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The NCAC put on by Triad this year was truly a quality event. There are some things they did right that I wanted to highlight because I think we'd do well to remember them when it comes time for us to put on the show.
1) Course Design- They solicited the help from Geoff Zimmer, a national level guy who is an excellent course designer and driver. The course he designed was-
- open, and easy to follow
- used relatively few cones
- was very technical in regards to determining the fast line
- was very, very fun to drive
- resulted in very few cone hits and DNFs
I'm really sorry that more Tarheel folks weren't there. We need to borrow a page from their book for the future.
2) Launch Interval- Because they had few cones and DNFs, they had a quick launch interval. I think I heard Geoff say they were shooting for a 20 second launch interval. And ya know what, with very few cones and DNFs, it is entirely possible to run an event that way.
The entire event flow was possible because of the course design. Four runs on Saturday and five runs on Sunday, which included a 30 to 45 min break after run group 2. They still finished really early and had time for a raffle and trophies etc. without keeping people late.
3) Nice Touches- Here's a list of things that just enhanced the overall quality of the experience:
- free lunch both days (pizza and soft drinks/water)
- free T-shirts
- air conditioned bathrooms
- convenient portajons if you didn't want to walk that far
- excellent site for the event, big enough, yet not too spread out
- free parking was included after all (you had to get a pass from the officers)
- relatively short worker shifts (especially nice when it's in the 90s)
- announcing the entire time (Karen Kraus was great at that!)
- clear, easily heard FM radio signal
4) They also used a "run and get done" format, which the longer I autocross, the more I actually like. If you are not familiar with it, the sequence is this:
Create four run groups. When you run, you take all of your runs at one time, then you're done. If you drive 1st, you work third and vice versa. Similarly, if you run 2nd, you work 4th and vice versa.
The nice thing about that is you have one half of your day free. You get warm tires for your 2nd and subsequent runs. I found it made for a very fun, social, and relaxed day. The challenges it creates are- no time to make any changes to the car between sets of runs, and for two driver cars, it can be a challenge to keep the car cool enough in the summer! (It was for us...)
5) The Site: The Greensboro Coliseum is a great site. Big enough for a nice course, but fairly compact also.
It's only real disadvantage is the issue of crowd control, and obviously, you may have to share the parking lot with patrons of other events. This has the effect of reducing your space available, raising spectator concerns, and creating some slight increased risk of items being stolen from traffic not associated with the event.
Improvements they could have made.
This isn't a criticism of Triad, for the event organization truly exceeded all of my expectations. Since no event is perfect, here's a few minor things I wish had been done that we need to make sure we do:
- post results after every run
(for example, keep a board with stickies on it that show run times for that group as the heat progresses)
- make sure grid is not a "back in" style grid.
(Jim P. pointed out to me what a pain that is, and it would have been nice not to have to back into grid.)
- consider improvements to the 2 driver car grid area
A little elaboration on the first suggestion. In Tarheel, with 2 and 2 format, printing results after every heat is sufficient. You know where you and your competitors stand before your afternoon runs. If you do a run and done format, you'd really like to be able to track the other cars in your class as the event progresses. We've done this before, so I know it can be done.
In a perfect world, it would have been nice if the grid was somewhere other than the same lot where the course is located. This reduces available course area. If grid could have been in the adjacent lot, which may not have been practical with the additional coliseum traffice, it would have been an improvement.
That would have allowed more room for the course and also put the participants in a location where they could have actually watched other competitors run the course. The lay of the land at Greensboro prevented those in grid from seeing anything but the start and finish.
Those are my thoughts, for whatever they are worth. We have a high standard now against which we'll be compared for when we host it.
And Scott, I'm very much in favor of the one weekend, 2 day format.
I think in time, it will become what NCAC was always trying to be- the event where the best drivers in the region show up and battle it out. Aaron was right on when he said that in the past, the NCAC winners were not necessarily the best drivers, and I think we'd like to fix that.
Miles
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By the time I sprayed my tires, checked pressures and took a moment to evaluate the last run, it was time to sit down and drive again. Still, it would have been nice and very feasible. Thankfully Karen Krause was doing the announcing during my run group, and somehow she managed to give a "play-by-play," letting you know where you stand in class after each run. She was very impressive. I work timing and scoring with the same software, and I'm not sure how she was able to do that...
Don't mind me just enjoying my 2 minutes of glory because it won't happen again for awhile.