Da Groj

rojeho wrote:One car at a time turned a short course into a long course since there was no overlap. I'm ok with it because I liked the different flow of this course.

I'm gonna call semi-BS on this, or at least use it as an opportunity to educate.

Our typical "goal" is to release a car every 25-30 seconds. Quicker than 25 seconds and both timing and course workers have trouble keeping up. Just under 30 seconds is about perfect for a nicely-paced, but "casual" event.

Example: A healthy 50-to-60 second course at Brooksville has us releasing a second car usually just after car makes the turn-around, a little after the half-way point. That gives us a roughly 28-32 second start interval. We're used to it. It works. We usually get 6-8 runs with that. (Depending on the number of entries, which has climbed from 50-60 to a pretty consistent 60-70, which makes a difference! The fact that we no longer have less than 60 drivers probably means that the days of 8 runs are behind us. But, we have more competition, which is fun.)

I'm not sure what the "average" run time was today (just got the results, but haven't looked at them yet), but I know that the fast guys were turning times in the high 20's... (27-30ish) so everyone else was probably in the 30-35 second range. Call it an average of about 33 seconds, or 3 seconds more than our target.

3 seconds per run for 6 runs and 65 drivers adds up to: 3x6x65 / 60 seconds in a minute = 19.5 minutes. Divide that over 3 run groups and it added a total of about 7 minutes per run group... divide by 6 runs... about a minute for each run "batch".

In other words, the timing of this course didn't amount to much because it was only a 30-second course.

Don't get me wrong, start interval is THE key to maximizing seat time and the number of runs for all drivers. But, if the course is less than 35-seconds long... it's not a big deal if there is no overlap. It's when you have a longer course that you need to really think about how to get that start interval down to around 30-seconds.

Let's look at 20 minutes per run batch... I think the first run group was heavy on cars, so probably about 25 cars. Using our 33-second average, if everything went perfectly, we'd be looking at right about 14 minutes per run. The 20-minutes you guys clocked was merely the addition of 6-minutes of checking out and resetting the timer after <ahem> somebody hit it. Without that... 14 minutes, call it 15... x6 runs = 1.5 hours.

Another truth is (and I wasn't really watching the clock, so I have no numbers) that for whatever reason, we were pretty consistently slow about getting each heat started today. It seemed like the course workers were usually out there and ready, the cars were in grid... but for whatever reason (probably a bunch of different ones, stuff happens), we blew an extra 5-10 minutes at the beginning of each heat.

I'll stop babbling now.

Loren wrote:Yeah, we got done early, but remember that an awful lot of us were out at the novice school on Saturday from 7am-5pm. This was our second day of fun-in-the-sun... plus an hour less sleep due to the time change. Getting done a little early was perfectly okay with us this time!

I forgot about this element, Loren. That does put a different perspective on things.

rojeho wrote:Don't take this as me taking offense because I completely understand. Call this more of the thought process of the chair for those that get the unenviable task of making the hard decisions.

And I hope you didn't take offense either. Part of the reason we finished early, regardless or runs, is because the event was well run. Even after the timing light got hit, we were back up and running really quick.

Jamie wrote:Part of the enjoyment is not going home burned to a crisp and beaten to death by a work assignment.

Leave 'em with happy memories and wanting more....

Another good point!

yamaha731 wrote:Looks like E2's gonna be a little tougher now. Somehow a non mustang won E2. :shock:

YES! Give it up for Chris Meier, representin' for us Miata fans! Yellow_Colorz_PDT_02

Chris was moved into E2 for some bushings...ummm yeah. Now that he is taking advantage of mods...those ponies got their work cut out for them! Yellow_Colorz_PDT_04

Loren wrote:I'm not sure what the "average" run time was today (just got the results, but haven't looked at them yet), but I know that the fast guys were turning times in the high 20's... (27-30ish) so everyone else was probably in the 30-35 second range. Call it an average of about 33 seconds, or 3 seconds more than our target.

Update: The average of everyone's best run times was actually 30.071 seconds. Of course, we didn't all run our best time on every run... but that's a pretty low average and backs up my point, I think. We pretty much had about a 30-second start-interval today.

wbeers690 wrote:white hoodie is all mine.. i had two so i had one in hand and felt complete when i left.. i can get it from brooksville unless someone who might be at a miata meet before then has ahold of it

Will you be at the Kilt tomorrow?

ya we will try to come by.. all get there at 6 somethin ?

Thanks for the great event, Ron and all!

The course was challenging, I need to learn to ease up a bit at times. The fewer runs (though more is always better) didn't hurt the event one bit. And now it looks like I have a whole new wave of competition.

Had a great time. Thanks for the fun.

Joe

yamaha731 wrote:Looks like E2's gonna be a little tougher now. Somehow a non mustang won E2. :shock:

I don't think there is anything else I can do. I mean, the shirt I wore today was MADE IN HAWAII for crissakes! How could I lose?
I am not sure I have a hawaiiany-er shirt.
I guess Chris is unbeatable now.

wbeers690 wrote:ya we will try to come by.. all get there at 6 somethin ?

http://tampabaymiatas.net/forum/viewtop" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... =5&t=10096

AScoda wrote:I don't think there is anything else I can do.

