Sept 6 Post Event Lakeland

[Solar]

Muddy, (Brian Heintzman) did a great job, and considering he had to tweek his course due to a few large trucks parked in the lot, I thought it went well. Fun course, lots of tight turns, and some nice areas for some speed too. The only complaint I'd have is all the gravel on the course, even though John Edwards brought out his blower (thank you very much) there were some slippery areas. I left after the 2nd run group, but the two groups I saw ran pretty quick, not to many DNF's or knocked over cones. Weather cooperated, it was nice not to have to worry about rain for a change.

Great event! 8)

EDIT: I heard that there was a driver that decided to have a little too much fun... :shock:

[d_rasp]

Great event! I felt a bit rusty as I've not been making events as consistently as I used to. My brother's Miata was a blast & is starting to feel pretty good. Hope to have fresh rubber and more maintenance work done b4 next event.

IMPORTANT: If anyone finds a Fenix P3D Cree Edition in Olive Drab (this is a pretty nice LED flashlight) w/ 2x rechargeable CRC123 cells, it's mine. Fell out of my holster at some point today. I'll be forever bummed if it's gone. . .

[leftandright]

Thanks! Good race course with a bit of speed.
I always vote for fast courses - always.
Something besides pizza is good for a change.

I appreciate your efforts making a nice event.
Again, thanks!
Mike

[Anonymous]

EDIT: I heard that there was a driver that decided to have a little too much fun... :shock:

I think it was kinda blown out of proportion. What damage was done? Maybe a 30 second delay of the event? No cones were hit, I don't even think he went off course. 1st gen s2000's only come with 225's in the rear, not likely to damage the surface. Looked like a young kid, maybe you guys are getting old. I bet if you had an s2000 at 18 years old, you would have done the same thing or worse. Better he did it on an autocross course instead of the street. Basically, a nice, quiet, talking to after his run, explaining that you would like to see a little more control, would have been enough.

Great event though, glad we got the course tweaked enough in the morning to be a safe event. We cut a big portion off the last section and it was still fun and basically the same design as the original, maybe even better.

Were the run groups jacked up? Seemed like a ton of people ran in heat 1 and no one in heat 3.

[floridarex]

Great event!!

[Solar]

Were the run groups jacked up? Seemed like a ton of people ran in heat 1 and no one in heat 3.

Gotta figure with the new run groups there's going to be a learning curve, and "E" had quite a few cars, and there was 2 no shows in "J". I'm sure in future events it will get smoothed out. 8)

[Native]

Baseball...garbage trucks...hmm, what's next?
We will express our displeasure with the obstacles to the powers-that-be at the stadium, and, I guess this is the learning curve, next time in addition to making sure there's no baseball, we'll have to remind them to keep the lot open and reserved for us.

Brian and everyone else involved in the course re-design did quick and good work, and 68 drivers got 6 runs on a fun course. If you stayed on the line there was even some traction (thanks, leaf-blower-guy!).

I think it was a great start to our '09 season.

[d_rasp]

Baseball? Do you mean soccer? Sounds like SOMEONE got up too early this morning. . .

[TracAction]

EDIT: I heard that there was a driver that decided to have a little too much fun... :shock:

I think it was kinda blown out of proportion. What damage was done? Maybe a 30 second delay of the event? No cones were hit, I don't even think he went off course. 1st gen s2000's only come with 225's in the rear, not likely to damage the surface. Looked like a young kid, maybe you guys are getting old. I bet if you had an s2000 at 18 years old, you would have done the same thing or worse. Better he did it on an autocross course instead of the street. Basically, a nice, quiet, talking to after his run, explaining that you would like to see a little more control, would have been enough.

the Damge Done was to the Autocross and FAST. All it takes is ONE person to completely screw everyone else out of a event site for the future. There are specific rules or there were posted on our last club Home page that stated this type of behavior is not permitted. I for one agree that this was handled properly. Being a driver and owner of a vehicle requires responsibilty and some of that means you are responsible for all of your actions when driving. If some one wants to Dift then they sould seek a different venue than Autocross.

On the same note before anyone points out that he was not the only person to slide or "drift" out of the line he was the only one to continue to drive in this manner and even to the point of driving the wrong direction on the course before returning to the course where he continued to drive in a manner that is not acceptable.

