Scores for April 16 practise event at YYC

[Robp201]

Not a big deal but I noticed I only got 4runs recorded. I'm not worried but did I do something wrong? I know I took 5 runs.
(Car #201)

You will notice that your co-driver got 6 runs, so one of them is yours.  At some point, timing got the wrong number at the start line.

It's important to have the correct driver number on both sides of the car for every run.

Something to note:  If you have the wrong nos. on your car at a bigger event, your run will be DSQ.  How can you get that right?  Practice getting the numbers changed over properly at the local events ... .either put a piece of tape over the "other" number or better yet have permanent magnetics or kling-on vinyl numbers and change them every run.   'tis a good habit to cultivate....and especially more so as our events get bigger locally.   

R

Yup Thats what happened... Silly new guys we are.. Good thing this was a practice!!!
I have now created it in my head it's my job to ensure to have them changed,
Question, when running two drivers, is it normal that we were being sent within 1 minute of getting back to the pits? First time doing two drivers so just trying to gauge how much time we have. I think its where we got flustered and just switched drivers as it was like we got back to the pits and they were telling us to get going as quick as possible as the grid started moving before we even go out of the car.

[MurrayPeterson]

The rules require a 5 minute delay before the same car can be sent out on course again.  However, this is a local event, and we send out cars as fast as we can do so safely.  If you come to the regional or national events, that 5 minute delay is observed.

[Robp201]

Good to know! 5 minutes flies when your having fun!! LOL

[Reijo]

Part of that "problem" may have been that the "stacking" of cars went a bit too far.

At a large event (SCCA Nationals, Tours etc), the goal is to have 2-3 cars (max!) sitting at the line thereby giving cars/people the maximum time in the pits to water tires, make any adjustments to suspension but also to prevent overheating for Formula/Prepared/Modified cars which do not have any radiator fans.  Those cars have to keep moving.

This is something we have to work at as a team.  The timing is important and the grid persons' job is a difficult one ... I did it for a few of the events at YYC and you have to really pay attention and vary the no. of cars going to the start as per what is happening.  E.g. if there is a spin or other stoppage such as timing, you have to be ready to stop sending cars, immediately!  That means a lot of head cranking to make sure everything is moving along smoothly.  It is not an easy job and there should be experienced people doing it.

I remember the "old days" when everyone was in a single straight line ... no grid at all....ever.  We can't go back to that.  We have to move on and especially for these bigger events at YYC.  I know it is tough but we have to adapt or we will end up with chaos.   

[Tom M]

if i am working grid at YYC i try to stack as many cars as possible because of the long drive to the start , but only if the driver is sitting in the car ready to go , skip the cars working on set up or tires and send a few that are ready and go back and send the skipped car ,

[Reijo]

if i am working grid at YYC i try to stack as many cars as possible because of the long drive to the start , but only if the driver is sitting in the car ready to go , skip the cars working on set up or tires and send a few that are ready and go back and send the skipped car ,

Noooooooooooooooo!   DO NOT STACK CARS!!!!!

Jeez, .... ideal is 2-3 cars sitting at the start and maybe one or two on the way to the start.  I know it can be done because I was doing it last fall and I have seen it done at Nationals.  You should have seen how complicated it was at the Heartland Park lot in Topeka in 2007 and 2008 where they had to drive probably close to a km. to get to the start.  But it was done properly there (for the most part).  Errors occur or stoppages occur so we can live with that.

If you have more, STOP IT NOW!   THAT IS A MISTAKE!

R

[Tom M]

noted , i will not stack the cars anymore , i just assumed if the car was running with driver ready it did not matter if it was in the pit or waiting in line , Reijo your correct it can be done only 2-3 waiting but grid marshall will need to be more firm with the command to go to the start line and drivers will need to be ready

[Reijo]

noted , i will not stack the cars anymore , i just assumed if the car was running with driver ready it did not matter if it was in the pit or waiting in line , Reijo your correct it can be done only 2-3 waiting but grid marshall will need to be more firm with the command to go to the start line and drivers will need to be ready

And, that is why we need a 2nd grid person (at the minimum ... as a side note at the SCCA Nats there is a Grid Chief (lately Glen Hernandez of Seattle) and Glen has a whole team of people working nothing but grid!  We need to learn (as a team) how to properly run grid and have people trained for properly running grid).

