6/3 Only a 20% chance of rain!

[Loren]

^^^ What he said.

Part of the problem yesterday was that we had a lot of barely qualified corner captains and even less experienced workers. That, coupled with the rain, and a few drivers who just plain never let up as they drove through the grass... yeah, it wasn't pretty.

People complain about how long our driver's meeting is. (it's really only 15-20 minutes, just like every other club... difference is that we KNOW what we're going to cover in our driver's meeting because we've scripted it... most other clubs just ad-lib the whole thing and you end up getting whatever one or two people happen to remember to say on any given day) But, if people don't start listening and following proper procedures, our only option is to SLOW DOWN our driver's meeting to cover those important safety issues more thoroughly.

If yer slow on the uptake, I can email you the driver's meeting script and you can read it at your leisure!

[jbrannon7]

I am going to offer some clues that work for me. The more I can do this the easier the courses are, fast courses and slow courses all get easier when I do this. When I am at the orange star spot I consciously look for the green star area. I sit in grid and think about moving my eyes farther ahead, after each run I try to remember if I was looking far enough ahead. It never has become second nature, I have to think and remind my self to purposely look far enough ahead at each event other wise I just get lazy and don't look far enough ahead. Yesterday after the last run Dave came up to me and thanked me for his best run, I was started just in front of him and because it was wet he could see my tire tracks and followed my line and had his best run of the day.

[JasonS]

Holy crap, your trying to focus on looking 3-4 cones ahead. I'm happy with 2 and would be ecstatic to look 3. New goals

[Jamie]

If people don't start listening and following proper procedures, our only option is to SLOW DOWN our driver's meeting to cover those important safety issues more thoroughly.

Red-flagging the course in general seems to be a continuing source of confusion. I think too often everyone's waiting for the station nearest the problem to make a decision, and if the situation appears to sort itself out, everyone just carries on. Or, sometimes, one station starts to flag the course, no one (including the driver) picks up on it, and once the car in question is beyond that station, they quit, and the action just goes on. I think we need to change two things:

1. For station that initiates a red flag, don't just wave it, call it out on the radio to alert everyone else. "Red flag, red flag, red flag..," and keep it up until the course is stopped, regardless of where everyone is, whether the situation has resolved itself, or whatever. That gets the attention of other stations who may be watching other cars, picking up cones, etc, and focuses them.

2. For cars off the pavement in particular (since they're easy to see), and anything that looks like a major problem in general, don't rely on the closest station to initiate the call. If you're sure it's a problem, pop the flag and call on the radio even if you're furthest from the action. The worst thing that can happen there is two or more stations step on each other's radio warning...but that means they're paying attention, so we can live with that.

[Native]

. It never has become second nature, I have to think and remind my self to purposely look far enough ahead at each event other wise I just get lazy and don't look far enough ahead.

Yep! Well put, Joe! One difference between my "good days" and "bad days" is how well I manage my attention.

[Loren]

Look ahead to the next "major element". If you're in a slalom, you're not looking 2 cones ahead, you're looking at the next element. And if that element is insignificant (a gate that you naturally flow through, for instance), you're looking/thinking past that. Note that you don't have to be really "focusing" on that element ahead. You just need to have spotted it and be thinking about where you need to be to set up for it.

Coming out of the turn around on this course... you're late-apexing the 3rd apex of the turn-around, and before you even get there, you're thinking about the next apex WAAAAY back to the left. And before you get there, you're thinking about getting WAAAAAY back to the right. But, you damn well better be thinking about the fact that the next apex after that is 12 feet to the left and only 75 feet away! It's not about looking at any set number of elements or cones ahead. It's looking and THINKING far enough ahead that you're always in the right place to get through what's next.

I've taken to teaching new street driving students exactly this. You can't fix where you ARE. It's too late, you're already there. What's NEXT, that's what's important. What's around the corner, over the hill, past the car in front of you? Or, if you're autocrossing... what's after the apex that you THINK you're worried about right now? What's NEXT???

[Loren]

I think we need to change two things:

Good ideas. Biggest problem is that people are too timid to commit. They're not experienced enough to feel that they're allowed to make that call. Even though we're constantly telling them to MAKE THAT CALL.

There are days where people get it right, and it's awesome. I'd say maybe 1 out of 4 run groups is getting it fully right lately.