(passes the soap box)

It was a GREAT event I thought even with the course work arounds that were needed.

and thanks !!! to Jack for letting me Drive his S2K.

[92MX-5]

I also had a blast today!! It was my first event and feel i did pretty well.

I will admit i got alittle tail happy(I hope some took pictures) at the end of my last run but didnt compare to the guy with the s2k.

This event was great ! alittle burned from working the track and such but owell.

My car now needs a few other things that the severe beating it got today caused but hey it happens.

And thanks Brice for riding along with me and giving me pointers(dont think your on here).

Oh i was car 77 Btw.

[Anonymous]

continued to drive in a manner that is not acceptable.

When I had my last car, I did similar things all the time. I am sure a few people here could attest to that. No one ever said anything to me.

But, I get your point. This site is more visible than any other, and what occurred had the perception of being dangerous, even though I don't really agree that it was.

edit: Actually the last time we were in Lakeland my last run was so wet that I decided to drift. http://www.itrca.com/dave/fast/slides/IMG_7096.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Am I kicked out of the club for that?

[Solar]

I also had a blast today!! It was my first event and feel i did pretty well.

Oh i was car 77 Btw.

That's great to hear!! It's a very addictive sport/hobby, hope to see you at SPC Oct 4th !!

[Native]

Baseball? Do you mean soccer? Sounds like SOMEONE got up too early this morning. . .

The first time we were at Lakeland there was a baseball game that forced us to rearrange grid, parking, and startline at the last minute. This time it was garbage trucks....go back to bed!

[Jamie]

I think it was kinda blown out of proportion. What damage was done? Maybe a 30 second delay of the event?

Muddy made the call on that one -- from his viewpoint, it was extreme enough to warrant something more than a quiet chat.

Were the run groups jacked up? Seemed like a ton of people ran in heat 1 and no one in heat 3.

No oops...walk-ons and a few people switching classes at the last minute. The groups I drafted out from the pre-registered folks were about even -- 23/22/20. Most of the walk-ons, fit into the classes making up the first run group, plus most of the (very few!) no-shows were in Class E, which was most of the last run group. So we ended up with something like 28/23/18. I considered moving a class, but it would have just created the same imbalance in a different order, and frankly, as long as we had enough workers and could keep up the pace, the difference wasn't that great.

We did have a few people skip out of their work assignments -- new novices all, so I'll likely just send them a reminder about working if they register for another event. The groups were actually big enough that I had a few people designated as spares, so it didn't screw things up.

We need to do something about the radios -- reception, while not great, wasn't that much of a problem this time, but we only had five working radios. At a minimum, we need six, and eight would be better. Yes, I remember events in the days before radios, using hand signals between stations...I also remember stopwatches, and taking all day to get 3-4 runs for 30 cars.

We also found two of the fire extinguishers need recharging -- since our connectivity with the SPFD is gone, where do we need to send them?

[Alexis]

^^I may have walked out on an assignment. I was writer for group 2, but I had told Brian that I would help tear down. Right after group 2 was done I got a phone call to inform me about a death in the family. I hope you understand.

It's always nice to gain experience, even if I had a miserable time with all of the gravel. I couldn't grip for the life of me!

[92MX-5]

I also had a blast today!! It was my first event and feel i did pretty well.

Oh i was car 77 Btw.

That's great to hear!! It's a very addictive sport/hobby, hope to see you at SPC Oct 4th !!

As of right now my car is no longer AutoX ready.. having some major fuel problems, that i need to track down. Plus find a job lol.

oct4 is at SPC(10min from my house) though so if i dont race i will spectate and maybe ride to get some more experince.

[Native]

Muddy made the call on that one -- from his viewpoint, it was extreme enough to warrant something more than a quiet chat.

And he told me of his viewpoint before he acted - I didn't object.

(very few!) no-shows

How true - less than 10% - we usually run 20% or so. Great turnout!

We need to do something about the radios -

Yes we do. Less than a year ago, we purchased 8 new ones (the other new ones we had just gotten were stolen). The 8 are now 5 - what garbage those turned out to be. Used one day a month and don't last a year...we're gonna try not keeping them in the trailer (I have them in the registration box), and removing batteries (one died 'cause the battery burst). We'll get a new set, hopefully before the next event.

We also found two of the fire extinguishers need recharging -- since our connectivity with the SPFD is gone, where do we need to send them?

