Autocross School

[David 2]

What a great event AZsolo just held for the autocross school!  A big thank you is owed to Kei and all of the instructors and volunteers who gave up their Saturday to teach us up and comers and novices how to be better drivers.  And, I owe a an extra thank you to Mark Shrivastava and Brian Peters who gave me great instruction today.  And, while I wasn't able to put what you told me today into practice during the school event, I'll do my best to put those pearls of wisdom into practice soon.  THANK YOU ALL.

[JasonT1124]

Agreed.  Fantastic event.  Great value to get all that seat time without the pressure of a normal event. 

My only suggestion is that (in addition to learning to drive better) this would have been a great venue to really teach newer members how to work the course safely and efficiently.  Maybe an experienced "lead" at each cone station on the next one.  A group of inexperienced people only teach each other their bad habits, instead of having someone with experience teach/show them how to be safer and more efficient.  

 

[David 2]

4 hours ago, JasonT1124 said:

Agreed.  Fantastic event.  Great value to get all that seat time without the pressure of a normal event. 

My only suggestion is that (in addition to learning to drive better) this would have been a great venue to really teach newer members how to work the course safely and efficiently.  Maybe an experienced "lead" at each cone station on the next one.  A group of inexperienced people only teach each other their bad habits, instead of having someone with experience teach/show them how to be safer and more efficient.  

 

The new concept recently started of having corner captains is a good start.  For safety sake and scoring effectiveness, I think each corner captain should give a 2 minute run-down to their workers each time a group starts.  And, that run-down should be standardized with the corner captain having a print-out of what they need to go over with their workers.  For instance, I think the holding the cone over the head when a cone is going to count as a penalty and the clear horizontal wave of the hands when it is not needs to be drilled into people's heads.  More than once when I've been on the radio I have to call out to a worker and ask them if it's a penalty as I don't want to "assume" either way.  And, that distraction/interaction takes our attention off the next car that is coming our way.  That can be usafe to the workers on the course and unsafe to drivers as we can be late on a redflag, etc.    And, there needs to be a red flag protocol as part of that 2 minute rundown where the flag must be in someones hands at all times and unfurled and ready.  We had an issue with this at the AX school where there was need for a redflag and nobody was holding it.  That could have turned out poorly.  We do NOT need a injury/accident out there from laziness/forgetfullness or lack of having a procedure that is done before each group starts.  This can be dangerous business if practices to make is safe are not followed.   

[Kei]

I want to really thank the crew who worked the event.  Thank you for sacrificing your Saturday to help the new drivers really be able to learn and get seat time. 

Thank you to the Instructors for donating your Saturday as well. 

Students, thank you for coming and we all hope you learned a lot, had fun and plan to participate in future events. 

A by product of the school on Saturday was the sense of 'Community' with the students and instructors at Sunday's event.  The students and instructors had good interaction during Sunday's event and it really seemed to bring everybody in as an autocross community.

Thank you again to everyone and we couldn't have done it without y'all!!!

Kei 🔑

[Zuko305]

15 hours ago, David 2 said:

The new concept recently started of having corner captains is a good start.  For safety sake and scoring effectiveness, I think each corner captain should give a 2 minute run-down to their workers each time a group starts.  And, that run-down should be standardized with the corner captain having a print-out of what they need to go over with their workers.  

Safety must be an engrained behavior not just a priority as those change. Thus, with your given passion and expertise at worker station safety I nominate you to write a single page worker-safety protocol to be presented to the Steering Committee for review. Secondarily to this, develop a consistently repeatable deployment strategy to ensure consistent results. Thank you for volunteering your time so willingly. 

[David 2]

2 minutes ago, Zuko305 said:

Safety must be an engrained behavior not just a priority as those change. Thus, with your given passion and expertise at worker station safety I nominate you to write a single page worker-safety protocol to be presented to the Steering Committee for review. Secondarily to this, develop a consistently repeatable deployment strategy to ensure consistent results. Thank you for volunteering your time so willingly. 

I have too little experience in AX to give that task proper justice on my own and if doing something like this isn't a steering committee priority I'd be wasting their time and my time.  Though, if the steering committee is interested in something like this they could call for an ad-hoc committee to get a few like minded participants to work up a recomendation to the steering committe, as you suggested.  I'd be happy to be on that ad-hoc committee.  Also, there may be other policies from the National SCCA on safety that prohibit chapters from developing their own safety protocols as there may be effects on liability and insurance issues.  Or, National may already have a policy prepared.  I am not privy to this information.

