Scores for April 16 practise event at YYC

[zero10]

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

Since it came up I just want to repeat concern about bringing a food truck on site - throughput.

In my experience food trucks feed about 1 person per minute at a cost of ~$10 per person.  With 40 people in a run group and an assumption that it takes 15 minutes to eat lunch after you receive your food that means you need 55 minutes to get all of the competitors fed plus any extra time caused by spectators lining up at the food truck.  In my opinion this time could only be shortened by bringing out more food trucks or reducing the number of people patronizing the food truck, both of which would likely bring the revenue per truck below the minimum amount they required to come out for the day.

[94boosted]

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

In the morning it was definitely rushed but in the afternoon (with the novices joining the run groups) Ken and I had just enough time to check pressures have a quick chat and get buckled in before we were called up again.

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

Since it came up I just want to repeat concern about bringing a food truck on site - throughput.

In my experience food trucks feed about 1 person per minute at a cost of ~$10 per person.  With 40 people in a run group and an assumption that it takes 15 minutes to eat lunch after you receive your food that means you need 55 minutes to get all of the competitors fed plus any extra time caused by spectators lining up at the food truck.  In my opinion this time could only be shortened by bringing out more food trucks or reducing the number of people patronizing the food truck, both of which would likely bring the revenue per truck below the minimum amount they required to come out for the day.

Wayne looked into food trucks and it was very cost prohibitive iirc they wanted quite a large sum of money upfront just to show up. I know Richard was looking into a different food truck to see if their costs were more reasonable.

[MurrayPeterson]

My experience with food trucks at race events is not good.  At last year's Canadian Nationals, we waited so long for our food that we had to walk away without getting any food.  We basically ran out of time, and needed to be in grid before the food was ready

We have restaurants within a 1-10 minute drive of the venue -- they should do just fine.

[Reijo]

Probably with 3 heats food trucks would work better for some (longer break) ... There will always be others who go to the Tim's or DQ on the other side of the runway ....

R

[Reijo]

In San Diego they had the "Roach Coach" as they called  it .. .lol .... They would be there first thing in the morning and stay until about 2 pm (guessing here) and their breakfast burrito with real hot sauce was great!  One of the things I miss down there.  However their events had about 150 people as a minimum back then.....so plenty of people to buy food.

150 is a number we could potentially reach at YYC I think ... over a bit of time ...

[MurrayPeterson]

150 is a number we could potentially reach at YYC I think ... over a bit of time ...

We have a ways to go.  VCMC runs 120 drivers, and they get 7 runs each, for a total of 840 runs.

With fun runs, we managed 630 runs for the day.  So, we need to step up our game by quite a bit in comparison.  I expect 3 run groups will make up most of this difference, since we will have an extra hour (ish) to get in the extra runs.  And better grid control will make a huge difference as well.

Tom (et al) running grid -- be very willing to send the next car in line if a driver isn't ready.  We aren't at the level of SCCA Tour events with Glen running grid.  I worked under him multiple times in grid, and he runs an incredibly tight ship.  Nice guy, but he gets *mean* is you don't do it right

[NickST]

Yeah VCMA was incredibly well organized. They started perfectly on time, and were running 3 groups non-stop with everything buttoned up exactly when it needed to be by 5:00pm.

Two things I noticed that seemed to speed things up were the bar codes on the helmets, and that they e-mailed out the work assignments the day before. Before I arrived, I already knew what station I was assigned to, there was no confusion when people needed to rotate out for the next group. They also had a chief worker who you had to check in with on your way out to your station, if you didn't check in with him, you didn't get a score.

Also, to encourage people to help out with early setup, they allow you to volunteer for things like course layout and registration duties, and then you didn't have to work on the course. Those positions get snapped up pretty quick, and I think it contributes to getting everything going on time.

[Reijo]

Yeah VCMA was incredibly well organized. They started perfectly on time, and were running 3 groups non-stop with everything buttoned up exactly when it needed to be by 5:00pm.

Two things I noticed that seemed to speed things up were the bar codes on the helmets, and that they e-mailed out the work assignments the day before. Before I arrived, I already knew what station I was assigned to, there was no confusion when people needed to rotate out for the next group. They also had a chief worker who you had to check in with on your way out to your station, if you didn't check in with him, you didn't get a score.

