THSCC Forums

This was a interesting weekend indeed.

I was keep quite busy the duration of the weekend. First off, Stacy King ends up in ER with a serious eye infection Friday get's grounded for the weekend. Lucky it should heal ok with ant-biotics. "Debrie under contacts" is the apparent cause. Marty H took over for Stacy with John King
and Kevin Bulter and Adam as our backup's. We were short on the
info desk but had it manned the majority of the time.

Matt had registration well sorted out.
We ended up signing in the vast majority of the entries Sat moring
in about a hours time. No one showed up with the problematic V710
tire but we had warnings posted in both the classroom and at Registration.

What about the Rain?
The incident sheet ran 4.5 pages! However, this is typical of VIR in the
wet. Happly what was NOT typical were serious indicents involving hard
contact. We did had two light tire wall contacts resulting in scuffed bumpers, one by Travis Appleman (Don't ever lift in 10!) and the other
one of our illustrious instructors ( lucky this time?).

Good judgement on part of our students prevailed. A lot of people learned a lot about car control and crisis management. Hopefully, should they have a bigger off in the future, this experience will benifit them. ALL
three run groups got through the weekend. Our collective group
does significantly better in the rain and slick conditions than any other I
have worked with. This could be pure luck, but I believe a result of many years autocrossing for the majority.

I'm happy to say our excellent wet weather track record came close to ending a couple of times, but in the end, managed to remail
intact. For some groups this could have easily degraded into a crash fest.

The instructor group is where most of the suprises came from.
Let's run down the list of first's:
1) One parked for violation of the 2 off rule.
2) One parked perminantly and asked not to return in orther words
"a visit to the board room".
3) Car to car contact on lap 3 session one. However this was resolved
in a amicable & professional mannor by the parties involved.
4) A very interesting and informative instructor meeting on Sunday
with a positive and constructive message.

Aparently step #4 was effective. The event settle down nicely
Sunday. The rain managed to hold off just long enough for the time
trial to start.

As mentioned, One instructor did miss their run group start,
applogies given, and accepted. We all take running these events very
seroiusly and dedication to our students just as serious. Do this enough
and eventually it will happen to anyone, but a habbit it must never be.
(Like you have NEVER been late to work or school?)

As many of you saw this weekend, intructors are human too. We can
wreck cars with the best of them. We can get diciplined and even fired.

They are held to higher standards and are expected to live up to them. We have and have always had an excellent instructor core. As well as
an outstanding student body.

Let me emphaize our problem child was an instructor refereed.
I request and verify references but occationally get burned. I'm
sorry to have gotten burned again and will look into root cause .

I did very much like the way everyone pulled together to deal with
challanging track conditions, keep it fun, but keept it from geting ugly. The rain does present valuable learing experiences to offset the added
risk. Everyone drove home with a smile on their face (except perhaps
Scott Johnson, see story elewhere).

The TIme Trail was the largest run to date. The pre-arranged run
groups helped it run efficently by allowing cars to pre-grid in
run group order. No more having to constantly call cars to the grid
to keep the event runing or not sure when you turn will come.

We finished .5 hour EARLY both days! W can add more entries or add to the wait list going forward.

Thanks for all your comments and appriciation. Joel will have
results posted about mid week.

Looking forward to next event with ALFA Club at Roebling Road, and
Don't forget to sign up for ALFA Owners at VIR-S first weekend of May.
They paid extra preminum on the weather bill!

See Ya On Track!

Mark V

_________________
Mark Vitacco
THSCC TT Chairman
mvitacco@bellsouth.net

Yes, very lucky! Again, my apologies for adding to the list of incidents.

_________________
Rich
http://www.v8mongrel.com/