July 20, 2008 - Post Event

Postby **Loren** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 9:59 pm

What? Nobody's done a post-event thread yet?

Logistically, this event was not without it's challenges, but Mike worked through them all... and if he did anything at all "wrong", it's simply that he tried to do too much himself rather than delegating. I there should be an unwritten rule that "the event chairman never leaves the site".

Plenty of people with cars available at an autocross, draft somebody when you need a gopher!

Anyway, it all came together. Kick-ass course. It was a blast from the past, but I think it was a really good choice. And when you get 8 runs on a kick-ass course... not much else matters.

Thanks to everyone who pulled together to make it happen!

Postby **Native** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 10:38 pm

8 runs on a kick-ass course...

man-o-man.

See y'all at Lakeland in Sept.

and just as a reminder - the points season is over. This year's awards will be more timely. Next season starts in Sept., and Derek (Deadmeat) is now the PointsMan. Peace.

Dave-ROR · Postby **Dave-ROR** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 10:56 pm

I have fun running half my runs in a MSM. Makes the differences in how the two cars feel pretty obvious.

miazda man · Postby **miazda man** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:50 am

RESULTS???

Solar · Postby **Solar** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:10 am

I know exactly what all my times were.....

For the time I was there, things were going okay, in the morning Mike was setting up the course himelf while a few guys were hanging out buy the tables. I got them to empty the trailer and by then a few people showed up to help Mike.

My day sucked, between a emergency water heater repair and a AC duct blowing insulation into my spare bedroom, it wasn't meant to be.

I'm not sure anyone was assigned "clean up" but people thinned out really quick. SPC takes a little longer because the course needs to be reset, if we have enough people we should assign 2 or 3 people for course reset and 2 or 3 to load the trailer.

Postby **Loren** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:30 am

Yeah, there seemed to be a lack of people assigned to clean up, but we had a handfull of people who were still there and willing to help out. Big thanks to them!

Really, it was a typical summer autocross. The group of people (about 20) who had already run and worked mostly split at 2pm... can you blame them??? (also, there was a big Mazda car show going on somewhere that a lot of the Miata guys bugged out to) At the end the final run group, that left about 15 people who had just worked course in the hot sun and another 15-20 who had just driven. Nobody had been tagged to help with clean-up, and more importantly no announcement had been made that such help was needed... so people predictably evaporated within seconds!

Like a lot of what makes a really good autocross, it just takes a little foresight and planning to avoid those situations.

Where ARE the results?

Dave-ROR · Postby **Dave-ROR** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:43 am

I couldn't stay for cleanup this time, normally I'm there from start to finish, but

Glad we have august off though, that heat sucked.

Course was fun, setup more open than last time we ran it I think? It was fun to slide around

As for the results, Kenny?

Solar · Postby **Solar** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 10:53 am

Loren wrote:Yeah, there seemed to be a lack of people assigned to clean up, but we had a handfull of people who were still there and willing to help out. Big thanks to them!

Yes, big thanks!! If it weren't for Mike, Aaron, Howard, Kenny, Scott, Loren and a few others I'm not sure how long it would've taken to get out of there. I don't blame anyone for wanting to excape the heat, once their job assignment is done, they're free to go. Resetting the course is time consuming, and I wouldn't expect the people who reset the course to help with loading the trailer. We just need to have a few more people at SPC for clean up than we do at other sites. 8)

muddy · Postby **muddy** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 11:57 am

I had a great time yesterday. It looks like we will have a very competitive Class A next season. 8)

I was assigned to do tech yesterday, but when I saw Mike was setting up the course alone, I jumped in. By the time I was finished, almost all the cars were teched. 8)

Postby **Loren** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:12 pm

Quick word about tech, both for the people doing the inspections and for everyone in general:

We need to be a bit more thorough. I heard there was a car that had a loose battery that fell over and arced against the frame yesterday. I also rode with A LOT of people yesterday and saw a lot of things like driver's floormats, a freakin "The Club" in the passenger floorboard, loose stuff in the back seat, etc. I saw one guy come back from a run yesterday complaining about the water bottle that got stuck under his accelerator pedal... seriously why is there a loose water bottle rolling around in your car? All of this stuff can and does present a safety hazard and we're getting way too complacent about it.