And a third with it's pin removed was briefly accidently activated, so we probably need 3 tuned-up. This may be a dumb question, but are the ones we have rechargeable, or disposable?

And just for the next event - we have less than a case of water, and very little soda.

^^I may have walked out on an assignment. I was writer for group 2, but I had told Brian that I would help tear down. Right after group 2 was done I got a phone call to inform me about a death in the family. I hope you understand.

Our condolences to you. Writing was your assignment - volunteering to help otherwise was extra, and very nice and appreciated, even if it didn't happen.



EDIT: We still need a Chair for November at SPC!!

[Solar]

We need to do something about the radios -

I'm plus one on this, but looking back, I remember buying the radios we have now (replaced the stolen ones) when I was running my Mustang, and that was well over a year ago. I think we got our use out of them, they weren't the best quailty radios to begin with, but they did/do work. The thing I remember was trying to find matching frequency radios to match the ones I bought earlier, because at the time we were still short a couple radios.

I suggest we invest in some really good radios; one's that are stored with the timing equipment or the registration box. Don't know what kind of budget we have, but I found these just to get an idea what we should look at.

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/1WC90" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



We also found two of the fire extinguishers need recharging

Dave pointed this out to me, and I believe all the fire extinguishers need to be recharged. Everyone of them is the metal handle type which I've been told are rechargable, so this is something else we need to look into.

[muddy]

Thanks everyone for your patience with the on-the-fly course redesigns yesterday morning.

I was just a little upset when I saw the trucks parked in the lot. However, the course only needed a few minor tweaks to work around them. The toughest part was finding that the ending of the course had to be redesigned because there was not enough space between the light poles and the concrete islands at the end of course.

I would also like to thank Jeremy, Elliot, Gary, Bryce, and Steve (and anyone I may have forgotten, that was a very busy morning!) for their input, advice, and assistance to ensure that we had a safe course yesterday.

Thanks also to those that volunteered to assist. The event could not have happened without volunteers like Scott, who towed the trailer, or Aaron, who picked up the supplies and lunch.

I believe that I organized a safe and fun event. The course was a bit tighter than I had envisioned, but I enjoyed it and I received plenty of positive feedback.


<soapbox>
I made the decision to cordially invite the kid to never return to our events. His behavior was unacceptable. Both Steve and Jamie agreed. Here is what I saw:

smokey burnout/donut in at the end of the slalom, followed immediately by a smokey drift. that changed that changed direction and slip angle several times, while heading directly towards the trucks and against the direction of the course. That was followed by another drift following the direction of the slalom, but not actually following the slalom. We then attempted to red flag the car, but he did two more smokey donuts before he saw the flags and exited the course.

Again, that reckless behavior is unacceptable and is not to be tolerated. The impact of his behavior is greater than just the risk of losing Joker Marchant Stadium or to the safety of those participating in the event. We know that the Hernando County Airport staff monitor our activities to a certain extent. There will be photos and videos of this kid's stunt put on the internet for all to see. If we gain a reputation for allowing this behavior, it can impact our ability to secure any site in the future.

Acceptance of this behavior, or the perceived acceptance by not acting boldly, can damage our club's reputation far more than any damage that was done to the site, or danger presented to those on the course at the time. I firmly believe that we made the right decision.

<soapbox>

[d_rasp]

I feel like I need to weigh in on this, even though I understand that the decisions have already been made. All of us that have been with the club for more than a few years probably remember the folks that used to come out to SPC to 'drift' our events. They always received a stern warning about not doing it again & I'm not aware of anyone who was a problem more than once.

I think, especially for a first-timer, a life ban from our events is too much. Maybe in the future, the right way to handle it would be to end their day after the offending run & ban them from the next event. After that, if they're a problem again after we're 100% sure they are clear on the rules THEN we could all feel pretty good about asking that they not register for FAST events in the future.

I had a few 'silly' runs yesterday, partially as a result of 10+ year old tires on my brothers car, but I have to own up to the fact that I stayed on it for the entire runs instead of backing off like I probably should have. It doesn't sit well with me that this person may have seen me, one of the experienced drivers, 'acting a fool' and felt like it was acceptable, and as a result gotten a life ban. I don't think anyone is questioning that it was the right thing to shut them down & that they went beyond a little "hot dogging" and needed to see some kind of punishment, I'm just hoping we can handle it in a way that doesn't life-ban new membership in the future.