[yamaha731]

Me and Amy talked about that she said she thought she was going to get stuck and she panicked and me yelling in the passenger seat did not help (I'm a terrible passenger). She said next time she will bring the car to a complete stop and avoid the race line on the way back.....
In here defense that car was really hard to drive with those slicks on it.

[Loren]

Me and Amy talked about that she said she thought she was going to get stuck and she panicked and me yelling in the passenger seat did not help (I'm a terrible passenger). She said next time she will bring the car to a complete stop and avoid the race line on the way back.....
In here defense that car was really hard to drive with those slicks on it.

Yep, that is exactly what I thought happened. Not wanting to get stuck made sense, but watching that car wiggle every which way in the grass was disconcerting... probably more so for the course workers that were nearby and not sure which way to run! Not stopping once back on course, and then carefully returning OFF of the racing line did not make sense.

How dare you yell at Amy!

By the way, if we neglected to tell you with all the rain and commotion, your car is too loud. Need to get it below 96 dB.

[CaptainSquirts]

You won't get the best corner captaining abilities unless you have someone out there that has done it and is confident in themselves. Takes time to do that and by that time, all the "experienced" aren't course captains are usually doing different duties. I wouldn't expect corner a corner captain that hasnt been in the game for a while to have that confidence.

So if you want the best coure workers, you're going to have to stick the experienced ones out there that aren't afraid of making calls.

[mymomswagon]

It was good to see Steve grab an M4 first in the wagon. Though he mopped my floor with my car, it was satisfying insofar as my car setup is not holding him back from winning.

The back was a challenge for me. Good post by Joe B for me to think about. Turarounds usually give me issues but think I did okay. Going out seemed okay though I think Steve did a better job post-wiggles.

It's always fun. It's gonna rain now and then

[Loren]

You won't get the best corner captaining abilities unless you have someone out there that has done it and is confident in themselves. Takes time to do that and by that time, all the "experienced" aren't course captains are usually doing different duties. I wouldn't expect corner a corner captain that hasnt been in the game for a while to have that confidence.

So if you want the best coure workers, you're going to have to stick the experienced ones out there that aren't afraid of making calls.

Absolutely true! But, occasionally, we get that "perfect storm" of an event where we just don't have enough experienced people to go around.

The Early Session of this event wasn't too bad. We had 5 first-timers in each group (that's 18.5% of all of the morning entries). And we had another 4-5 novices in each group. But, being a sold-out session, there were still another 17 drivers in each group who WERE more experienced. So, we had enough instructors to go around (even though we needed 4-5 of them in each group), and we had enough experienced corner captains, and we had enough people to cover timing and start and grid and tech all that stuff that requires some experience.

The Late Session, even though it only had 4 total first-timers, was chock full of novices! 15 out of 43 drivers had 3 or less events of experience! And then we had me, Steve, Drew, Matt and Philip who all have important setup and "all day" duties to attend to in the Late Session, that accounts for another 5 people. That leaves us with about 11 people per run group who "might" be experienced. Starter, Timing and Grid takes at least 4. We're down to 7. We needed an instructor for each group, now we have exactly 6 people and 6 work stations. Whether they were "the best" or "most qualified" or not... those 6 were our Corner Captains! Sometimes that happens.

One thing that would help a lot, and I know that at least some of the time it IS NOT happening, would be for the experienced Corner Captains to actually TRAIN and COACH the people that are out there with them. We have some who just do everyting while they're out there. You'll see them with radio and flag in hand running out to reset cones while their trainee sits there looking bewildered. Or, sometimes the opposite. They'll hand the newb the flag and radio with little or no instruction... and they'll run... but, the radio calls and flagging are not up to par. What SHOULD be happening is that the corner captain should keep the flag and the radio. The trainee should be running (unless it's a busy station, then you can trade off, of course), and all the while there should be discussion about WHAT'S GOING ON.

That's the whole point of having Corner Captians, they should be actively training people so that after 3-4 events, they CAN fill in as a Corner Captain if they are needed. We're still going to try to not make someone a Corner Captain until they're past our official "Novice" level of 6 events. But, there are times when we just don't have any other option.

