Overall I'd say I had a pretty positive experience and will be happy
to volunteer again next year. Sunday was tiring but I knew what I was
in for when I volunteered for "waterboy" duty so that I'd get to see
the races from different parts of the track.
A few suggestions for what we could do better:
- Coordinate with the SCCA flagger crew for delivery of lunch and
water. They had trucks going around the racetrack with water and all
of our "stations" were fairly close to some flagging station so this
would have been a much better system of water distribution than one of
us wandering around with a backpack full of water bottles.
- "Map out" in advance where we need people stationed (knowing of
course that gaps in the fence can open or close); maybe get people to
sign up for specific stations. If people know where they're working we
could again mooch off our roadracing brethren for transportation for
example. Also, knowing where people are stationed would better allow
us to rotate workers between various stations which I think would be
beneficial.
- Have on paper a description of workers' roles and responsibilities,
and also information such as who is allowed where (passes,
credentials, etc.) (keeping in mind again that this kind of
information can be a bit fluid). I saw quite a few of our workers who
seemed like they'd missed or slept through the morning meetings and
didn't really know what they were supposed to be doing.
- Radio communications were hit-or-miss and with a possibly larger
track next year things would only get worse. Not sure what to do about
this, as our Solo2 radios just weren't meant to operate within many
city blocks; maybe we could borrow a repeater or two?
Suggestions I'd like forwarded to the SJGP:
- Better signage along the fences; where I was stationed on Friday and
Saturday, much of my job consisted of answering the public's inquiries
as to where to go, how to get there, etc.
- Signs at restricted-area entrances stating exactly who is allowed in
(makes it harder for people who aren't authorized to argue otherwise).
- Better brief their own workers and personnel as to who is allowed
in; several times I encountered "Services" workers wandering around in
restricted areas believing (or at least pretending) they were allowed
there.
--
Viet-Tam Luu (a.k.a. "Tam")
SFR-SCCA Solo2 #14 ESP
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