doing and become a better autoxer.

I'd also like to be able to only use 1/2 of my day doing AX. Since it really comes down to about 5 minutes of
driving/racing. I'd really like to not use up my whole day.

I'm not trying to be a smarta** or get the AX diehards and officers upset. I'm serious. I'd like to see the club offer some options that clubs elsewhere do. Both of the above ideas are done in other regions. So it has been done before.

If a driver prefers not to shag cones, learn to do grid (lots of interaction with other drivers), start, tech, gate, drive the bus, learn how to do timing/scoring, chair the event, or.......wait for it.......become an officer or committee chair.

I'm not trying to be a smarta** or a harda** either, but this is supposed to be an "event". Not something that you just run in, drive your car for 5 minutes and leave. I've noticed over the past couple of years more of a trend toward wanting the fun stuff, but not the work stuff. At the last meeting we discussed trying to bring more members into the club for better participation. All of above suggestions foster non-participation. That's why the same 22-28 folks show up every month to the meetings. In a club with over 300 members we should be exploding out of our meeting room.

:soap:

OK, I'm off the soapbox.
I know I'm probably going to get blasted for writing this, but it's just more food for thought.

PS
I get that Bernie and I don't have kids in school, soccer, etc, and because we do this together it's a fun day for us.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 11:45 am

I have to say I'm not a big proponent of any of these options. In regard to supporting Gwen's and Donnie's statements, we ALWAYS try to work w/ folks that may have circumstances that come into play at any event. I certainly don't want to publicize any of these as options going forward for worker assignments.

To Steve's statement, and as worker coordinator, it becomes a hassle to make sure the subs are covered and accounted for, but it could be done. That would need to be worked out by Graham, his sub and Steve or Jennifer.

We can certainly accommodate the occasional need to run a 1/2 day. We can also accommodate needs and place workers in non impact assignments such as T&S and start or gate.

Dustin echos my concern in one of his comments. This really depends on the amount of workers we have. Our events can have drivers run old school or all at once. Numbers drive this decision and we don't know what format until we have all drivers accounted for.

Bottom line is we need people as much as we need the money to keep the club viable and keep events running as smoothly as possible.

I'd like to work on this as an event by event situation and not make a blanket statement for worker options.

Graham, I'd really like to see you back out on course and we'll work w/ you however we can. Let's go event by event for now and see how that works out.

jimpastorius · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:15 pm

Graham Jagger wrote:

Honestly I don't want to work chasing cones. Partly lazy, but mostly the running/bending is a physical issue.
I won't ever be running again so chasing cones isn't very realistic.

I'd also like to be able to only use 1/2 of my day doing AX. Since it really comes down to about 5 minutes of driving/racing. I'd really like to not use up my whole day.

Graham...I wish you had left off a couple of these sentences :-)

I dislike the idea of an official buy your way out of working concept. It strikes me as being elitist. One nice aspect of AX, you never know who you might meet while working.

But if you want to strike an under the table deal with someone, that is fine in my book. But you assume the risks and would have to man up when the deal goes south.

Another tact, is to talk privately with the officers to get one of the non-shagging positions...and there are a lot of those (another discussion). I think you would be look upon favorably by attending the meetings, volunteering for non-event happenings (EV Challenge for example). Hell, even volunteer to for an event chair.

I believe the DC region has the split day to try and accommodate all of the participants. I heard over 300 drivers per event. I remember Shawn and I discussing the possibility of having to go to the DC format back when we were approaching 200 participants. I think the logistics would not work with the current level.

A track weekend is probably $150 per day and you do not have to work. I guess the question is how much would a day of AX be worth if you had paid cone shaggers? Would people be willing to pay $80-$90 for the day? I doubt it.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:40 pm

Gwen Baake wrote:

I'm not trying to be a smarta** or a harda** either, but this is supposed to be an "event". Not something that you just run in, drive your car for 5 minutes and leave. I've noticed over the past couple of years more of a trend toward wanting the fun stuff, but not the work stuff. At the last meeting we discussed trying to bring more members into the club for better participation. All of above suggestions foster non-participation. That's why the same 22-28 folks show up every month to the meetings. In a club with over 300 members we should be exploding out of our meeting room.

