AX photos + instructor feedback

[jenniferreinhardt]

Spending most of our energy catering primarily to long-time members and focusing on trying to retain those who don't want to be retained (either as instructors or as participants) would be the road to decline...

This is heavy stuff. It would be great for you to come to a Board meeting and relay your views with concrete examples and your ideas for improvement.

[Petunia777]

Greetings and salutations, all. This is my first ever post to the forum. I participated in my very first AX this past Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed myself despite the oppressive heat and humidity. I haven't even taken the PDS yet, so I read all your posts with interest.

First, thank you for all the great pics, Greg! What a delightful surprise that was for me when one of the club members sent me the link to them! As a novice I can see all the hard work and dedication you all—from the instructors to the corner workers to the safety team to all the admin. workers—put into making this event successful for everyone. I can't say that I have a lot more input than that as a novice, but I hope to continue to participate in AX in the future, become a more skilled driver, and contribute more to the enormous effort involved in making this a safe, fun, and successful event for everyone.

[ttweed]

Granted this was about as bad as our weather gets with heat and humidity, but the goal was to take some stress off of the instructors.
Ideally a student would not have to go out for 2 sessions (training and work) more than once or twice in their careers, where an instructor might end up doing it frequently if he is getting new students with the old system.
I don't think having to be out an extra session for a student in their training phase is too much to ask for the benefits they are getting.

We only get one chance to make a first impression on a newbie, and on a day like Sunday was, with the weather and the schedule for a red/blue instructor/student combination like we had, I disagree, and would say we are asking too much to have them work two sessions. There would have been no time for my student to even eat lunch except for about 30 minutes before his timed runs in the afternoon, when the event was over 70% finished. It's a nice goal to take stress off the instructors, but being told you must work your own corner group and still go out with your student in his as well sure doesn't do that.

I would also point out that working two practice sessions that are 5 or 6 laps long and nobody gives a damn about hitting cones is much more strenuous (and longer) than working a 4-lap timed session where cones count, and the student never gets any experience at calling in penalties either.

TT

[Don Middleton]

[All in all, it was the worst experience I have ever had at an autox...

Wow, Tom, I WAS feeling a little bad about having to miss the event. Now, no so much. Thanks. Still, a good post.

As for the instructor load, let's consider "drafting" a few experienced, non-instructor drivers to be corner-working-only instructors. There aren't that many complete newbies at each event and it would help balance the load for the driving instructors.

[ttweed]

Greetings and salutations, all. This is my first ever post to the forum. I participated in my very first AX this past Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed myself despite the oppressive heat and humidity.

Hi Sara,

I'm glad you enjoyed yourself at your first autocross! Without trying to be rude, I would point out it was on Sunday, not Saturday, just so people reading this don't get confused. I am just curious--what color run group were you placed in? Did you work corners twice during the day, once with your instructor and once without? Did you feel like you had enough time to eat, hydrate, and rest/visit with other members between sessions of driving and corner working?

Thx,
TT

[LUCKY DAVE]

The new schedule does seem to be more hectic for instructors, even though it sounded like such a good idea. I too barely had time to wolf down a sammich, and my student didn't need instruction in corner working (red/blue). Changing to the "good" tires or chassis setup fiddling would have been nearly impossible.
I do like corner working in the cool morning but that may be offset to some degree by working timed runs when drivers are trying very hard not to hit cones. Less running around.....
No banging on Mark here - he works his tail off - but maybe we should revisit how many corner workers each corner really needs and try a little harder to give instructors who have already worked in the morning (the tech crew) a pass from corner working.
Another thing that's missing with the new schedule is the "Main Event" feeling of having the fastest group run last. That excitement of watching The Top Ten settled at the last second like F1 qualifying is gone.

[ttweed]

Wow, Tom, I WAS feeling a little bad about having to miss the event. Now, no so much. Thanks.

Well, Don, I would still have to say that the worst day of autocross is better than the best day I ever had working at a job I didn't enjoy, so it wasn't all bad. There was just a confluence of elements that made it worse than usual--some of which were personal problems. I was just recovering from a summer cold/flu, and my energy level was lower than usual, and in getting to the stadium early for tech, I neglected to eat a good breakfast, both factors contributing to my early burnout. And the last straw was not having time to get over to Steve G's EZ-up to sample the fresh-baked goodies that he told me Sharon had brought down. I just HATE leaving a good cinnamon bun uneaten!

TT

[mrondeau]

We seem to be going a bit overboard with some of the schedule modifications. There is an ideal way to run instructor/student pairings and allowing for the more experienced corner workers/drivers to work corners during timed runs. Trying to do anything else with the schedule doesn't seem to work. While I applaud the attempt to find a better way to conduct our events, the current schedule test seems to be a bit of a failure and doesn't allow for much time for instructors to do anything but run from their car to the students car to the corner working truck and so on. I believe that this is just going to promote instructor burnout.

Only true novices need to be instructed in corner working. Once you've done it for a session, you should have it figured out. In many cases, those novices can be paired with someone with experience within their own run group.

Corner working can be done by one corner worker at almost every corner. Occasionally there is a corner that really requires 2. There is never a corner that requires more than that. With up to 11 corners and working the gate in the West lot, you should need a max of 12 corner workers per session with the exception of the student groups, which may require more to get the novices trained. Since we've had over a hundred entrants at the majority of our events lately, we should be able to man all of the stations and allow for key volunteers to be given a pass for their corner working session.

Although I've shown up at almost every AX to work tech, I've only driven a few events for a number of reasons. Some of these are related to work versus reward when driving. While writing this I realized that I feel that working tech and not driving is a better work/reward for me. There just doesn't seem to be time to make adjustments to the car and socialize like there used to be. I liked the scheduling that Kim Crosser developed and that we used when I was corner working chair. I did my best to let the event chairs, tech team and timing have a pass for corner working and many times shifted drivers in run groups to make sure that we would be covered for each session. It seemed to work then and I'm sure it would still work now.

I'll climb down from my soap box now while saying thank you to all of our volunteers.

[Don Middleton]

... I would still have to say that the worst day of autocross is better than the best day I ever had working at a job I didn't enjoy, so it wasn't all bad.... I just HATE leaving a good cinnamon bun uneaten...

You had a cinnamon bun while attending an AX....sounds like you had a GREAT day and I missed one!

[ChuckS]

Just to add my $.02

Mark has hit it on the head.

In the pre-Kim Crosser run group schedule, we always had the same rotation. It worked flawlessly. Instructors and students were NEVER back to back, thus giving plenty of time for preparation before and debrief after each run. This was true for when the instructor drove and student rode, as well as the reverse. The instructor groups corner worked the timed runs and I believe that the Red group ran last, which usually had the top time contenders except potentially for two driver cars.

This was changed as there was some concern that earlier timed runs may have been an advantage, or something like that. Also, it was felt that rotations made it more equal for all run groups over time. So, Kim Crosser took on the task to make a change that worked. This turned out to be harder than anticipated. He worked every possible combination and finally ended up with a 6 group rotation. Even he said at the time that this was not perfect, but was the best compromise that he could find.

Recently, someone (Not AX Chair, CDI, Corner Chair, etc.) decided that a change would benefit instructors. Greg Phillips took on the task to try new things. Each attempt has had unforseen issues. Bill, Jackie and I have had numerous instructors complain to us about this. We have asked that they instead relay those feelings to Greg so he can make appropriate changes.

As the changes so far seem to be worse for instructors, rather than better, unless some yet to be tried rotation can be found that does not have multiple unintended issues, then it may seem that either the Pre-Kim Crosser single schedule or his 6 rotation schedule may be the only viable alternatives.

Either way, the attempts have been intended to make our AX better. Perhaps the upcoming Instructor Meeting can be used to discuss this issue. This way, all of the instructors and vested parties can have input and we can reach some resolution.

Thanks. I will now get off of the soap box that Mark left unattended.