Maybe you need Davo's stylish red Pilate bowling shoes?

Results are up!

Couple notes:
- Ron's still learning the software and it didn't spit out the best time in the results by class, so I hand-entered it. Could be errors in that, but I think I got it right.
- Peter Perez showed DNF for all of his runs. Ron also PM'ed me that he needed to be reclassed from G to E2. I was wondering if maybe someone marked all of his runs DNF because he was misclassed, or if he REALLY DID botch all of his runs. (if he did, that's a major fail for us, we should never allow a newb to DNF all of their runs) Anyway, questioning that, when I reclassed him, I changed the DNF's to +2 so he'd at least show times. Ditching the two cones would move him up from like 11th to 9th, so it's not a big deal... and I hear he had a great time regardless!

Fun stuff:
I titled this event the "Time Warp". Why? A little something that most people probably didn't notice, and probably didn't make a LOT of difference because everyone was pretty much trying to enter that slalom at the start to the right, anyway. The start timer was set at a pretty severe angle. An angle that would probably make a difference of up to a couple tenths of a second depending on how far left or right you crossed the beam. More to the left and your time would start sooner, more to the right and it would start later (thus shortening your run time!).

Would have been more fun to put that advantage to the other side, along with offsetting the slalom in the opposite direction... that could have made the slalom truly optional... or at least made it something to ponder rather than the clearly "right is right" option that it was.

AScoda wrote:

yamaha731 wrote:Looks like E2's gonna be a little tougher now. Somehow a non mustang won E2. :shock:

I don't think there is anything else I can do. I mean, the shirt I wore today was MADE IN HAWAII for crissakes! How could I lose?
I am not sure I have a hawaiiany-er shirt.
I guess Chris is unbeatable now.

I can run 225s all around instead of my little tires and run E2

Oh, Darren (#42) should be E3. Doesn't really matter too much since it doesn't result in a trophy either way but figured I'd mention it.. it was corrected on the forms and such first thing in the morning but didn't make it to the computer.

Thanks Loren and Ron for same day results. That's great to have them so quick.

So the co-chairs for the day, in two separate cars

Loren 28.558
Ron 28.575


Gotta be a record there somewhere

Dave-ROR wrote:Oh, Darren (#42) should be E3. Doesn't really matter too much since it doesn't result in a trophy either way but figured I'd mention it.. it was corrected on the forms and such first thing in the morning but didn't make it to the computer.

Yeah, better fix that. Season points are awarded for all finish positions, it could affect something. I'll wait to see if there are other required corrections.

Yah, thanks for getting the results.
A question/request:
for the By Class table, can the class headings be replaced to show the FAST class letters/labels instead of all that SCCA classing gobbledy-gook? It would make the table a little easier to interpret.

Native wrote:Yah, thanks for getting the results.
A question/request:
for the By Class table, can the class headings be replaced to show the FAST class letters/labels instead of all that SCCA classing gobbledy-gook? It would make the table a little easier to interpret.

I totally agree, but Ron's gonna have to play with it to answer that question fully. I'm not familiar enough with the software to know if we have those classes set up in it, or if they're just pulled from the registration file. It may just be a matter of tweaking stuff on MAE.

Was thinking about that one, myself. Kinda hard to figure out which class is which, since the results don't use their "common name".

Edit: Just checked MAE, and it has all of the correct info. So, it must be something in the timer software setup. Something else for Ron to work out. Yay, Ron!

Loren wrote:Another truth is (and I wasn't really watching the clock, so I have no numbers) that for whatever reason, we were pretty consistently slow about getting each heat started today. It seemed like the course workers were usually out there and ready, the cars were in grid... but for whatever reason (probably a bunch of different ones, stuff happens), we blew an extra 5-10 minutes at the beginning of each heat.

I can 'splain this one: some smart cookie decided to renumber the work stations, starting up on the fence and running clockwise, instead of at the wall and going counterclockwise. Since it was pretty obvious most of the cones would be hit near what on the map was marked as stations 3-5, I put extra people at those stations...except they were assigned as stations 1, 2, and 5. So when people walked out to their stations, they were distributed backwards (through no fault of their own), and I had to manually rearrange people once they got out there.

Jamie wrote:some smart cookie

I always number worker stations from the start. Station 1 is the first station that a car passes, then around the site from there. Makes sense to me. I've always done it that way.

Wow, fun freakin' weekend ! Can't remember when I had this much fun over two days!

Though I still got beat in my own car (grrrr) I still had a blast ! It was a very fun course.

Another well run FAST event by all our old and new members, without you all pitching in and helping out, it wouldn't have been as smooth as it was today. Of course we have to thank Ron and Loren for getting us all started and pointing us all in the directions we needed to go. Great job EVERYONE !!

Nice to see a lot of the students from Saturday out there having a good time today; the guys I rode with did really well and had huge smiles on their faces. Fun to see newer people to this sport having so much fun, and some of them them stuck around to the end to help with clean up and helped reset the course. Can't thank you guys enough for that. 8)

Only thing I have a complant about is that I was dealing with lunches Saturday and Sunday, then had to buy dinner Sunday afternoon ! Hey I know I'm working in the food service business right now, but COME ON !! Yellow_Colorz_PDT_06