For whatever it's worth - which is nothing, really - I think your post is 100% on point.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 12:43 pm

Karl Shultz wrote:

Gwen Baake wrote:

I'm not trying to be a smarta** or a harda** either, but this is supposed to be an "event". Not something that you just run in, drive your car for 5 minutes and leave. I've noticed over the past couple of years more of a trend toward wanting the fun stuff, but not the work stuff. At the last meeting we discussed trying to bring more members into the club for better participation. All of above suggestions foster non-participation. That's why the same 22-28 folks show up every month to the meetings. In a club with over 300 members we should be exploding out of our meeting room.

For whatever it's worth - which is nothing, really - I think your post is 100% on point.

X2

The old saying used to be: If you do this for the 4-5 minutes of seat time, you are missing out.

Matt McGrain · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:20 pm

There's nothing more we'd love to see this year than an increase in attendance with returning and new folks along with a new venue - keep chatting it up with that co-worker with the sports car and your eyes peeled everyone btw.

However, I think this would be one of those slippery slope topics because I'm sure there are other folks that would also want to do the same thing. I'll admit, I've had an occasional day where I just couldn't get into the groove for whatever reason or couldn't find the course and just wanted to go home and ride the bike.

It kind of seems like a First Class ticket to the autocross and I don't think that's a road we want to travel down, even if it was more than double the normal entry fee.

One word of encouragement to get back out is that we have several Sanford events and ::knocks on wood:: finished a few events pretty early last year even with decent attendance. Obviously you can't plan to be home to catch the game at 4:30 but it's often a possibility to think about.

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:03 pm

Ryan Holton wrote:

Karl Shultz wrote:

Gwen Baake wrote:

I'm not trying to be a smarta** or a harda** either, but this is supposed to be an "event". Not something that you just run in, drive your car for 5 minutes and leave. I've noticed over the past couple of years more of a trend toward wanting the fun stuff, but not the work stuff. At the last meeting we discussed trying to bring more members into the club for better participation. All of above suggestions foster non-participation. That's why the same 22-28 folks show up every month to the meetings. In a club with over 300 members we should be exploding out of our meeting room.

For whatever it's worth - which is nothing, really - I think your post is 100% on point.

X2

The old saying used to be: If you do this for the 4-5 minutes of seat time, you are missing out.

I don't agree with any of that. That is YOUR definition of an event. So, for those who don't share the same definition of what an event is, th only option is to stay at home, or go beg to an officer, and then have your competitors talk crap about you because you're getting special treatment and are allowed to do something outside of the norm. And don't say it doesn't happen, I've seen it personally happen.

Having been in this club for over 10 yrs now, the standard answer of "it's not broken" is getting a bit routine. It would be nice to have a discussion like this where the answer isn't "deal with it". How about working with Graham (or some other poor sap) to put together a test run and see how it works out?

As for getting new members (or even old members), I don't agree that what Graham is proposing would foster "non-participation". We're talking about autocrossing here. I assume the goal of that discussion was to get more people to attend autocrosses. Not social events or meetings. And that's not meant as an attack against social events and meetings, but let's step back and remember what got you involved in this in the first place.

Did you do an internet search for places to hang out and talk about cars, or did you search for ways to race your car? Think about it from that perspective and consider what it would take to get people involved who are on the fence about it.

Charlie Monroe · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:19 pm

Graham Jagger wrote:

1b./
Offer the option where a person can pay someone elses entry fees or somthing to work their shift.
Allow posting in the AX section or email list that entrants are on.
I know some people do their SOs shift for them. Maybe some people wouldn't mind doing 2 shifts to get out of paying entry fees and such.
.

Skydiving had some similarities to autocross in that we spent all day at the airport and were only actually freefalling for a few minutes a day. After each jump, you needed to repack your chute which most people do not like to do (similar to course work).

Some enterprising individuals started offering to pack parachutes for others for a few bucks. It became a popular and profitable enough option that most venues now offer a packing service. Drop off your gear after a jump and pick it up later.

There are probably lots of people that would work your shift (or multiple shifts) if it was profitable enough. As in skydiving, you would only "hire" someone if you trust that they are capable and will do a good job.

I'm not sure that allowing this is a good idea, but there are probably those that would autocross more if it were an option.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:20 pm

But working and paying $20 to 'race your car' is a pretty damn good deal to me. The entry fee would be a LOT higher if there was no aspect of required work.