No need to beat anyone up over it... let's just all be aware of the problem and fix it.

Dave-ROR · Postby **Dave-ROR** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:52 pm

Loren wrote:Quick word about tech, both for the people doing the inspections and for everyone in general:

We need to be a bit more thorough. I heard there was a car that had a loose battery that fell over and arced against the frame yesterday. I also rode with A LOT of people yesterday and saw a lot of things like driver's floormats, a freakin "The Club" in the passenger floorboard, loose stuff in the back seat, etc. I saw one guy come back from a run yesterday complaining about the water bottle that got stuck under his accelerator pedal... seriously why is there a loose water bottle rolling around in your car? All of this stuff can and does present a safety hazard and we're getting way too complacent about it.

No need to beat anyone up over it... let's just all be aware of the problem and fix it.

Interesting. I'll admit that at times when I did tech I would tell people to remove the mats but would not force them to come back, especially for thsoe that are there often, so we'll need to make sure everyone completely preps before the sticker to fix that (I'm not against that, but it means that tech may run late, which is why I wasn't a hardass about it when I've done tech for people I knew).

As for the water bottle, I'm not sure that's a tech issue. I was drinking water while waiting between runs, granted I put the water bottle outside the car during the run, but maybe some people are just throwing them in the backseat? Not sure what the exact situation with that particular driver was. Thankfully it got stuck under the right (in multiple ways) pedal.....

Postby **Loren** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:08 pm

That's why I said that this is an issue that EVERYONE needs to be aware of. Some of it is tech problems, but some of it is driver problems. If tech told the driver to remove the mats and get the trash out of his back seat, that should be enough. But, regardless, every driver should know not to have loose crap in their car... duh!

So, this isn't just for tech inspectors... we all need to wake up and be safe.

Dave-ROR · Postby **Dave-ROR** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:21 pm

:thumbup: see you this weekend at CMP.

WAFlowers · Postby **WAFlowers** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:06 pm

No one teched my car (except me, and I left the floormats at home and made sure there was NOTHING loose in the cab or trunk and checked brake fluid, clutch fluid and battery). It still had the yellow dot on it from the previous month! :shock:

Yeah, I should wash it more often. But it is a choice of wash it or drive it, and one is more fun than the other.

Suggestion: we have a couple of different colors and change every month.

Postby **Loren** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:51 pm

We're supposed to WASH our cars? Damn, musta missed another memo.

Next you'll tell me I was supposed to check my tire pressures or something!

aparke · Postby **aparke** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:53 pm

Overall, it was a great event. Despite having a lack of assigned volunteers (including a co-chair, I believe), the event went surprisingly smooth. Mike definately took on a lot the responsibilities, though.

First car was off at 10:30 and the last car finished by 4pm - with EIGHT RUNS! It was a fun course and there were rarely any downed cones or OFF-courses.

chriskory · Postby **chriskory** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:17 pm

Where is substance in this post event thread! Pictures, results! video!

DarkSVT · Postby **DarkSVT** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:08 pm

Great event, it was good to be back after a 2 yrs break.

About tech, I went back to my car and it already had the yellow dot, nobody asked me anything.

Besides lunch at 2:00PM the event ran smoothly and the course was awesome.

Where are the results?? What about videos? pics?

LadyMaynie · Postby **LadyMaynie** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 6:17 pm

Results... we want results

Yosho · Postby **Yosho** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:43 pm

Hi everyone, my name's Brad. I was the one with the Ti MSM and doing the photography near the front gate. Heather (my wife) and I had a great time and it was nice to be back out at SPC after an absence of 7 or 8 years. We would of driven in the event ourselves, but woke up too late to make it over from Brandon in time... so instead I focused on doing some photography, which was fine since I mainly came out to get some good shots of my best friend Dave-ROR and his S2000. He also took my MSM around for a few laps to compair it with the S.

I'm sorry we couldn't stay beyond the first run group, but here are some of the pics I took. Most of the photo's were taken between ISO 100-125. A very lucky few came out great in ISO 80.

Hope you all like em.

July 20, 2008 - Post Event

July 20, 2008 - Post Event

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