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lateapex911
11-12-2008, 06:26 PM
Well, I'm back at home, and as soon as the car gets off the dyno, the season will be over. So it's time to think about next year!

I thought some ARRC feedback might be helpful to the event organizers. Butch, you've come here often looking for input and ideas, and I've watched you work for several years down at the ARRCs, so i know you can handle compliments and constructive criticisms.

All in all, I really enjoyed my event, and it was great to be back.

Highlights;

Parking! For me, it was smoother than ever. I had just pulled up and Fletcher arrived as though he appeared out of space. we had a brief chat and I was off.

Registration: Again, smooth and easy. maybe I hit it at the right time, but it went quickly and the woman was super nice.

Event organization and overall operation: I liked the announcements and calls to grid, and the race calls were great. I thought having Greg Creamer out in the back with an antenna and a mike was great, and he did an awesome job. He's worth what ever you pay him, and I understand he flags as well. Laurie Sheppard did a fine job to my eye in her first year. The Awards dinner was great, and yeah, Butch, I'll put a good word in for you as SCCA Prez!

Tech: I had some misgivings about the tech situation, and I had others mention the same things without provocation. First, getting the suits teched seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. The inspector went through my book, numerous times, then got interrupted, spent a couple minutes doing someting else, (filing) then came back, and stated over, going through my book again a couple times, studying the annual sticker as though it was written in Mandarin. Odd. It took nearly 9 minutes start to finish for me, and yeah, that's not the end of the world, but it showed my why the entire process took nearly 25 minutes, with not that long of a line.

But the real issues were post race. I, and others, thought that the officials were difficult to discern. Somebody would just come up to you and tell you to do something, then walk away, and honestly, it took some careful scrutiny to see who these people were. No two were dressed alike, and finding the tech tags was tough, and I had to chase one guy to see his after he did a flyby telling me to do something. A little, "Hi, I'm Bob, I'm in charge of IT_, and we need you to _____" would have been great.

Others made the same comments, and mentioned that while one guy would initiate the process, some other person would step in then go away, sometimes saying nothing. Honestly, at times, I had no idea if it was a tech guy with his head in my engine compartment or just some random guy.

While I was lucky, and my teardown ws simple, others weren't. They reported that the officials took multiple readings, and kept arriving at differing conclusions. Trust me on this, there were some racers there who were frustrated, and the confidence level in the results suffered.

I completely understand that this event is EXTREMELY hard to staff, as you are looking at a TON of work, and getting adequate amounts of staff, much less competent staff, is probably super difficult. And I know that extra protests on top of the usual teardowns made life even harder.

I also know that the teardowns are a major attraction of the ARRCs, and they are the single factor that gives the event the legitimacy that it has.

So, no matter what, serious racers will be back.

But, I think if there is room for improvement, it's in tech. If nothing else, create a uniform for the officials who are overseeing the operation, whether it's a common jacket or a hat or whatever, and request that they wear their nametags in a similar location. and whenever possible, introductions would go a loooong way in creating a smoother operation. I am not sure what to tell you regarding the actual methods, but, if it's possible to look at organizational factors, or new techniques to come to the conclusions, it would go a long way to reducing the stress level not only for the competitors, but the officials as well.

Race operations: I thought race operations were super. It seemed as though they let us race like big boys, (even when we acted like little boys and F-ed up!) and that was appreciated. In my case, I had an exhaust bracket fatigue, and I bet there were some officials looking at he now bouncing exhaust and debating whether to black flag me. They made the right call, and I really appreciate the fact that they didn't knee jerk reaction it and pull me in. I stayed off the berms, and it all ended well.

So, overall, a great event, and I look forward to many more. I hope the previous comments don't come across as overly harsh, whiny, or unfair.

