Another novice school?

[Dave-ROR]

There always seems to be a lot of novices, some repeat, some brand new, to the events. Perhaps there's enough of them to justify two novice schools this year?

[Loren]

Are you volunteering to be the event chairman for a novice school?

I'd be happy to help design a course. Might be good to do it at Brooksville this time to take advantage of the extra space available. It's always cramped trying to do a school at SPC.

[Alizarin]

I think it would be a fantastic idea to run in a cool month. Would definitely be pleasant for all.

Even better if we can get the motorcycle area at the same time. Have a full on course at one end, and a set of stations at the other?

[Solar]

I may not be considered a "novice" but I could use some pointers and all the seat time I can get, so count me in either as a participant or a worker, as long as I can drive some I'll be happy.

[Native]

November, or December?

[Alizarin]

November, or December?

We could also do January or February... they're still cool months, and it would be a nice segue to introduce novices to our club and schedule for the year.

[Loren]

If the goal is to move to doing 2 schools in a year, it would make sense to do this one a little early, and then do a second one around May or so.

Might be good to call one of them a "school" and the other a "test and tune", with the focus of the school being green novices, and the focus of the T&T being more experienced folks.

[Dave-ROR]

Are you volunteering to be the event chairman for a novice school?

I'd be willing to co-chair for someone.

I'd be happy to help design a course. Might be good to do it at Brooksville this time to take advantage of the extra space available. It's always cramped trying to do a school at SPC.

It is cramped, but SPC's facility makes it better for this no?

[Loren]

Idunno. I used to think so, but it's really more about getting the practice in on the course exercises with instruction. We could erect a canopy or two for the "classroom" portion and do just as well at Brooksville, only with more room to do the practice stuff.

[impalanut]

IF we do it at brooksville, maybe we can figure out hot to set up the timing equipment to give times by segments. We did that at the evolution school and it really helped to see the different techniques on short segments so it wouldn't be just an average of how you did for the entire course. I don't know how many inputs our set up will take.

[Loren]

That would be a tool for the Test & Tune event. Our timer only has two inputs, I believe. But, I'm pretty sure the method they use for segment times is to put the timer into a different mode (been a long, long time since I looked at the different timer modes available, where's Kenny?) and set the course up so that one light beam is crossed multiple times.

I used to have a copy of an old McKamey (the Evolution school used to be called McKamey) course map that illustrated how they did it. It was a short course, and all kind of intertwined with itself to get the time segments. Pretty ingenious.

[Dave-ROR]

Idunno. I used to think so, but it's really more about getting the practice in on the course exercises with instruction. We could erect a canopy or two for the "classroom" portion and do just as well at Brooksville, only with more room to do the practice stuff.

We'd have to do the same for workers - trust me I worked the last one. It was 6 hours out chasing cones except for lunch, the last session or so had students working, otherwise it was 4, 5? volunteers the whole day.

[Loren]

Idunno. I used to think so, but it's really more about getting the practice in on the course exercises with instruction. We could erect a canopy or two for the "classroom" portion and do just as well at Brooksville, only with more room to do the practice stuff.

We'd have to do the same for workers - trust me I worked the last one. It was 8 hours out chasing cones except for lunch.

We got shafted on workers last time. Had planned for 12, and got something like 6 or 8, and one of them was on the "injured list" so couldn't work course. Many of the workers who were there opted to stay at a particular station all day instead of rotating with the students, as planned. Rotating with the students would have gotten them a break when their students were in "class". The main problem was a shortage of workers, though.

Definitely need to be sure we wrangle sufficient workers (and reward them adequately) for a school event where the students don't work course. For a test & tune, we can do workers like a typical autocross... just limit entry to 25-30 drivers.

[Dave-ROR]

Idunno. I used to think so, but it's really more about getting the practice in on the course exercises with instruction. We could erect a canopy or two for the "classroom" portion and do just as well at Brooksville, only with more room to do the practice stuff.

We'd have to do the same for workers - trust me I worked the last one. It was 8 hours out chasing cones except for lunch.

We got shafted on workers last time. Had planned for 12, and got something like 6 or 8, and one of them was on the "injured list" so couldn't work course. Many of the workers who were there opted to stay at a particular station all day instead of rotating with the students, as planned. Rotating with the students would have gotten them a break when their students were in "class". The main problem was a shortage of workers, though.

Definitely need to be sure we wrangle sufficient workers (and reward them adequately) for a school event where the students don't work course. For a test & tune, we can do workers like a typical autocross... just limit entry to 25-30 drivers.

Rotating wasn't real easy, there were 1 worker on each of 2 stations and 2 workers on the busy station (slalom). Yes, rotating was still possible, but it wouldn't have mattered much, you really got more of a break not rotating - didn't have to walk to a new station

[Alizarin]

The timer software can do lap mode and 1 light operations. I do believe that the display can even act as a timer (from what I read in its manual).

I can check into it some more though.

[Loren]

Lap mode sounds right. You just call each segment time a "lap" and there ya go.

[Native]

I'm starting to put together a (very) rough plan for next year's schedule. As soon as ya'll decide when you wanna do the school, lemme know. And where. Also lemme know if this will be instead of or in addition to a regular autocross event. If it waits til next year, we could do a two-day deal - school one day, full autocross for all the next? Your wish is my command, or at least I'll try...

oh, and don't forget, there may well be a 2-day Mirrokhana early next year too, if that makes a difference or not.

[Loren]

School one day and autox the next would be ideal... if we have sufficeint support for it.

[Alizarin]

School one day and autox the next would be ideal... if we have sufficeint support for it.

That would be keen.

[Dave-ROR]

School one day and autox the next would be ideal... if we have sufficeint support for it.

:thumbup: I agree.