Also, to encourage people to help out with early setup, they allow you to volunteer for things like course layout and registration duties, and then you didn't have to work on the course. Those positions get snapped up pretty quick, and I think it contributes to getting everything going on time.

Yes, so they are basically using more of the SCCA style of running things due to a larger group ... which is where we are heading as the numbers grow.  At one of the last YYC events, we had over 100 registered on-line but due to the weather a little over 90 showed.  120 I think is a realistic number that we may see this summer at some point at YYC.  I have heard and talked to a number of people from years ago who are planning to come out ... never mind the Corvette and BMW people etc.

So how about some pre-assignments etc. Murray?  We did have a list of worker positions that we did not use for the 1st event (a practice and early albeit).

And, it just occurred to me that the WCMA event in June just prior to the Vancouver/Pitt Meadows Nationals, may be the "big" event of the year with people coming from all over.  I think we should plan this one out a bit more ... hmmm..... I wonder about a traditional 2-day event with banquet and everything?   

Reijo

[MurrayPeterson]

Tom was going to pre-assign run groups and worker assignments, but the novice school prevented us from doing that.  Looks like May 13 is going to have the same issue.

We got started very timely last Sunday (10:08 A.M., so only 8 minutes late).  I think that the course being set up the day before is the biggest thing keeping us on schedule.  Perhaps we can start the driver's meeting a bit earlier to allow for the inevitable delays at the start.

[Terry Johns]

Sounds like the club is in a healthy place and looking to grow, as we've said before the team concept is working.

150 cars 8 run ways to go Reijo. Beware of the Pit Natzi 

[MurrayPeterson]

VCMC does (did?) do one thing that I dislike.  They depend too strongly on the bar codes, and when I ran timing at an event, radio calls were "interesting" because many cars had no numbers on them.  A side effect of this is that they have to grid cars of the same make and colour apart from each other to ensure they aren't on the course at the same time.  I also ran into an issue where the bar code reader failed, but the number on the car didn't match the one for him in the computer.

I am not a fan of bar code readers for our events.  They don't don't make running timing any easier or faster.  We allow walk-ins, so we would need a bar code printer at registration.  Our current system is simple and easy, and doesn't depend on yet another piece of equipment that can (and will) fail.

[MurrayPeterson]

150 cars 8 run ways to go Reijo.

1200 runs in a day is asking for a bit too much.  If you look at a National SCCA event (say Packwood), they manage 900-1000 runs in a day (3 runs for 300 cars plus reruns).  Above 1000 runs, the event starts running quite late in the day.

[Type_Yarr]

Wayne looked into food trucks and it was very cost prohibitive iirc they wanted quite a large sum of money upfront just to show up. I know Richard was looking into a different food truck to see if their costs were more reasonable.

The one food truck operator that I know, who would have been interested in coming down without the $1200 minimum is selling his truck. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find one that will waive the prepaid minimum.

[MurrayPeterson]

I looked at the times from the computer, and I think we may be right on track for getting cars through.

Basically, we managed to get 140 (or more) cars through per hour when we were running.
Changeovers both took 11 minutes, and we took a 1 hour lunch break.

So, if we have 3 run groups and actually manage to keep the course hot during heat changes, we would get 980 runs between 10 A.M. and 4 P.M., leaving lots of time to clean up and be done by 5 P.M.

Even if we shut the course down for safety at heat change, it should take less than 11 minutes.  That would give 120 people at least 8 runs for the day.

[Reijo]

I looked at the times from the computer, and I think we may be right on track for getting cars through.

Basically, we managed to get 140 (or more) cars through per hour when we were running.
Changeovers both took 11 minutes, and we took a 1 hour lunch break.

So, if we have 3 run groups and actually manage to keep the course hot during heat changes, we would get 980 runs between 10 A.M. and 4 P.M., leaving lots of time to clean up and be done by 5 P.M.

Even if we shut the course down for safety at heat change, it should take less than 11 minutes.  That would give 120 people at least 8 runs for the day.

Sounds good .... I suspected based on the last day that we are more or less on track and that proves it - thanks Murray!  So, let's all keep on!   

R