The 2nd person's duties would be to go ahead of the person sending cars out by 5 cars giving the people the heads up that they are 3-4-5 cars up on deck ... and also to find and get people to their cars, belted in, and ready to go.  Drivers have to be ready to go when the grid marshall is about to send them.  You should NOT be getting in the car, doing up belts, helmets or anything else when that marshall gets to your car and is about to send you on your way.  As a note, when cars are sent out at about 20 seconds apart, and you are on-deck, 3 cars at the line, 2 on the way ... that means you will be lining up in 100 seconds (maximum).  In other words, there is not much time, and you should be ready to run as soon as the grid marshall is there to send you on your way.

Things move very quickly if done correctly.  But it also maximizes the time you have in the pits ... so you can use your tire blankets (for the maximum period ... which you can't use if you are in a line-up), water your tires, make suspension/shock/sway bar changes, change numbers, etc).  All of those items become much more rushed if you have near zero time in the pits.

Even at the SCCA Nationals where a typical grid consists of 60 or so drivers, the time between runs is not very much.  With two drivers, there is very, very little down time.  You are rushing the entire time ... you split your duties appropriately, the driver finishing up changes the numbers (or at the least on their side), open the hood for cooling (and close properly later), spray the tires, engine, oil filter, intake etc.,  the new driver does very little other than minimal stuff and then gets belted in.  If you have multi-point harnesses, you will have to adjust them and that takes more time than normal ... helmet on, gloves on, and then you have to go through the course in your mind and particularly the parts of the course that you anticipate may give you problems (or had on previous runs) ... all the while looking at the grid marshalls as to where they are at and how soon you will be coming up in anticipation of heading out.

It is a very hectic time.

For us, in a sense, if we have cars running at 20 sec. apart, since we do not have 60 drivers in the heat, there is very little time between cars and especially 2-driver cars!  Therefore we must be even more diligent with having as few cars as possible at the line so that people have time in grid to do all that they have to do.

Hmmm.....maybe this is a good reason to not have 3 heats but rather just 2 so that people have a bit of time between runs .... up to about 100-120 drivers.  With 100 drivers and 2 heats, we would have 50 drivers in grid (not cars ... due to 2-driver cars).  With 3 heats, we would have about 33 drivers per heat with 100 entries.   

Last weekend we had 72 drivers in the afternoon (the novice orientation people came over who did not run the big course in the morning) and 3 run groups.

How did the 2-driver cars find that to work with?  Hurried?  OK?  Otherwise?  Can someone speak up about this?

Thanks,

Reijo

[Reijo]

Let's look at the math:  What is the time between cars?

For this past weekend/afternoon, we had 72 entries who showed up and posted times.  Assuming an equal no. of drivers per group:  72/3 = 24.

For a 2-driver car, that would mean, the car would be running every 12 cars ... which at 20 seconds apart would be 12*20 = 240 seconds......or /60 = 4 minutes apart.

This is not even LEGAL!  A car should not be running within 5 minutes (due to an unfair advantage of warm tires) ... never mind not having enough time to do all the other work as mentioned in the previous post.  And what happens if there is a re-run?  We could maybe run them at the end?  But even then the 5 minute rule does not work.

Let's do the math for 60 drivers in one heat (ala SCCA Nats, Tours etc.).  A 2-driver car (3 drivers are not allowed), would be up on deck every 30 drivers *20/run = 600 seconds, or 10 minutes.  Note that this time includes time to drive to/from the grid from the start/finish lines respectively.  If there is a re-run (there is one worker whose duty is ONLY to time the interval between runs with a stopwatch for a car based on re-runs ... that a car should not go out before 5 minutes has passed ... including the travel time to the start etc.  It is tricky).  We have done this locally only when we have hosted the Canadian Nationals.