Anyway as much as I got into this to 'race your car', it sure wouldn't be as fun if I didn't get to BS with everyone all day and talk crap about Mustangs and FS mullet wigs.

Charlie, I think a lot of people are in agreement that 1b is pretty reasonable and can be handled by the participants and the participants only. And we will just follow the policy that if person A's sub (person B) doesn't show up for persona A's work, then person A doesn't get official times and has to work 2 times next event.

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:36 pm

Jason Mauldin wrote:

It would be nice to have a discussion like this where the answer isn't "deal with it".

I really didn't see that as the answer given. The club has ALWAYS worked with folks with disabilities. Rodney even opened the door to work with Graham on paying someone else to do his work. That's hardly "deal with it"

As for the split scheduling aspect that is a bit tougher.

Current event schedule

Registration: 8:30 - 9:30
Drivers' Meeting: 9:45
First Car Off: 10:15

Most of the time things wrap up at about 4pm and everything is packed up and off the site by 5:30-6pm

Let's split it up into 2- 50 car heats with a 60 second course

Registration: 8:30 - 9:30
Drivers' Meeting: 9:45
First Car Off: 10:15

In an absolute perfect world running 4 runs nets out to 3 hours 20 mins per heat.

So session 1 is from 10:15 to 2pm

Most session 2 folks will probably want to walk the course + another round of registration so you probably wont be able to start until 3pm

That finishes up around 6:20pm, you now have half the potential "helpers" to clean and pack up things so its look an awful lot like almost 8pm before everyone is off site.

Sooo that means you either need to start earlier or stay later.That's alot to ask of the volunteers/officers.

Donnie Barnes · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 2:56 pm

The split event only works if the event is *big*. I'm not sure TH has any events getting enough competitors to qualify. As for the officers, well, you have to find a way that only those who REALLY want to be there all day are there all day, otherwise there's pretty much a complete hand-off in the middle and there's nobody that HAS to be there all day. Otherwise it's a non-starter, IMHO.

As for starting earlier, well, here's my take on that...I went to a lot of National events relative to the amount of TH events I've done, and because of that, at every TH event I always ended up sitting around for about an hour in the morning going "can we get this thing started? what the hell is taking so long?" Then I'd realize it wasn't time to start yet. And I'd wonder "why the hell do we start so late?" Seriously, there's zero reason for the 10:15 start time that I've ever seen. You could start at 9am and VERY few people would need to get their any earlier than they are getting there now. VERY few. Maybe I'm nuts, but that's my recollection, anyway.

I know, maybe I should just show up an hour later than I was showing up. *sigh*

--Donnie

JamesShort · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:12 pm

Even if a split event seems highly unlikely, I'm with Donnie on starting early: 9-9:15

.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:16 pm

FYI when Pro Solo started the entrants didn't work since it was "Pro". The "sponsoring" club or SCCA region was expected to provide the workers.

When I first started autocrossing in Northern California most events were under a Northern California Sports Car Council. Club members from the sponsoring marque clubs provided all the workers for the events they hosted. When one of the clubs you were a member of hosted an event (typically two per year) you worked all day except during your run group. It was a fair trade under the circumstances of the times and the size of the sites (we ran multilap runs).

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:19 pm

I'm all for starting earlier, I usually get to the sites around 7am (its just habit plus I would be up early regardless)

Well since we are talking about improvements, here is one that has been rubbing me for awhile.

Why are we so secretive?

Passwords to read the newsletter
Passwords to get into events

Facts are facts, autocross attendance for THSCC is on a DOWNWARD trajectory. *OLD FART ALERT* I remember back in 1998 or 1999 if you weren't a member you had to PRAY the get into an event. I know why the password to register was created it just seems rather outdated now.

As for the newsletter, what if someone seeking out motorsports entertainment googled and found the H&T, they might read it and think that we sound kinda cool and it might inspire them to show up to an event.

*Flame suit on*

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Thu Jan 20, 2011 3:31 pm

Donnie Barnes wrote:

And I'd wonder "why the hell do we start so late?" Seriously, there's zero reason for the 10:15 start time that I've ever seen.

While I agree with you Donnie, in my experience getting people to show up earlier would be a miracle. You would be surprised at how many people like to get to the site as late as humanly possible.

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