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Event Chair Guide

Additional responsibility for the starter: The Starter should have a broom and quickly sweep off the launch area about every 15 to 20 cars.

At Laurinburg the launch area was really bad by the beginning of the 3rd heat.

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Rob Harvey
919-697-5485
1997 BMW M3
1992 Acura Integra (Simon)

While it sounds good in theory.. this has some potential problems.
The course deteriorates to some degree at various places at every site we go to. This is just the nature of the sport. If you choose to sweep the start, it should only be done at a strategic time that makes it a bit more fair and when it can be done in a repeatable manner... such as the end of each heat. Even then, the end of the heat is a subtle change that can easily go unnoticed the starter.

The problem however, is that the last car to launch in the grit gets a slower launch time than the first car after its swept. Inevitably, the starter won't remember to do it regularly and it will become a source of conflict. Sweeping it at the end of the day on a 2 day event is fine, but I think this suggestion will ultimately create more problems and hard feelings than it solves. Doing it every 15 or 20 cars will slow the event down some. But I suspect the main problem is that the starter just won't remember to do it regularly.... This one is not a slam dunk and needs to be discussed among the staff before becoming procedure. I'm also concerned about any nonessential duties we add to the starter's job that distract him from his primary role.

Don't get me wrong, I think in theory it is a good idea. I'm afraid the reality of how it gets executed will just create problems.

We need to reduce the starter's responsibility not increase it. The starter is the keystone of the running of the event. On their shoulder's rest the flow and safety of the event. That is all they should be concerned about. If T&S wants someone calling in numbers and writing a log, they should provide that person. That person can sweep the course. At National events when course workers have to keep a log at each station, that is one person's responsibility to keep a log. We should follow the same principle, if there is a log to be kept, that is a job on to itself. Not enough workers, can the log.

The crap at the start was do to being forced to drive through dirt and gravel to the start.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

If there is an area that needs sweeping, then all we need is communication. Someone needs to tell the event chairs, an officer, and maybe even timing and scoring that an area needs a broom. We'll respond by getting a broom there and doing some sweeping. Telling your nearest neighbor in grid usually won't solve the problem.

Heck, no one told us to patch the canyon at the end of the crossover sweeper, but we did that Saturday night anyhow, and much to my suprise it actually worked (the option was to change the course - trying to divert it onto better concrete).

I'm not convinced that we need a lot more rules, regulations and procedured, we need more communication, and to actually follow through on all the procedures that we have in place now.

Scott

Once y'all decide what to do, someone please post the decision back into the lessons thread

My take -- it's a tough one to decide how to communicate it. Here's a wishy-washy proposal:

EVENT CHAIR GUIDE

At gritty sites (Sanford) or places where tires will be bringing debris to the start line, place brooms at/near the areas where sweeping might be needed.

WORKER COORDINATOR RESP

Tell the workers that if there are brooms in their area, that means the course gets quite dirty in their area. During down times they should consider sweeping.

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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

my nickle (inflation yaknow):
When I've worked starts, mostly at other events starter seems to be an assigned position here, I've almost always asked for a broom at the station and swept the startline at any hold start or when it got bad by holding back the next car coming to the line for an extra 30 sec. The reason isn't to give any "advantage" to the person starting but more out of respect for those who try to maintain their car in top condition. The start line in the only place where the next car in line is in close proximity to the car starting off and should not have to endure having the front of his car sandblasted while waiting his turn to launch.

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SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

while i agree this is time consuming. breaking at heat changes for worker reassignment and course clean-up would cure a lot of ills.

it may be my novice-ness showing here but sometimes the pace @ events is maddening. i can't imagine how those with any responsibility (ie T&S) keep from losing their minds.

It only takes a trip or two to clubs that don't focus on efficient event operations to realize that the things we're stressing about here are really peripheral details. Sweeping/not sweeping the start and the like are peripheral to the critical things for smooth event operation. If the event leadership can do these 3 things people will go home happy and on time:

--Start the event on time
--Launch cars every 25-35 seconds with NO interruption
--Never stop the event for anything except timer problems, and hopefully have very few of those.

Everything else is gravy. Announcers, sweeping start, printing results each heat, etc... Even the quality of the course itself is secondary to keeping people flowing through it. (Not that I want bad course designs)

One of the things I was amazed at when chairing events for Tarheel in the past was how automatic the whole process was -- everyone involved in the event operations knew their job and there were always more than enough people involved that no one seemed overly worked. This is in stark contrast to other clubs that I've chaired at where 3-4 people ended up doing 90+% of the work and ended up bitter and burned out by the end of the season. I think it's important that THSCC as an organization try to maintain the focus on efficient operations and not get distracted into things that are very nice but are not the core product.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

I don't think altering the course (except for repairing safety issues like patching broken concrete) after the event begins can ever be executed fairly, unless you sweep the start after every car. That would be very time consuming. The area that needs to be swept is approximately 6' wide by at least 10' long, and often crosses the starting line timing lights. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to have a grippy starting area.

The starting line grit at Laurinburg looked more like sand from the concrete ground up out of the surface rather than something tracked in from the admittedly dirty approach.

Finally, I think that printing event results at the end of every heat, or more often if possible, is part of Autocross 101. Competitors deserve to know where they stand. <soapbox> When we kept scores in a notebook, scores were posted several times a heat, whenever we filled up a sheet of white stickers. </soapbox>

On the other hand, a 25-35 second launch interval tests the limits of what the T&S crew and the courseworkers can handle. Seemed like backing off to 40 seconds last Sunday really helped smooth things out and reduced the number of red flags and reruns.

Just as an FYI. At Laurinburg Rob, Ann and myself swept the course Saturday after everyone was done. We didn't do every inch of it but all the areas where there was buildup. I did the start. It wasn't rocks or pebbles. Just dirt/sand/grit. I think that is a combination of cars bringing it with them to the line and the wear on the concrete spinning tires. I beleive on Saturday We had over 500 runs. There is now way the start will stay clean. This would be true at Sanford and Danville. I would expect the only possible exclusion might be Greenville.

Personally I think the course should be as clean as we can get it to start the event. Then leave it alone unless someone can prove a safety issue. For a 2 day event then we should sweep at the end of day one.

Someone will always make out over their competitors showing up to the line after it is freshly sweeped up. If you want to balance the effect of it then rotate run groups at each event. We do 8. So Stock runs 1st at 4 events and Mod/Prep runs 1st at 4 events.

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http://www.greywinds.com

Oh believe me, I agree that printing results in a timely manner is definitely one of the most important things that need to happen during an event. I was just trying to make the point that keeping the event flowing trumps nearly all other tasks.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)