How many cars would we need in a run group to have a minimum of 5 minutes between runs for 2-driver cars?  Well, we calculated 4 minutes between runs from the weekend so we need 5-4 = 1 minute more time /20 sec./run = 3 more drivers.  Therefore we should have an absolute minimum of 24+3 = 27 drivers per heat.  What if cars go out in less than 20 seconds (one year, Marshall Grice of LA sent out cars at 17 seconds apart.  They finished at 2 pm ... the earliest of any SCCA Nationals in history!   - e.g. since 1972).  For 17 second intervals, using the same math, we would need a minimum of 35 drivers per heat ...

Note that these calculations are all based on a MINIMUM of 5 minutes between runs for 2-driver cars.  These calculations do not give us any room for any re-runs ... which are sure to happen and so we should account for them.

Sounds like we should run about 40 cars per heat ideally.....at the least and an absolutely minimum of 30 drivers (not cars).

So, unless we have 90 or more, we should have 2 heats only it looks like.

Interesting, eh?

[Apex Carver]

noted , i will not stack the cars anymore , i just assumed if the car was running with driver ready it did not matter if it was in the pit or waiting in line , Reijo your correct it can be done only 2-3 waiting but grid marshall will need to be more firm with the command to go to the start line and drivers will need to be ready

Last weekend we had 72 drivers in the afternoon (the novice orientation people came over who did not run the big course in the morning) and 3 run groups.

How did the 2-driver cars find that to work with?  Hurried?  OK?  Otherwise?  Can someone speak up about this?

Thanks,

Reijo

Richard and I were rushing quite a bit to get pressures dialed in/numbers done. I barely had enough time to jump in/get belted before i was called up to the line.

[Reijo]

A last calculation:

What if you have 10 cars lined up at the start line?   That means you will spend 9*20 = 180 seconds standing still, clutching on/off (extra clutch wear anyone?), etc.

Last Sunday, with 24 cars, 2-drivers had 240 seconds between runs including driving to from the course. 

If you spend 180 seconds in the lineup, then you are left with 60 seconds (less the time to drive from the finish light to the grid spot) to change drivers, undo/do up belts, change numbers, put your helmet on, water tires, etc.

I think I see a problem.  When you consider driving from the finish line to the grid spot, you are potentially left with zero time if it takes one minute to stop in grid!   Wow!

We need to maximize the time in the pits by not lining up more cars than we absolutely need to.  This really is important (look at the calculation above again if you need to).  1 minute stopped in grid is not enough time.

[JamesTCallaghan]

We were very rushed in our two driver car on Sunday, we didn't even get to check all our tire pressures between runs at one point.

[MurrayPeterson]

Keeping a shorter line up in our YYC events is going to require very, very attentive grid marshals.  Mind you, this is probably the lowest YYC attendance for the year, so the importance of a short start line will be reduced.

On the plus side from Sunday, we got in our runs in record time, with no drama at all.  Congrats to the entire coordinating team -- their hard work showed.  I think this was the smoothest and best run event ever.

[JulieT]

Jeff did his runs in one go and then I did mine - even then it was a rush to get tire pressures checked and adjusted between some of the runs.

[Reijo]

How about that?  The theory (calculations) properly predicted the results ... e.g. it is very rushed in the pits.

Before this weekend I had not thought about the resultant rush in grid if we do not have enough cars and if we send out cars close together.  Learn something new every day, huh?!   

As a side note and for future reference, we had previously determined the cut-off for two or three run groups on whether we had enough people to man all the stations.  Apparently at YYC, the criteria should be time between runs!  At FM, of course, the game is different with less entries and more time between runs due to the overlap that we have to live with.  However there is a bit of a time saver in that we have a few less change-overs during the day ... e.g. 2 heats vs. 3 heats.....4 vs. 6

So it seems that we have been running heats that are too small!  Who'da thunk?

Therefore it looks like it is best to keep 2 heats unless we are over 100 drivers or so.

I do like the idea of 3 heats since we do not take a lunch break then but I think that is a worthwhile sacrifice.  It would be more do-able if we had a lunch truck on-site ... I know we were looking into that but it was too much money but there may have been others we did not look at or were about to ...

Reijo