The resistance is that this is a busywork rule that imposes something
basically unnecessary on drivers for nebulous purposes.
Never mind that other new procedures (in-grid impound) further complicate
it.
"You still need to find this information," you say. Yes, but we now have
significantly less time to find it before we fall afoul of a rule that for
nearly three decades was not a problem. My usual clue in the past was to
watch for cars coming back to paddock (I was heat 3, so looking for heat 1
cars, which were DPL and BS, and I had a paddock spot adjacent to impound so
that seemed an easy clue). Guess what? The 46 BS cars never showed up! They
were all sitting in their in-grid impound. I finally saw some of the 5 DPLs
when they came to be weighed. Now another half-hour had passed from the time
I would have seen these cars in previous years. And then heat 2 was the
smallest heat, taking little more than an hour to run. Had it not been for
the half-hour coursewalk between heats 2 and 3, I could already have been
late!
Next day I ran the south course, a little easier to keep tabs on. So I was
more on time -- and had to wait for an F Stocker to clear my grid slot
before I could pull in.
What is the need for these rules? Possibly the in-grid impound was in
response to monster classes, so as not to clog the Impound area (and thus it
does not need to be so big, freeing up more paddock room). Fine. But let's
take that 30 minute thing down to maybe 10 minutes. If that is to prevent
warmed tires from going out on course, it needs to be little more than the
time spacing between co-drivers.
(If I arrive 10 minutes late for grid, but then there is a hold that lasts
11 minutes, am I then on time?)
The strongest point, IMHO, is that if the schedule is flexible, as it is,
then such time limits cannot be rigid. The longer you make the time limit,
the more difficulty you impose on the competitors. The rule may have
purpose, but it is overkill and needs to be scaled back.
--Rocky Entriken
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Sirota" <mark@sirota.org>
To: "eric salem" <eric@mail.brown911.com>; <autox@autox.team.net>;
<evolution-discussions@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 2:29 PM
Subject: RE: Late to grid
> --On Tuesday, September 17, 2002 2:22 PM -0500 eric salem
> <eric@mail.brown911.com> wrote:
> > So I should walk from the far south end of the padock to the north
course
> > grid to see the status of the heat preceding mine? Or should we all
drive
> > back and forth? Or does this mean we are all now required to bring FM
> > radios with us in the same fashion as we're expected to bring rule
books?
> > Do we have to show our FM radios at registration?
>
> If you had no access to a radio, you'd only have to travel as far as
> Information.
>
> But I don't understand the resistance here -- regardless of the exact
> timing of when you need to be in grid, you need to know when to head up
> there. It doesn't matter whether the requirement is for 30 minutes, or
> beginning of last run of previous heat, or what -- you still need to
> find this information. How did you know when to be on grid this year?
>
> Mark
/// unsubscribe/change address requests to majordomo@autox.team.net or try
/// http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo
/// Partial archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|