I'd love to hear what others think and what experiences they had.

pfcs
11-12-2008, 07:36 PM
I heard there was a (futlile?) attempt to calculate someone's compression ratio lasting several hours.
In my opinion the club should invest in a "whistler" like the circle track boys use.
It's non-invasive and quick; it's accurate (it compares the resonant frequencies of the cylinder at bottom and top dead center to compute the ratio); and it could be easily used to check several cars in each class quickly/always.
Taking the measurements in the field, especially to cars with other than flat-top pistons (i.e: most cars) and then calculating the compression ratio is not feasible. It's difficult enough in most shops if the dome/dish volume of the piston is unknown.
Competitors want to know with fair certainty that common illegal practices are impossible to get away with at events of this stature, and compression ratio is one of the big items. When I built my A2 VW motor, no one could tell me the piston volume-I had to measure it myself. Reliable sources including one former member of th ad-hoc grp told me to "whack the hell off the block-they can't check it".
Having integrity in the tech shed is a live issue and one that ought to be resolved.

dickita15
11-12-2008, 07:53 PM
I heard kind of third hand that Tech uses a program to calculate CR and that the program may have crashed. Kind of explains why they were having problems after all they have been doing this for many years now.

Butch Kummer
11-13-2008, 01:12 AM
Jake - it was good to finally meet you and you're taller than you appear here on the forums. :D And yes, I DO appreciate constructive criticism as long as it doesn't involve anatomical impossibilities.

All - we have a Race Board meeting Monday evening where we'll be doing a de-brief on the weekend (I call it our post mortem). Obviously we have some work to do in Impound, and we'll work on that for 2009.

I've already started another thread on possible changes to the schedule, but let me know any other thoughts you may have.

Thanks...

tom91ita
11-13-2008, 01:26 AM
the only hiccup i had was not getting a tech sticker wednesday night. i heard them tell someone that they did not have any but was not told i would have to return to tech to get one.

i was told when i reported to Q1 that i had to get a sticker. did not prevent me from getting on track or anything. just some minor confusion and having to get into another line again.

gran racing
11-13-2008, 09:42 AM
Tech uses a program to calculate CR and that the program may have crashed.

Even if that's the case, shouldn't there always be a back-up? What happens if someone drops the laptop or whatever.

To me, the tech & impound aspect of the ARRC makes the event what it is and adds more legitimacy to the winners.

movingchicane
11-13-2008, 11:02 AM
Thanks to everyone for a great event. I look forward to the ARRC more than any other race every year.

I have to say though, post-race tech did seem way more disorganized this year than in years past. I think I even asked Jake if anyone had looked at my car, and this was while it was being put back together(I guess nobody cares about IT-7 :) ).

All in all though great event as always. We'll be back next year for sure

Greg Amy
11-13-2008, 11:28 AM
I heard kind of third hand that Tech uses a program to calculate CR and that the program may have crashed.
In '06 they were using an Excel spreadsheet....

This is a seriously easy calculation, just basic addition/multiplication/division .. the accurate measurement of volumes is far, far more precise and difficult to get "right".

:shrug:

R2 Racing
11-13-2008, 12:15 PM
Impound was a bit of a cluster. I sat there for a while waiting for someone, anyone to come over and tell me what I needed to do. I had a hard time even figuring out who to ask. Once I finally got to the right guy to ask, he finally said "Oh yeah, you'll need to pull the manifolds." Ok, just as I expected. Would've been nice to know though. So I went back and started pulling the manifolds probably about an hour after I parked there. Maybe half an hour after that, Lyman (ITA 3rd place) see's us working on my car and comes over and says "So did someone actually tell you guys to do something, or are you just assuming?" He asked because no one had told him anything either, and he too had no idea who to even ask. His car had been parked in the shed for about an hour and a half at that point.

Like others suggested, having maybe one tech guy assigned to a group and have him readily announce himself and identifiable as "that guy" would be awesome.

But either way, I was in impound for six hours on Saturday. That seems a little excessive to me. One guy checked my intake ports and gave the ok on that. Then I got the exhaust off for its ports to be checked, and I couldn't find the guy who did my intake ports. I had to have a different guy check my exhaust ports, who then wasn't really willing to accept my story that the intake had been checked already since the original guy couldn't be found. Yeah, kind if a cluster.

