From what various folks at the event said to us, it would seem that THSCC, as a club, came off looking like rock stars this past weekend! Of course, Kevin put on a show with his stack of FTs and some very good driving was done by other THSCCers as well, so our driving reputation held up pretty well. But, they were also
very impressed with the "professionalism" of THSCC's operation -- go figure!
From our equipment to our small but
very effective work-force at the event, we got more than a few compliments and comments of surprise about our bus/trailer rig, PA and display, organization of our equipment, timing (with other than a stopwatch
) and scoring operation, and real-time results (which I was
still working on
in the bus
). Those of you who weren’t there, rest assured that, when I talked with folks about these things, I made sure to explain that the few of us they saw there were only a small contingent of the large number of hard-working volunteers THSCC has who make all this stuff happen – and again they were impressed! So, I’d like to thank the THSCC folks who went along for their great help at the event! And, I’d like to thank
all the THSCC volunteers, past and present, who’ve put their time and efforts into making THSCC the club it is today! We really got to see some recognition of the fruits of those labors this past weekend and I wanted to be sure to pass that recognition along.
--------------------------------------
Here’s a bit of the weekend’s recap from my perspective inside the bus
:
I’ve always loved this particular course, but I went this time for the sole purpose of working T&S and dealing with the new results stuff, since (1) I expected there could possibly be major dust troubles and (2) these new 2-day rallyX results were pretty much untested. Boy, was I right about the dust! If you think you’ve seen dust at an event, think again! On Sat, the wind came out of the north and blew the dust away from the bus. The course was still really dusty as it dried out, but we (in the bus) could see it a
little better with the wind blowing away from us. But, the wind changed to come from a more southerly direction on Sun, often pretty much obscuring our vision of the course completely! The wind change required us to close the bus up, so a
huge thanks to whoever made sure the AC was working for us! There were times we couldn’t really even tell if a car had started and could barely tell if one finished! Laura Suich was invaluable helping all weekend with those start/finish confirmations and car numbers. There were often 3 cars on course and, at the worst of the dusty periods, the Start and Finish trips were both blinking together for seconds at a time!
I pretty much spent both days just staring at the JAC box. But with some
great help from Chris Suich and Keith Vail, I think we did a pretty dang good job of keeping the correct starts and stops on track; I only remember 1 or 2 reruns caused by timer miscues. The only real unfortunate result of the false finishes was that resetting the finish time also resets the display, so probably at least half of the times were immediately wiped from the display. However, Carl and Brian Herring did a really nice job on the PA calling times and cones (at least the cones that got reported before the car was long gone—the course workers couldn’t see either) and providing a little extra commentary, as well.
WDCR provided someone to write times and cones on a white board, so he did that via our PA announcements. Upon our arrival on Fri afternoon, Kevin had reported that the PA wasn’t working. But, Audioman, Keith Strassel, and Chris Suich (co-drivers of the Bovine Beater, complete with mooing sounds) sprang right into action and got that going again; so the PA and radio broadcasts worked flawlessly for the entire event and nobody but the THSCC folks were ever the wiser.
Even with all the false trips for the bus folks to handle, the nastiest worker jobs of the weekend for the THSCC crowd went to Kevin and Keith Strassel as their Starter jobs got taken over by a non-competitor who volunteered to do that all weekend (though he was late arriving on Sun and Christine got recruited to fill in for him for a while). I think Kevin and the Starter probably faired pretty well with the dust for their positions on Sat, but Sun the dust was coming their way the majority of the time. But there was no escape for Keith on
either day at his worker position somewhere “out there” in the middle of the course (there was no way we could actually
see him to tell where he was standing!).
I did get asked, by a lady who stopped by the bus, exactly who we were and if we were going to be at some event in a couple of weeks doing their T&S. I politely said “no” instead of the “HELL NO” I was thinking.
I’m beginning to think we should broaden the scope of our slogan to at least “The Mid-Atlantic’s Premier Amateur Motorsports Organization”.
--------------------------------------
If you like rallyXing, you really need to try this Oakland Acres site at least once. And, if you want to do that, you’d better pick an event this year as owner Dave Pomfret has the place up for sale. Unknown if the eventual new owners will even allow WDCR to hold events there. But, even if they do, it’s quite unlikely any other owner will take as much pride and interest in prepping the site as Dave does.
Here are the
class and
overall results from the event. I think I’ve tweaked everything about the results that anybody has mentioned, but if you (especially you drivers from the event) spot anything questionable, please PM me as 1) I want to make sure they are right for the SCCA posting and 2) they need to be fully ready for the next 2-day rallyX!
_________________
The person with too many names...
Mary E./ME/Emmie Fisher/Daniel/Daniel-Fisher
(& some others not suitable for posting!).
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