To the point you make on  me volunteering my time so willingly..... As is your time, my time is a very precious commodity.  Safety is, however, very important and keeping quiet about it on a forum does not serve our chapter well.  I did not write my comments with the implied expectation that "others" should use their time to take up the task.  I'll leave the volunteering time comment at that.   

[SSLance]

I think Ben's reply comes from a long grueling weekend of a handful of volunteers busting their arse to make sure the rest of us have a good time.  Many MANY of us went above and beyond this weekend and overall there was a great result behind it.  Don't let that hide that fact that we are tired and we have yet another event to put on in very short order this Friday. 

If we do not get more volunteers to step up, you are going to see some of the regular VOLUNTEERS drop...then instead of worrying about details like above, you'll be worrying about who is going to get everyone registered, teched, waivered, gridded, started, not too mention having a course to run on at all. 

One does not need experience to volunteer, one just needs a willingness.  We'll teach you the rest. 

Thanks,

Lance

 

[David 2]

1 hour ago, Zuko305 said:

Safety must be an engrained behavior not just a priority as those change. Thus, with your given passion and expertise at worker station safety I nominate you to write a single page worker-safety protocol to be presented to the Steering Committee for review. Secondarily to this, develop a consistently repeatable deployment strategy to ensure consistent results. Thank you for volunteering your time so willingly. 

Ben, 

Thank you for your efforts at every event for making it run so well.  My comment was not intended to be a criticism.  My intent is to help.  The timing may not have hit well.  

 

[Kim Kemper]

David 

As Safety Chief, I would welcome a short,  concise guide for corner working.  Don’t worry about National rules just craft using your thoughts. One pager or less. 

email is 

kkempvet@aol.com 

Kind regards 

Kim 

[Zuko305]

55 minutes ago, David 2 said:

I have too little experience in AX…

The time it took you to write your initial and secondary response you could have created a rough draft of best practices for corner workers. The lack of experience can be a valuable tool where as 10+ year veteran of the sport may be “blind” to potential deficiencies or it’s the we’ve always done it that way syndrome. 
 

If you have suggestions, make an effort to reach out to the SSS at an event, put something to paper, present an idea, use the GRC published by SCCA and do something.  

The SC meetings are always public, and if you have something to say reach out to the Club Secretary who will have the topic added to the agenda. The club is omnipresent in continuous improvement. 

[Zuko305]

6 minutes ago, David 2 said:

Ben, 

Thank you for your efforts at every event for making it run so well.  My comment was not intended to be a criticism.  My intent is to help.  The timing may not have hit well.  

 

No offense taken! You’re vocal, that’s good. Use it to help us out, constructively. 

[Rigby]

I learned SOOO MUCH from this Autocross School event, thank you for putting this on everyone!!!

Special thanks to Brian Peters, he really helped engrain looking ahead at up coming features and not to be scared when attacking the slolem comes. Appreciate your help man!

[JBucki]

On 11/5/2023 at 5:40 PM, David 2 said:

The new concept recently started of having corner captains is a good start.  For safety sake and scoring effectiveness, I think each corner captain should give a 2 minute run-down to their workers each time a group starts.  And, that run-down should be standardized with the corner captain having a print-out of what they need to go over with their workers.  For instance, I think the holding the cone over the head when a cone is going to count as a penalty and the clear horizontal wave of the hands when it is not needs to be drilled into people's heads.  More than once when I've been on the radio I have to call out to a worker and ask them if it's a penalty as I don't want to "assume" either way.  And, that distraction/interaction takes our attention off the next car that is coming our way.  That can be usafe to the workers on the course and unsafe to drivers as we can be late on a redflag, etc.    And, there needs to be a red flag protocol as part of that 2 minute rundown where the flag must be in someones hands at all times and unfurled and ready.  We had an issue with this at the AX school where there was need for a redflag and nobody was holding it.  That could have turned out poorly.  We do NOT need a injury/accident out there from laziness/forgetfullness or lack of having a procedure that is done before each group starts.  This can be dangerous business if practices to make is safe are not followed.   

This is great feedback, David. Totally agree we have an opportunity to level up as a club here. If you're up for it, we could spend some time at the next event drafting up a worker and radio protocol proposal together. 

[David 2]

2 hours ago, JBucki said:

This is great feedback, David. Totally agree we have an opportunity to level up as a club here. If you're up for it, we could spend some time at the next event drafting up a worker and radio protocol proposal together. 

I'll pm you a draft Kim and I have been working on.  

Edited November 7, 2023 by David 2