THSCC Forums

I want to personally thank all the workers who braved the heat, Fire ants, heat, no seeums, and heat during their shift. We were very tight on workers on a long course and I know that you were stretched thin. Also, thank you for responding promptly to the calls for workers.

I want to give a special shout out to all the 4th shift workers who were especially thin and had to be out there a long time. You all went out and just pitched in so the 4th heat drivers did not have to shag their own cones.

Another BIG shout out goes to several people who pitched in from their other duties VOLUNTEERED to work during heat 4. This includes Gwen Bakke (Worked 1 shift + her officorial duties), Bernie Bakke (worked 2 shifts), Mitch Moore (Nov Coordinator and worked a shift). These folks all volunteered to work knowing how thin we were so that the event didn't slow down.

Finally, thanks to Mo Monroe for the use of her bike.

Rob

I too want to thank everyone involved in making this work. Especially my Scoring Team! You all are the best!! MaliaFredrickson, Mike Whitney, Adam Breakey, Robert Plank, Kevin Butler, Art McDonald, new comer Rob Harvey, Les Davis and Jeff Eng. Thank you all for making this event successful!!

Rodney, I PROMISE to have you working in the bus next time!! If I forget, slap me upside the head!!!!!

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Also a thank you to the youngest helper out there - Cameron the Announcer! Great work!

He did a FANTASTIC job. He was very clear and understandable. Has he considered a career in broadcasting? heh

Speaking as one of the 4th heat workers, I can DEFINATELY say it was H - O - T. I'm currently in the market for the LARGEST Sombrero known to man. Maybe get some THSCC-logo'd Sombrero's for the summer events? Marcus will have the biggest hat no longer.

All the red flags and re-runs, which were a necessity due to the spacing of so few workers as well as the multiples of cones that seemed to be getting trashed at one time, made the heat last even longer.

I can't thank THSCC enough for all of the water that was supplied.

THANKS!

Maybe we need to revisit the run groups to try and even out the heats. It may mean not knowing for sure what classes run together, but we can get a pretty good tally during the last week before the event. We can then set up the run groups so that the number of drivers is roughly equal. This is not so important at small courses like Danville or Greenville, but comes into play at Sanford and Laurinburg which tend to be long and are spaced out to need a lot of worker stations.

Also we might want to think about changing the run order occasionally so the Stock classes TIR etc run 2 & 4 and the mods, sp, etc run 1 & 3

Just a thought......

I think the split we have now *generally* works. When I was Work Co-ordinator though, I always broke all the pre-registered folks out that Thursday or Friday night before the event just to do a sanity check. Occasionally it made sense to push one or two classes here or there to even things up. I don't think you need to change the way we split it up overall, but minor changes here and there should work.

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Stephen Westerfield
2009 Infiniti M35 | 2007 Honda Fit Sport | 2005 Ford Mustang GT |2000 GMC Sierra |1992 Acura Integra LS | Super Westerfield Bros Acura Integra

I "think" that AXWare can do this for you, before or after registration. The problem is that it may not group classes the way that we're used to.

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In need of car.

Re - the class splits.

I came up with the original "Stock, TIR, X" split in 2003 (?) after looking at a few years of data. Every event balanced out +/- 15 cars.

I think today there are fewer TIR and more LAD.

Perhaps just putting LAD in group #1 would do the trick. If I had time I'd pull all the results files and check. Anyone care to do that?

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

Mike,

I was going to start a new thread, but you’ve set me up so well I’ll just shoot from the hip here.
Ladies ARE already in group #1. Check the website under “fixed run groups”.

Here’s my thoughts. There are several things I really like about the way we do the run groups.
1. Generally, the way one first learns to do something is what’s comfortable-and we joined THSCC first, and learned the group 1 and group 2 way of running.
2. It’s comfortable to not have to “find out” where you’re running each event.
3. It’s nice to have the basic same group of friends in grid at the same time to chat with and compare notes.

