Tony writes:
> Kevin highlights one of my pet peeves with recent events.
> The trailer should be able to handle a 15 second overlap
> with no more than 3 people in the trailer if they know what
> they are doing and are paying attention. A solid trailer cew
> is essential to a smooth event and maybe we should restrict the
> trailer crew to those folks that can do the job.
> At the 8/13 GGF event Jim Ochi and I ran the trailer alone and
> we averaged 21s overlaps for our run group and we had time to
> hold the start and run out onto course to reset cones that had
> been knocked over and missed by the crew on course.
While I agree that a well-coordinated timing crew can (sometimes) pull
off a 15-second start interval, that doesn't mean we should be using
15-second start intervals.
Even a good crew can have trouble with short intervals. Cars that run
while their card is still "in the process" (posting, re-insertion) can
wreak havoc. Duplicate car numbers, even in different classes. Etc.
Interruptions by non-T&S folks.
But even in the best case when none of those conditions occur, it just
isn't safe. I know you mentioned this, but: cones need to be reset,
workers have to be watching for cars coming from multiple places, etc.
It's just a mistake.
The target to shoot for is 25 seconds. Everyone should shoot for that
and if we pull it off with room to spare, great. I agree with Kevin
that less than 25 seconds will more often than not result in a net
loss. Just because the T&S crew may have been able to handle it easily
doesn't mean that faster is better.
This from someone who has made a 13-year career out of figuring out how
to do T&S at autocrosses. We do really well for the turnouts we have.
If you want to concentrate anywhere, do this:
Get the start intervals to 25 seconds, no quicker, no slower
(At GGF this weekend, part of the problem was the course layout,
with
cars barreling towards each other when the interval was just
wrong)
Reduce downtime between groups. 10 minutes at the non-walkthrough
breaks
means a total of 1 hour of downtime. That's a lot.
Start on time. I haven't run much this year so I don't know how well
we're executing there.
That's about it.
Josh
PS: I loved the course this weekend too. I have no idea why Charlie is
apologizing.
Josh
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