> As the reviled starter for the third run group I have a few of suggestions
> to add to those floated earlier today:
>
> 1) For the karts - how about if you come out of the grid in roughly
> decreasing order of speed potential? It's great to have the junior kart
> program, but the speed differential between the fastest adult driver and the
> slowest first-time junior driver make it tough to guess the appropriate
> overlap time. If the karts run in decreasing order of speed then the
> starter can use the same overlap point and the interval will be OK.
As a starter I understand, and it *feels* like you're saving/wasting a lot of
time, but it is really only seconds overall. Probably not worth worrying
about for the grid/drivers.
> 3) For cars - Lets encourage people who compete regularly to get in
> compliance with the rule book for numbers and class letters. I have been
> starting the same cars with white on silver or white of light yellow for
> years, and even though they are different colors they are not contrasting
> colors. From some angles those numbers will just plain disappear.
Let's encourage it by not letting them pass tech elsewise.
> 4) For cars, when we have instances where we don't have temporary numbers to
> hand out - let the card sorter do a sanity check on the numbers before we
> start running the group. Given the circumstances I guess we couldn't do
> much about the color of the masking tape, but on Sunday we had a quite a few
> cars with some combination of 1's and 7's made out of masking tape with no
> class indicated. Ferinstance, in the third run group I had the number 117
> yellow Lotus without class letters - D-Mod or OSP or AP? followed by the
> number 117 yellow Honda S2000 without class numbers -OSP or A-Stock running
> out of group? At least the S2000 had silver duct-tape numbers :-)
See above. Also a note to card sorters - until the cards are collected from
the cars on grid you have absolutely nothing to do. YOU should be collecting
those cards prior to the run group starting. At that point you can require
numbers to be fixed (don't take the card if they aren't), sort the cards,
check for numbers on the cards, etc. All this will not only make the event
run smoothly, but will directly improve the quality of your life over the next
hour or so.
> 5) If we have to rely on the radio to inform the timing crew of who is
> coming to the line, give that responsibility to the Grid Czar - the Starter
> is supposed to be watching how the cars on course are doing (and in the case
> of venues like Oakland - for intrusions by stray vans, bicycles,
> pedestrians, etc.) to ensure that it is safe to start the next car.
Yeah, it's somewhat tough on the starter, but doable. Radioing in numbers is
REALLY tough on the card sorter, for the reason I mentioned before.
> 6) Realize that when the speakers are facing away from the starting line,
> the Starter is facing away from the motorhome, and the karts are staging for
> starts, that the Starter cannot hear anything said over the PA.
Very true. The starter should have a radio for exactly that reason. Also a
note to the trailer - once you tell the starter to hold the start, you then
have to tell it to start cars again. S/he doesn't know that the problem has
been fixed and the timer has been cleared, etc. OTOH, it's usually
fastest/best NOT to hold the start from the trailer for non-timing related
problems (like cars spinning, down cones, etc.). This is because the starter
generally has a better feel for when cars can be safely started after such
eventualities, rather than waiting for the entire course to clear. This is a
nuance and I don't insist on it, but it's something to bear in mind.
KeS
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