Here’s what I see as not so great.
1. Stock, Tire, X and Ladies ALWAYS clean the track.
2. About half of them end up always working 4th heat-which is clearly-at least recently-unbalanced-the longest work group with the least number of seasoned workers (who know what they’re doing.)

I kind of did the stats on this last event. In a perfect world, L’burg would have been about 49 in heats #1 and #3, and 61 in heats #2 and #4.

Ahhh, but the rub is, nothing’s ever perfect. This probably isn’t 100% accurate, but just what I observed. There were a couple of cars with 3 drivers who would have been in heat #1, but ended up spreading out over heat #1 and #2. (Understandable, so the car just doesn’t explode!) There were some Ladies from other clubs where they *run with their car class*, and if they didn’t read our web page ahead of time, or know to see the sheet of classes on the worker table, (and why would they know they even needed to ask?), ran with their run groups, which put them in group 2 instead of group 1. Then, Novices run with their run class, which this time, I think, put 3 in group 1 and 9 in group 2. So, it ended up being about 45/65, or about 20 more drivers in heats 2 and 4.

So, in approximate numbers:
Heat #1 had 90 runs.
Heat # 2 had 130 runs
Heat #3 had 135 runs (3 runs in the PM)
Heat #4 had 195 runs + all the re runs from bad calls and cones out of place.

Add to that, that heat #4 had the fewest workers spread out, and the least knowledgeable workers, makes for bad calls and start delays. I worked heat 4 and saw one gal throwing the red flag every time a car hit a cone, after that car passed her, and with no cars coming behind her. She was clearly unaware of what the red flag was for. I think someone finally got to her and explained a couple of things. She was too far away for me to go, and I was the only one at my station and busy putting cones back almost every run. But, I digress, and that’s fodder for another thread!

My point is, that perhaps it’s time to let the software choose our run order, or at least, since we run 8 points events, swap the order every other event to even out to some extent how folks run and work. Just my 2 cents worth.

Gwennie *always cleaning the track* Baake

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SCCA Solo Triad Award Recipient 2014
SCCA HSL National Champion 2012
SCCA DSL National Champion 2013
SCCA DSL National Champion 2014
NCR National Driver of the Year 2012
THSCC Heel of the Year 2011
Former Club Secretary
http://www.petscompanioninn.com

That might have to be tested before an event. Triad used this feature for a while and I believe there were issues with the software generating even groups. I think they eventually wound up doing it more or less manually or at least had to perform a sanity check on the divisions every time.

They do have 4 groups as opposed to our 2 so that may be a factor. I'll chat with Justin (Triad prez) this weekend to see if he can provide additional insight into the issue(s) and what they did to fix it.

Jim

Well....

I haven't touched AXWare in awhile but you can help it balance out the groups. Its a screen with check boxes and total at the bottom. Kinda like a spreadsheet.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

gwen's point about the worker assignments is good, I agree about switching the run groups up every once in a while, I remember back when I ran HS/TIR I always was RUNNING to the worker assignment table in the morning to make sure I didn't get stuck working the 4th heat.

About letting software decide the groups, there is something very nice about knowing what groups run when no matter what. If we go to different run groups decided by the software, we'll need to make it clear what heat we're on and what classes are in what run group. I could make a wheel. . .

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2012 MX-5 Sport SUV

It may have been as simple as that but I've never touched AXWare so I have no idea.

I remember it being an issue and they were scrambling around at the last minute to fix it a couple of times. Just wanted to give a heads up...

Jim

When we used it, we let it give us a printout of the number of people in each run group. Then we could easily pick a class (generally "X" class) and move that class to a different run group. I think we only had to do this on a few occassions, but it helped to keep the groups balanced and was doable between registration and the run group announcement at the driver's meeting.

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In need of car.

You're right Jason, AXWare can split the event for you when registration closes and also assign worker assignments. The only problem would be us giving up a little control to the computer. Right now it is nice knowing when you get to the event that if you are driving an STT car, you are running 2 & 4 95% of the time. Also, it could create problems with T&S making sure we have people where we need them.

I am willing to give it a try at an event though. Maybe the non points at the end of the year would be a good test bed.

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza