June 23 AX

[ronaldtrotter]

A big thanks to all of you who helped today with the AX. We had 137 participants who got 12 runs each. We finished by 5:30 even with some timing problems that caused reruns. It is a measure of this club and it's members that we could run such a large number of drivers through and still have a great AX with a that many runs each. For the parade AX we are looking to get in 1200 runs. Today we got in excess of 1600 individual runs.

I'd name the names of the individuals who helped, but I'd miss at least one of the 50 plus who made it possible and that would be a disservice to each of you. So you know who you are and please accept my thanks for a job really well done.

Ron

[Tawfik]

I would like to thank whoever designed the track. This was such a fast and fun track. A great relief from running on the SE lot !
I feel sorry for those who worked corner 9.

[Dan Chambers]

Great job, AX Team. Ron, great job holding on to all the reins and keeping all the plates spinning all by yourself!

The track was challanging, to say the least. Keeping it "fluid" throughout the day kept everyone on their toes.

Monica and I are looking forward to July 7 in the Black Pearl. Thanks again.

[Mike]

Great job, AX Team. Ron, great job holding on to all the reins!

Yes Ron makes a great trail boss, you and all the others help keep volunteering fun.

Regarding T9.
During timed runs they had 3 (or more) busy workers assighned to T9.
Imho T9 was a unique and interesting challenge, at the end of the fastest straight it was an off camber left turn. What made it difficult was you could not see the T9 apex until you were well into the braking zone. I imagine the faster drivers navigated it through reference points.

Before I get started with my Sunday chores (includes stuffing my face with yummy rummy cake) here's a snapshot of inside the trailer during timed runs.

Ron's right we had a couple timing delays.
But these disruptions were not related to the equipment or actions of the timing trailer.
(The only equipment issue was when the finish line timing lights were slightly jarred).
I announced yesterday but on the other side of the trailer Bill I, Martha, Rikki and Martin (Doug too) were very busy on the laptop and radio while documenting corner worker reports.

Example we had to have 6 or so cars have reruns when the trailer noticed all these cars running 20 second slower laps, why?
A car had gone off (DNF) and was passed by all these cars on track and no one told the trailer...
For parade the trailer will have a slowest lap cut off time that will alarm us to question unusually slow times.

The corner workers can help too.
In the future perhaps a brief info card for timed runs could be included with corner working..
Maybe include the definition of DNF/four wheels off.
If the trailer hears DNF they will ask if any cars are out of sequence and if needed ask the starter to stop sending cars.
Perhaps the info card could include basic phraseology for ex.
Corner 1 (self ID)
car #59
1 cone
In the trailer all that info is kept on written record so at the end of the session the times are quickly audited against the written record before being posted.
For parade we expect to use our experienced SDR club corner workers as corner managers.
With an experienced corner manager operating the radios perhaps we can avoid the multiple re runs we saw yesterday.
Each corner manager will have a couple volunteers to chase cones.

Just a quick note about the parade AX...

The good news is yesterdays test of timing equipment for the parade was successful.
Timing printed out dozens of timing slip stickers while we shadowed timed runs.
Tom Brown's new timing software worked perfectly and added depth to announcing.
On the spot we were able to track Top ten, Top five in class, and monitor driver trends, when their times improved or not.
Maybe to much info?
Do you really want your name mentioned during your fight for 5th in class?

Parade will have timed runs from 8am till 5pm.
1200 to 1500 timed runs in one day....

When you are in line patiently waiting for your parade AX laps, working a corner, volunteering in some way or just spectating...
Like any happy trail boss, keep the tippy tappy feeling with a song in your heart.
http://www.barbneal.com/wav/tvthemes/rawhide.wav

Rollin', rollin', rollin'
Hyaa!

[ronaldtrotter]

Thanks Dan and Mike,
But nothing in this club is done by one person. Everyone just chips in where help is needed and jobs get done. Anytime I asked someone to do something they either just jumped in and did it, or it was already done. Most of the time it was already done. I need to give a special thanks to Leigh, Chuck and Curt without them yesterday would not have happened.

What a great group to work and play with.

[Mike]

Hey there was some tight racing in several classes.
At one time during timed runs KI had four cars only .01 apart.
944 had close racing in a big field too with TC, Kinkaid and Corwin.
July 4th we'll find out who truely is the quickest nationwide.

[seguina]

Hi Gang!

