Novice School 2010

[Native]

Then of course, there are those times where parts fail on course and you end up with stuff like wheels rolling at you at 30 mph! Stuff does indeed happen at autocrosses.

It happened at the school. Adam and I were shagging cones in the slalom, and after a car passed it threw something down. It so happens it was only plastic, but the point is things do go flying...

ANY time ANY one sees something going on that is a potential risk, feel free to say something - either directly to the potential risk or to an event officer of some sort.

I am sorry to hear that the group took a loss by only charging $60.

Thanks, but no need to feel sorry. We love sharing the sport and getting noobs addicted, so we think of it as a "free sample." Doing the school is a lot of fun, too.

[Loren]

I am sorry to hear that the group took a loss by only charging $60.

Thanks, but no need to feel sorry. We love sharing the sport and getting noobs addicted, so we think of it as a "free sample." Doing the school is a lot of fun, too.

Yeah, it's not like we went into it expecting to make money or break even and didn't. We budgeted the event knowing full well that is was a money-loser. We view it as part of the club's annual expenses, no biggie.

[WAFlowers]

Thanks, but no need to feel sorry. We love sharing the sport and getting noobs addicted, so we think of it as a "free sample." Doing the school is a lot of fun, too.

Psst! Hey, buddy. Ya wanna try this really fun thing? Addictive? Nah! Not much. And the first time is real cheap.

[Alizarin]

Anyway, never be afraid to bring up a potential problem. "Worrywarts" are what keeps our sport safe. Wanna train for course safety? 8)

Even coming to the timing trailer with a concern is a good way to do it. The people working in that trailer know how to get hold of the right safety people and can hold the start until the problem is corrected.

[Alizarin]

Also, I'm still working on the "most improved student" results list. The output from the software wasn't what I was expecting it would be so I have to do it manually. Should have it done by 4:00 (Eastern).

EDIT: DONE!
Go here to find it!. Congrats to Ben Tinsley for being our most improved student, and for John Evans for narrowly missing. Rothy Soun was our 3rd best improver, with good clean runs. Not bad for H-rated tires, Rothy!

Here's some information about these results though. If a student went off course in the morning and it was a shortcut, it was off course and I didn't count it. Off courses that didn't count were all around the figure 8, where a student took the long way (around the outside cones). Afternoon off courses counted, but didn't affect the final results. Cones hit counted in both sessions, but didn't affect the final "most improved" results. There were substantially more cones hit in the afternoon runs, as there should be. DNS means "did not start" as we had 2 students that didn't run in the afternoon. I took the fastest run from the morning and the fastest from the afternoon (hence why we had a student actually get slower in the results) and got the difference.

Note to Tim and Brian H: The top 3 improvers? From our group. Yeah. We rock.

[AScoda]

Note to Tim and Brian H: 2 of the top 3 improvers? From our group. Yeah. We kind of rock! Just not as much as Jack and Bob and Drew!

Fixed that for you! Yellow_Colorz_PDT_08
While you guys may indeed rock, Ben and Sara Tinsley were in group 1, they were sharing a car. I think Sara would have posted a high improvement time as well if she had run in the afternoon.

Congratulations to everyone, noticeable improvement all around! Hope to see more of you out at future events.

[Loren]

I had 28 students who took both morning and afternoon runs and they improved an average of 5.58 seconds. I rock!

For you more statistical types, if you throw out the two highest and two lowest, the average is still 5.4 seconds!

Typically, average improvement is closer to 2-2.5 seconds. And we broke one student... that's typical, too. There's always one!

Over half of the drivers in the afternoon were faster than the fastest time of the morning.

[Native]

I wanna play too...how 'bout this:

The group that I helped shag cones for had the highest finishing novice at Sunday's event - so we are actually the ones who rock 'cause his mad autocross skillz generalized the most. yo.

Seriously, an average improvement of 5 seconds? Well done, everyone!

[shakedown067]

That was simply a great event. Well done to all the instructions...looks like you all certainly helped the students learn a lot. Now hopefully they all come back and enjoy their new found skills.

[muddy]

Note to Tim and Brian H: The top 3 improvers? From our group. Yeah. We rock.

Yep! That is not a coincidence!