But, it all got done eventually, which is the important part. Other than that stuff, everything else went just fine throughout the weekend. Well, Friday nights dinner was a bit of a cluster too. But I'll blame that on the weather and the mysteriously not working grill. Saturday nights dinner was awesome!

It was nice to finally meet you, Butch! I'll be back in some fashion in '09, no doubt about that!

chuck baader
11-13-2008, 02:55 PM
Butch, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend. I thought everything went very well with the exception of tech. CCing a cylinder and head is not rocket science. I have been doing my own for 6+ years and it does not matter if the piston is concave or convex, it is really an engineering problem easily solved and definitely repeatable. I'm afraid I do not understand the problem, if, in fact, this was the problem in tech. See y'all next year. Chuck

pfcs
11-13-2008, 06:44 PM
Chuck-I don't know how you calculate the volume of a compound shape piston head if it's not known without lowering the piston in the bore a specific distance from a specific point on that un-flat piston, and CCing the volume of that cylinder; then using that info to calculate the differnce between a simple cylinder of that length and the one measured which reveals the change in volume +/- caused by the piston crown. Without that value, you cannot compute the ratio at all. Not rocket science, but a little difficult, especially in the field. The real difficulty lies in sealing the piston in the bore and knowing that when CC'd, none of the test solution leaked down past the piston and srewed the pooch. I don't know how you do it, but when I do, it's usually late at night with no-one to interrupt me, I use heavy grease, bring the piston up into it, trying not to end up with any above the edge of the crown. And I usually repeat this procedure 2 more times to be sure no mineral spirits dissolved any grease and went down the bore and that the results are indeed accurate.
Seems like a lot to ask of a techie in the field with an audience but maybe you'll volunteer.

924Guy
11-13-2008, 08:39 PM
Chuck-I don't know how you calculate the volume of a compound shape piston head if it's not known without lowering the piston in the bore a specific distance from a specific point on that un-flat piston, and CCing the volume of that cylinder; then using that info to calculate the differnce between a simple cylinder of that length and the one measured which reveals the change in volume +/- caused by the piston crown. Without that value, you cannot compute the ratio at all. Not rocket science, but a little difficult, especially in the field. The real difficulty lies in sealing the piston in the bore and knowing that when CC'd, none of the test solution leaked down past the piston and srewed the pooch. I don't know how you do it, but when I do, it's usually late at night with no-one to interrupt me, I use heavy grease, bring the piston up into it, trying not to end up with any above the edge of the crown. And I usually repeat this procedure 2 more times to be sure no mineral spirits dissolved any grease and went down the bore and that the results are indeed accurate.
Seems like a lot to ask of a techie in the field with an audience but maybe you'll volunteer.

Heh heh... Sounds like you're volunteering to help in Tech next year! :D

That's definitely what was being done, from my casual observation (2nd - scratch that, 1st place ITC car was being done right next to mine) in Tech.

The tech thing definitely took way too long for the complexity of the arithmetic involved. Measurements, yes, OK - but seemed like they were only done once, the arithmetic seemed to be the big challenge, from my viewpoint.

Ironic since, with all due respect, it appeared that those running the show in tech seemed to be old enough to know how to run the calculations without a computer... :blink: (which is a GOOD thing!!!)

GKR_17
11-13-2008, 10:54 PM
[quote=pfcs;276682]I heard there was a (futlile?) attempt to calculate someone's compression ratio lasting several hours.
In my opinion the club should invest in a "whistler" like the circle track boys use.quote]

I was told they did use a whistler in '07.

As for the CR calculations, Greg is right, the only hard part is getting the volumes. Your average 5th grader SHOULD be able to do the math on paper. With "every child left behind" who knows though...

cmeberube
11-15-2008, 07:06 PM
good idea to provide feedback to the event organizers. this is the best way to improve the event year after year.

CJB