[twistedwankel]

Holy crap, your trying to focus on looking 3-4 cones ahead. I'm happy with 2 and would be ecstatic to look 3. New goals

One advantage of getting old is being "far sighted". Maybe the only advantage other than not knowing what "work" means? I am actually glad I wasn't at this afternoon event with fat bald tires again. It was 14 seconds slower at the last wet/dry one for me and pretty scary too even with the Nannies all on.

[Jamie]

Me and Amy talked about that she said she thought she was going to get stuck and she panicked and me yelling in the passenger seat did not help (I'm a terrible passenger). She said next time she will bring the car to a complete stop and avoid the race line on the way back.....
In here defense that car was really hard to drive with those slicks on it.

If she, you, I, or anyone else ignored a red flag for that, it would be a different discussion, probably much sooner, and not in a public forum. But there was no flag, and it's much more difficult call from within the car while everything's in motion, particularly if you end up out of the dirt and back on a presumably active course.

...you're going to have to stick the experienced ones out there that aren't afraid of making calls.

Hence taking the judgment out of this and making it reflex: if your eyes see it, no matter where you are, take action. And it's rare to have no one on a station without at least a half-season's experience, which is more than enough. With 4-6 people on course with a radio and a flag, plus timing and starter for some oversight, at least one person should be able to connect the nerve endings between eyes and arm. It's not rocket science, it's paying attention and not waiting for someone else to "do".

[twistedwankel]

So if you want the best coure workers, you're going to have to stick the experienced ones out there that aren't afraid of making calls.

Sadly, this might mean only running one car on course at a time sometimes. Boo. That would mean a max of 3-4 runs. People have to pay attention is all. One reason I don't like being starter is it's really hard to listen over noisy cars plus watch cars and course workers on the far end who don't say hold the start when they cannot find the box for the cones or run out when they realize a cone is down/moved after I released a car...moan. Then there are the workers who stand in front of a coming car with a cone like a deer in the headlights.

Fortunately everyone stops when they see this and they get a rerun for their inconvenience.

[CaptainSquirts]

experienced Corner Captains to actually TRAIN and COACH the people that are out there with them.

Honestly that is probably the best option to do. Corner captains are usually the ones holding the flag and radio and the other is just running and putting cones back to their original position. The positions should be reversed. Have the corner captain being on cone duty while instructioning the newb/novice. You can teach them during the runs and tell them to red flag it or call something in if they don't do it so they have to do it and get more comfortable doing it.

[CaptainSquirts]

Hence taking the judgment out of this and making it reflex: if your eyes see it, no matter where you are, take action. And it's rare to have no one on a station without at least a half-season's experience, which is more than enough. With 4-6 people on course with a radio and a flag, plus timing and starter for some oversight, at least one person should be able to connect the nerve endings between eyes and arm. It's not rocket science, it's paying attention and not waiting for someone else to "do".

Sounds like we need a new course worker roll, "course god". One person, overseeing the course itself. If car goes off, people diddle daddling around and one station is only red flagging, the course god tells everyone to red flag. If he sees a station knocking over cones a lot and another station none. The overseer tells someone from the non busy station to move over to the busy one. Etc etc

That would mean a max of 3-4 runs. People have to pay attention is all.

Paying attention isn't usually the problem, it's initiating the action. It's like having food setup at a table and telling people eat. Being the first in line always makes you feel like you're getting judged

[Loren]

Sounds like we need a new course worker roll, "course god". One person, overseeing the course itself. If car goes off, people diddle daddling around and one station is only red flagging, the course god tells everyone to red flag. If he sees a station knocking over cones a lot and another station none. The overseer tells someone from the non busy station to move over to the busy one. Etc etc

Technically, this is Drew's job as "Safety Chief". But, it's really hard for one person to be monitoring that closely all day.

So... this really isn't a bad idea. It would be yet another course work position that we'd have to fill with an experienced... and not just experienced, but VERY experienced... person. No free lunch.

In a way, timing sort of does this, as well. Especially when there are sharp and experienced people in timing, like Ron or Soroya. They're going to see things happen and take action.

[jbrannon7]

Me and Amy talked about that she said she thought she was going to get stuck and she panicked and me yelling in the passenger seat did not help (I'm a terrible passenger). She said next time she will bring the car to a complete stop and avoid the race line on the way back.....
In here defense that car was really hard to drive with those slicks on it.

You never have to worry about getting stuck, we have more people that can push a car than needed.

[Loren]

Tow strap in the trailer.