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>From: Ben Thatcher <bthatch@juno.com>
>To: mapco@worldnet.att.net
>Subject: Re: re: Ben Thatcher's reply to Mike King's NOPI rant
>Date: Wed, Sep 22, 1999, 7:02 AM
>
>Mike King wrote:
>
>> I wasn't one of the people that condemned the event. I actually had
>> a good
>> time.
>
>You should have, winning $350 and a set of Toyo tires.
How' bout a trophy? Any word?
>
>>I just think it all could have been much better scheduled and
>> planned
>> out beforehand.
>
>Are you volunteering to help us do the planning next year?
I would love to give you a hand in planning next year's Nopi event. Just let
me know what I can do.
>
>>But hey, it happens. BTW, hundreds of hours? What
>> are you
>> guys building up there?
>>
>I didn't make that number up. Rocky Entriken has run Mirrorkhana in
>Kansas with this general format for 25 years. We communicated back and
>forth for several months getting ideas from him. Then we developed, from
>scratch, the staging area perpendicular to the course. Rocky just lines
>up the cars on course at the start/finish lines (like we did for the
>humongo setbacks required with FM running against a Stock car). But they
>don't use any kind of handicapping in Mirrorkhana. We wanted to do this
>so we could speed up the event. Staging cars on the course takes a lot of
>time. By having the next match pre-staged saved a lot of time. Anyway,
>the staging feature must be set up exactly right or one side has a
>distance advantage. Tom Simon and I spent half the day on Friday
>measuring and remeasuring that feature to make sure it was right. And
>BTW, despite much conjecture about which lane was quicker it turned out
>to be about even when you analyze the final results. I heard lots of
>conjecture from the competitors about the "best" lane but about half
>liked one and half liked the other.
>
>Also, we spent several meetings hammering out the details of how to
>develop the handicapped setbacks. Tom Simon is an engineer and I have no
>idea how much time he spent working on this problem, but he developed the
>spreadsheet that allows us to just plug in the course length and all the
>setbacks get figured. On top of that were many more discussions, phone
>calls and emails to fine tune the handicaps.
>
>It's real easy to "Monday morning quarterback" and point out the deficits
>in someone else's efforts putting together essentially a whole new type
>of event. The rest of the competitors seemed to appreciate the newness of
>the concept and cut us a little slack for our first time efforts.
>Frankly, I'm thrilled with how well it came off considering how short
>staffed we were. We tried to pre-plan for all the possible glitches that
>could come up but you can never foresee every challenge until you face
>the real thing.
No doubt.
>
>One thing we didn't plan for was racer ego and creativity of methods to
>try to get an advantage over a competitor at the start line. Next year
>we'll TELL the drivers when the start sequence is happening instead of
>asking if they are ready. You guys are at the start line while the other
>cars are finishing their match. Your helmet is on, your seatbelts are
>buckled, you are just waiting. We had several instances of intentionally
>stalling at the line to get the jump on competitors, that won't happen
>next year.
Well, like I said. I'm not one to play mind games with anyone and don't
think I need to. I guess this is one of those cases where one thing appeared
to be another. Best thing is to come up with a way to have a countdown timer
like Pros so this kind of action doesn't go on. I agree 100%. Anyways, sorry
about my outburst once again. Your region core group did a great job with
all the chaos that was ensuing around them. Some things just happen. That's
all it is.
Mike
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