At 09:15 PM 2/14/2001 -0800, Craig Haggart, Accelerator Ops wrote:
>How about a weekday? I'll bet I'm not the only one who would
>be more than happy to arrange a day off if necessary. And it
>seems to me that the site availability would probably go way
>up as well.
Sites may be easier to find, and I'm sure students would be willing to take
a day off to attend. After all, they're the ones who get all the benefit
from these schools. However, how about the instructors? How about the
people who spend the day making the school go smoothly? None of these
volunteers are being compensated in any way for their time, and now you're
expecting them to give up a day of work (or a vacation day)? Good luck
finding people to make this event happen.
> > 3) Finding instructors
>
>Being a newbie, I'm afraid I don't have much insight into this
>problem. Are instructors given sufficient incentive? Free
>club memberships? Free entry to events? Track time credit at
>Thunderhill? Anything? From what I understand, the Solo II
>program is a huge revenue generator that helps offset the costs
>of other SCCA racing programs. The club surely must recognize
>the value of the volunteers that make this happen.
>
>Don't they?
Here are the incentives that the people who make the SFR Solo II program
work receive:
- Solo II Steering Committee member: a Solo II jacket
- Event Chair: Solo II jacket, free entry to the event that they chair
- Solo II School Instructor: a free lunch at the school. Sometimes the
thanks of their students. Sometimes runs on the school course, if there's
time at the end of the day.
- Event coordinators (Banquet, Solo II School): Nothing
- Other volunteers (Motor home maintenance, equipment, registration, event
setup/tear down, results generation, webmaster, specialty chiefs, safety
stewards, event scheduler, insurance, liason to other clubs, banquet
slideshow, awards presentation, event writeups for the Wheel, etc.): Nothing
And that's just about it. No free memberships, no track time credit, no
free events, no "get out of work free" cards, no extra perks. No fame. No
fortune. No glory. No groupies.
>True, but (to me, anyway) there's at least one major difference:
>The absolute maximum instruction time possible at a regular
>event is on the order of three minutes, total. And that's only
>if you can somehow find an instructor who can ride with you on
>every run. The experienced autocrossers are understandably
>usually pretty busy!
If all you're getting is 3 minutes of instruction per event, you aren't
really trying to take advantage of all that's there. Here are some ideas:
- Help with early setup. No better way to learn a course than to help the
course designer lay it out, and pick their brains while doing it.
- Get involved with the club. The people doing the bulk of the heavy work
are the more experienced autocrossers, just the people that you want to
hang out with. Make friends with these people, and you'll always have an
instructor to ride along with you.
- Hook up with the more experienced people during the course walk. Don't
rely only on the Novice course walk to get instructions - make friends with
a hotshoe, and get them to share their thoughts during the walk.
- Work the course. Pay attention to the cars coming through your area -
check their line, where the driver is looking, what happens to the cars
taking a different line, the driver's hands, etc. Be friendly with your
fellow courseworkers - if you're lucky and get paired with a hotshoe, a lot
of times you can get information about what the car coming through is doing
right, and what they're doing to lose time. Given the size of our run
groups, you can easily get an hour's worth of instruction right here.
- Beg rides. Many of the experienced people are willing to give you a
ride, but you have to ask them nicely.
- Offer rides. There are a lot of experienced people willing to ride
along, but once again, you have to ask nicely.
- Offer co-drives. It's not too difficult to find a good driver willing
to drive your car in exchange for you riding along during their runs, and
them riding with you during your runs. Since you're both running and
working in the same groups, work the course with them and get more
instruction there. What also helps is mounting a video camera in your car
and taping your runs vs. your co-driver's runs. Review the tapes, and
you'll learn tons about how to be faster.
I'm sure there are a lot more ways to learn more at each event, but that's
enough for now...
Jim
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