2016 Autocross Season Saturday Test & Tunes

[94boosted]

At today's AGM a discussion was had regarding the Saturday Test & Tunes and if those days could be better used. Due to our agreement with Fort MacLeod (and Westerner?) we are limited to essentially one weekend (Sat & Sun) per month. Typically we have a Test & Tune on Saturday and the Championship Event on Sunday. Do people want to keep the Saturday as a Test & Tune? Should we make it into a Championship event, and if so, a stand alone event or Saturday Day 1 and Sunday Day 2 format? Or try something different i.e. Solo Trial?

Please discuss.

[MurrayPeterson]

2 day championship weekends do cause problems for those people that can only make it to a single event.


Why not just make each day a championship event?  If you look at the overall score statistics (http://members.shaw.ca/murray.autocross/2015/_overalls.txt), only 13 people made it out to the required 7 Sunday events.  If we make every day a championship day (but still require only 7 for the championship), we should get more people in the fight.

[94boosted]

Murray, that would be the Standalone Championship Event option. Personally I agree.

[MurrayPeterson]

Oops -- changed my vote to standalone.

I would also suggest that we set up a team event or two.  We can do this in parallel with a championship event (score it both as individual scores as well as team events).  If we enforce some mix and match to prevent "cheater teams", I think it could be fun.

[Wayne Dyck]

Multiple event Team Championship...
Match Tour style shoot out, morning qualify, afternoon shoot out...

Structured as Murray says to prevent 'cheater teams' or sand baggers.

[E6Cueman]

It's unlikely that I will make very many local two day events, so have no strong feelings regardless... but as Murray pointed out at the AGM, the casual Saturday test and tune events were drawing a bit of a different crowd from the Sunday events.  We may want to consider catering to that crowd and trying to expand attendance and grow our sport and club.

Team events sound fun, but would likely deter new people from getting involved.

[Stuart]

Team events sound fun, but would likely deter new people from getting involved.

Could do a few events where we team new people with the top drivers in the club.  Allows both tighter competition as well as getting even more interaction through the day.

[NickST]

I voted for leaving it as is... it is my preference of course simply because I like the more relaxed atmosphere of it, but I have to agree that it might be discouraging people who are only able to make it out on Saturday from even attempting to participate in the championship event. Putting my own preferences aside, it is probably better for the club to make them stand alone championship events.

I would probably suck at being in a team event, I tend to screw up when I get under pressure and last thing I want is to drag other people down with me.

[E6Cueman]

Team events sound fun, but would likely deter new people from getting involved.

Could do a few events where we team new people with the top drivers in the club.  Allows both tighter competition as well as getting even more interaction through the day.

I think that's something that could be pretty fun... with mandatory ride alongs. 

[MurrayPeterson]

I would probably suck at being in a team event, I tend to screw up when I get under pressure and last thing I want is to drag other people down with me.

That's the whole point of team events -- add more pressure without losing the fun factor.  And you will never get better under pressure until you have some practise

[MurrayPeterson]

I think that's something that could be pretty fun... with mandatory ride alongs. 

Oooh -- now there is an awesome idea.  Mandatory ride alongs would be equally good for the experienced people; I need to learn how to do better when I have that extra weight in the car.

[Reijo]

Some interesting ideas...     How about a combo?  Or alternate weekends?  Remember also that we could also run a separate course at the other end.

Something to consider:   Some people may wish to only run one day to save money/tires/time (e.g. staying overnight etc. takes time) ... due to budget etc.

R

[threeotwo]

I also enjoy the more relaxed atmosphere of the test and tune days, its nice to have an opportunity to swap cars with people and what not...  and we almost always score the event so people can compare times... which is nice.

It would be cool to set up team events though, I quite enjoyed running the Challenge Cup events in Edmonton back when they had Namao.  Pairing up rookies with some of the more experienced people seems like an awesome idea.

Another thing that would be neat to see would be some sort of reasonably priced car challenge.  Find a clunker car for one event of the season that everyone gets a run in, give away a free event entry to the winner or something...

In the end I'm happy with some good seat time and a clock to race against...

[zero10]

Hi guys - I'm mostly here just to spy on this thread but maybe I should also throw in my opinions.  I think you should perhaps keep the test and tune for the first (and MAYBE second) saturday of the year but should pursue an alternate format for the rest of them.

I really like the idea of running some team events - but care needs to be taken to prevent crushing the spirits of those new to the sport.  I think the idea of encouraging (or possibly mandating) newbie ride-alongs with the more experienced members of the group is a good one, perhaps we also need to loosen up the rules around scoring and drivers of cars - allow the more experienced competitors to take the newbies for a ride in their own car.  Also perhaps the scoring could be done differently, instead of a fastest morning + fastest afternoon the teams could be ranked by their relative improvement?  It seems initially unfair since afternoon runs are typically faster on account of the road conditions improving but if we change up the run order in the afternoon it would level the playing field a bit, or maybe that is totally unnecessary.

I don't know if that is leaning too hard on the more experienced people but I feel like it might be the sort of thing that helps reduce frustration with newcomers and helps get them up to speed a little bit more quickly.



I also really like the reasonably priced car challenge but I think that is the sort of event that caters mostly to the more experienced members of the group.  It almost sounds like it might be best suited to a shortened day, like an evening event.  Those complaints aside it sounds like good fun and I'd really like to remove the car from the equation when comparing myself to other drivers.

[NickST]

Another thing that would be neat to see would be some sort of reasonably priced car challenge.  Find a clunker car for one event of the season that everyone gets a run in, give away a free event entry to the winner or something...

In the end I'm happy with some good seat time and a clock to race against...

Just thinking out loud, but the club could probably get a 1 or 2 year lease on a city/trend-line Golf that would be even cheaper and significantly more reliable than a clunker, plus with some advertising decals on it they could write off the lease payments at the same time.


EDIT: Never mind, I just remembered the "no insurance" waiver, and I doubt any lease company would agree to that