Yes Kevin
There are some jugheads whom I think don't even need to be at an event.
You can explain things over & over & the concepts just don't seem to sink in.
Yipes to seeing 80 cars in pre-grid!
I do wonder just what kind of street drivers these people are, hope I'm not
around them when they wander the freeway.
Judy B. at the Q in San Diego {:>}
At 01:29 PM 1/12/99 -0800, Kevin Stevens wrote:
>> 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
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