[Jad]

Maybe try something simple like, the cost of getting an instructor is to work corners for them. That may reduce the people that just ALWAYS want an instructor, as there is no downside to having one. I would like someone to talk to while corner working and give me pointers while driving, but I don't think it is fair for someone to donate a major part of their day purely for my enjoyment.

This may also encourage more to instruct, if they can avoid being in the hot sun corner working for an hour. Plus, the students really need to be on the track watching and learning if they want to improve.

Instructing can be fun and enjoyable, but it certainly takes away from other enjoyable AX activities as well.

Just a thought from a former AXer and Corner Worker chair.

[pecivil]

good ideas Jad. I thought the same thing, if you are a newbie (even if you are not) it is always helpful to corner work just to watch how cars take your specific corner. There is a benefit to doing it beyond just the drudgery of chasing cones in the baking sun.

Corner working is something that has to get done to have the event, as a result, it is democratic that all participants who enjoy the activity need to do their share. having said that, if you help the club in other ways (like instructing, doing tech, etc) perhaps your debt to the club is paid back that way vs corner working. But still, you benefit by watching the cars go through, or I thought I did at least.

Instructing definitely is work, and definitely takes your time away from socializing, relaxing, and doing all those types of things you might want to do otherwise at an autocross.

Is there a way to reduce the entry cost to those who do work for the club at autocrosses or are the economics too tight? I have no idea. Maybe you can get a 10 buck discount if you instruct or do tech, or run the timing, or do all the other things that an autoX requires.

It is AMAZING how much work is required to do one, and PCASDR does them the best IMHO.

[surferr]

I had a blast instructing. No I didn't have time to eat a sandwich or check the hot or cold pressures in my tires or speak to my parents (visiting from Bahston) who spent the whole day watching. But working with Jerry at start is usually just like this @ every event so I really didn't notice anything different.
Thanks for a great day.

IMHO. Corner chair Mark has come a long way in a short amount of time and deserves accolades for his efforts.

[ScandinavianFlick]

IMO, instructing is a volunteer activity, whereas corner working is an obligation you accept as part of participation in autox. Personally, I don't think exempting instructors from corner work (or offloading it onto the students) would be a fair solution. Yes, that makes the day more strenuous for us instructors, but granting us special privileges seems contrary to the egalitarian spirit of autox... instructorship is a way of "paying forward" the time and energy the people who instructed us put forth, not a mark of status.

[Kim Crosser]

This was changed as there was some concern that earlier timed runs may have been an advantage, or something like that. Also, it was felt that rotations made it more equal for all run groups over time. So, Kim Crosser took on the task to make a change that worked. This turned out to be harder than anticipated. He worked every possible combination and finally ended up with a 6 group rotation. Even he said at the time that this was not perfect, but was the best compromise that he could find.

Actually, the main driver for redoing the schedule was that I was the Corner Working chair and continuously running into problems with run groups starting while drivers were still out on corners, or trying to round up corner workers who were still driving, or cases where students were supposed to drive but their instructors were corner working and vice-versa. We also had newbie drivers driving before they had a chance to ride with an instructor, and several of us thought that wasn't the best way to start the day.

The 6 run group patterns I found specifically addressed these issues. No driver or instructor has to go straight from driving to corner working or vice-versa - there is always supposed to be at least one full run group in between a driving stint and a corner working stint - either way. Also, drivers and students are both either driving or both available for corner working together. Also, all students ride with an instructor before they drive. The immediate instructor-then-student driving was intentional, with the hope that the student would retain and immediately be able to practice some of what the instructor had just been showing/teaching.

As Chuck notes, I spent a lot of time and was unable to find any other patterns/sequences that avoided the drive/corner switches being on top of one another and/or kept students and instructors together either in the cars or corner working. I built various Excel spreadsheets to model the sequences and alert when a sequence failed one or more of the criteria, which let me eventually find one pattern that worked. Then, the other five patterns are simply the permutations created by swapping the instructor/student pair run groups around (i.e., exchange Red/Blue for White/Green).

I applaud testing other approaches, and it is certainly possible that I missed some other pattern, but I sure tried to find others back then and failed.