> Kevin said -
> That one's easy - pull him/her off course, or just add another worker at
> that station, and DNW the offending worker. They didn't perform the job
> they signed up for.
>
> Sounds good in theory but, for some reason San Diego has about a
> 30 percent novice rate for the first few events every year. I was the
starter
> in the 2nd run group (a practice event with about 30 per group) that
> initially had the problem with the near colision, and out of 30 cars in
that
> group only 6 had ever autocrossed more than twice and only 10 had even
> walked the course. We had a 90 second course that required at least 18
> people to work on the course (ever been to Qualcomm? The term BIG
> doesn't even begin to cover it), so when these 30 people went out to work,
> more than likely in the same run group and we put the
> 6 to 10 that had a stinking clue about what they were doing
> in the key positions (timing & scoring, starter, ....etc.)
> where do you guess the others ended up? And who were we going to replace
> them with?
>
> Not trying to give you a hard time Kevin, but this is a continuing problem
> we face in every event (a normal championship day has over 200
> drivers) and 20 to 40 are usually there for the first time. You can only
do so >much verbal instruction and the rest comes from experience. And
> geez what an experience it was, I called it "the run group from HELL" and
> have to say it was the worst thing I have experienced in my four years of
>autocrossing. Not a typical autocross day in San Diego by any means.
>But I think we all learned something from it and that always helps. But I
have
>to say when I helped with novice instruction in the afternoon I had to
wonder
>whether or not I was going to survive it or not. The morning traumatized me
>to the point that I considered going home and hiding under the bed for a
few >days 8-)
I understand exactly what you're saying. SFR has very similar problems;
particularly on the first event of the year, where we often have over 200
entries with a high percentage of newbies. To make it worse, SFR runs
rookie classes (I'm not saying this is a bad thing, just that it exacerbates
this particular problem), so you don't even have as good a mix of
experienced drivers in with them. Year before last I chaired the first
event of the year; thought I had everything pretty much under control,
started on time, life is good - then looked up to see *80* cars pull on grid
for the third run group!
It's actually my similar experiences that have led to the harsh statement I
gave earlier: I'll make time to deal with inexperienced but positive
beginners. There simply ISN'T time, nor should there be, to deal with
people who won't take instruction or perform their jobs. If they aren't
going to listen to how to deal with a safety issue, what makes you think
they'll reset or call in cones reliably?
KeS
|