Great FUN yesterday

Very well run, escpecially considering you have almost 140 drivers.

Lisa and I had a great time!

Have Fun! Steve

[martinreinhardt]

Thank you for another great Autocross event. I love this type of clockwise west lot track design. Please no more east lot events

Thanks to Gary Burch for going off track in front of me on one of my fastest laps. My lap-timer still read 0:59:58 with slowing down for Gary. His spin allowed me to get an even faster rerun . Keith's encouragement at the start was helpful: "You got this Buddy, be calm its yours". Also, thanks to Mike Gagen for doing a fantastic job announcing.

[Kim Crosser]

Mike G,
Good comments on the corner working. The combination of 140 drivers (with a lot of people from other regions) plus having the Orange group as one of the timed run corner working groups caused some of the confusion.

With the old corner working scheme, only the Red and White run groups did timed run corner working. Since these groups were usually all SDR instructors or very experienced SDR drivers, they knew the timed corner working stuff. With the new scheme, drivers in Orange are also corner working during timed runs and I/we need to make sure that they understand the "DNF in sequence" or "DNF out of sequence" issues. Many of the Orange drivers Saturday were from other regions and hadn't had timed run corner working experience with us before.

We are going to stick with having Orange in rotation (so White and Red aren't always doing the timed working), but will focus on extra briefing before the runs.

By the way, we started the day with 2 people on each of turns 4 and 9, and increased to 3 people on 9 by the middle of the day. We knew that the off-camber brake, turn, turn setup would cause a lot of cone massacres.
I was surprised that the cones after the finish weren't mangled more than they were. Coming through the finish at full throttle and then trying to brake AND turn before running out of track was "interesting".

The track turned out to be a lot more fun than it seemed at first. That little chicane into the last straight (over the swale) was probably the most fun entrance to the swale crossing we have had in that area.

[Jackie C]

Incredibly professionally run AX by some stressed and overworked volunteers. I had a blast. What a group! Will we someday limit how many can run in an AX? I'd like to thank the generous drivers who donated money to Keven's (Willow Springs corner worker)family. I can't get over how people in our club help each other and other's who we might not know personally without judgement. I'm lucky to know so many stellar people (most of whom) drive well!

[bibbetson]

The event results have been posted to the website. Let the excuses begin...
http://www.pcasdr.org/porsche_events/track_events/autocross/results/index.php

I'll start - What was I thinking, running a 15 point car in KI. (I gotta have someone to chase... ) Nice run Martin! I hope your bank account is dry after paying off Gary.

[Tawfik]

No excuse for me but i can t believe I finished 2/100 secs slower than my competition (Joel).

[Dan Chambers]

Congrat.'s to all those in the top 10. Standing out on the corners most of the day, I can say you all were really going for it. Martin and Jad looked more like Super G skiers in the Alps than car drivers, with their "slip and slide" technique. For such a challanging track, there was some great driving going on.

Bill I.: Dude! KP is ...... KP! You walked into a bazooka battle carrying a sling-shot .... with no grenades, no less. Those tires of yours looked a little greasy. Did you get them off Fred Flintstone's car?

Wish I were driving this one. Maybe the 7th......?

[mark k]

That was quite a challenging track and lots of fun.There was two corners where lots of time could be made up by getting them right.On my final timed run I started to see the light.I think Martin saw it much sooner.Good run Martin.Fortunately we have an ace in the hole for the Parade.Our first set of new tires(710's) are mounted up.No more dumpster diving for take-offs this week.
Mark

[martinreinhardt]

The event results have been posted to the website. Let the excuses begin...
http://www.pcasdr.org/porsche_events/track_events/autocross/results/index.php

I'll start - What was I thinking, running a 15 point car in KI. (I gotta have someone to chase... ) Nice run Martin! I hope your bank account is dry after paying off Gary.

Come on Bill, you are so KI Are you sure your car has only 15 points? We were only 1 hundreds from each other.

That was quite a challenging track and lots of fun.There was two corners where lots of time could be made up by getting them right.On my final timed run I started to see the light.I think Martin saw it much sooner.Good run Martin.Fortunately we have an ace in the hole for the Parade.Our first set of new tires(710's) are mounted up.No more dumpster diving for take-offs this week.
Mark

Thanks Mark, unfortunately you and Erik are in my class at the Parade. I guess, I will have to really try this time