There was a period of time around here, and I'm sure this condition still
exists in
other parts of the country, where an event was put on and manned by the
sponsoring
club, and all the competitors did not work at all. The problem was that if your
club was putting on the event, you could not run. I've knew some who would let
their membership lapse just before a major event so they wouldn't have to work.
:-)
And then renew after the event was over. Yes, cheating in its earliest form.
There would have to be a pretty good number of events presented throughout
the
season, with a ratio of "dropped" events, such as one for every four events so
you
wouldn't lose points.
Paid courseworkers seems a nice touch, but you'd have to have some sort of a
relief system. Standing out on course in the heat/rain/snow/etc. all day would
cause a loss of attention by the workers, dontcha think?
Even a break between heats might not be long enough to rest aching backs and
feet.
Costs: $5 an hour? What's the minimum wage? Methinks it's a bit higher than
that. Course designers would have to carry in the back of their minds ways to
keep
the number of workers down to shave the costs.
The $750 per day would kill some regions, especially when site rental can
run
as high as $1500 plus a day. On the other hand, I'd bet some folks would be
happy
to pay more just so they wouldn't have to work. Again, the higher costs might
keep
others out of the sport.
Another part to consider are the insurance liabilities when paying someone
to
do that is somewhat dangerous. I don't know what those would be.
I have no answers...
--Pat Kelly
dg50@daimlerchrysler.com wrote:
> Time to tip another sacred cow. :)
>
> This weekend, Detroit Region held it's Season Ender event, which drew (if I
>got
> the right numbers) 208 cars.
>
> A couple of these cars were new STU recruits. There would have been more of
> them, but there was a big car show in Toronto that a lot of them had already
> committed to. Lesson learned: promote events well in advance!
>
> So I got to be a mentor for a day, which included teaching the newbies how the
> process of an event worked - which included a little bit of a suprise on their
> part when they discovered that they were required to work a shift chasing
>cones.
> There was no resistance, just a little suprise - especially on the part of
> family members who had come along to spectate, had seen their guy run, and who
> wanted to go home.
>
> One of my newbies is from Japan, and he observed that Japanese Gymkhana events
> provided staff workers to do the cone chasing. He also noted that the entry
>fees
> were MUCH higher - on the order of $60-$70 per event.
>
> Now I've heard from other people (not these guys) the expressed opinion that
> "autocross sucks because they make you stand around in the sun for two hours
> chasing cones and it eats your whole day to get 2 min of seat time". Those of
>us
> who have been around a little longer (or are perhaps made of stronger stuff)
> understand that by working, we keep costs down, and so make the sport
>affordable
> to all. Some time spend shagging cones is a small price to pay if that's what
>it
> takes to keep the sport going.
>
> But yet, although I willingly go out to do my worker shift, that doesn't mean
>I
> necessarily look forward to it.... My life would be none the poorer if I
>didn't
> have to shag cones. And if it helped member retention at all, that's doubly
> good.
>
> But yet, it also seems unreasonable to ask for volenteers to work an entire
> event while everybody else runs. In the absence of compensation for workers,
>it
> makes more sense to spread the pain as wide as possible - as the current
>system
> does.
>
> So then, in order to have dedicated "pro" cone chasers, it follows that they
> have to be compensated somehow. There is precident in other sports - I used to
> work, back in my tender years, as a "pro" soccer ref. The local Soccer
> Association maintained a pool of trained refs and linesmen (almost to the man
> high school students) who were paid to run the games. It wasn't much, but when
> you're 15, ANY money is good money. (As an aside, the head ref was an ex
>British
> pro soccer player, and we all lived in abject fear of him. Ever been chewed
>out
> in a thick Scottish brogue? :)
>
> So then, let's assume that we have 5 corner stations, and that each station
>has
> 5 people on it. If each person is paid $5/hour, then it's costing the club
> $125/hour in labour to keep the course manned. The Season Ender had the first
> car on course by about 11:00, and the event finished running cars at about
>17:00
> - that's 6 hours to get 208 cars through, on a 52-63 second course, 3 runs
>each.
> That would mean a labour bill of $750.
>
> Now I co-chaired an event last year that drew 180 cars, and we made much more
> than that in profit. We could have eaten that $750 easily, with no further
>cost
> to the competitors. However, not everyone is as lucky (especially if you have
>to
> pay more than the $500-ish we did to rent the lot) so let's assume that most
> events just break even.
>
> That means you'd have to make up the extra $ in an entry fee increase. Well,
>on
> a 200 car event, that's a $3.75 increase. On a 150 car event, that's $5, and
>on
> a 100 car event, that's $7.50. That doesn't strike me as all that much money,
> especially when you consider that that's a maximum figure - fewer corner
> stations with fewer people would cost correspondingly less.
>
> And there's another benefit - by providing employment to teenagers and such,
>you
> increase the amount of people exposed to the sport, which in turn raises the
> profile of the sport, and as well increases the amount of goodwill generated
> towards the SCCA. I can see a university (for example) more willing to provide
> access to great big honking parking lots if they know that the event is
>putting
> money into their student's pockets. Maybe not a whole lot of money, but when
> you're a starving student, any money is good money - someone who worked a full
> day would come home with $30, which is better than a sharp stick in the eye.
>:)
>
> The only problem I see is a little increased overhead on the part of the
>region
> to recruit, train, and organize the labour pool. Somebody needs to be the
>"head
> cone chaser" the same way my soccer association had a head ref. Perhaps the
> regional Worker Division could be called upon for aid? I don't know too much
> about that facet of the SCCA.
>
> I don't see a loser here - what do y'all think?
>
> DG
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