April meeting - cool ALMS opportunity

Friday's meeting included a big post mortem of what went right and wrong at the NHIS school and Regional. It sounds like the 2-day Super School was a huge success. You'll recall that it was closely scrutinized by skeptical club officials. As it turns out, those officials came away impressed and even said the school should be used as a model for other regions and divisions.

I wasn't at NHIS last weekend, but it sounds like there were some snafus on Tech and Registration hours. Those problems were dissected and noted so they won't re-occur next year (this was our first 2-day-school-plus-Regional in recent memory, so there were some logistical issues that didn't go smoothly).

On-site child care was available but went unused, partly because it was under-publicized. They will keep plugging away, however.

Here's a neat opportunity: The American Le Mans Series is coming to Lime Rock for the July 4 weekend. ALMS has a super media and public relations group that grinds out press releases during the event. They are looking for volunteer pit reporters to help them.

Volunteers, who must wear a fire suit (not a problem for us, but ALMS does supply suits if needed), go up and down pit lane during the race gathering info on teams, cars, problems, drivers, etc. They then radio this data to the press room, where the ALMS PR machine is hard at work on reports and press releases.

It sounds like a cool way to gain hot-pit access to a bigtime racing series. If you want to learn more, drop Kathy Barnes a line (kjbarnes22 AT snet.net).

/Steve U
05 ITS

Continuing on the drivers involvement, lets get some thoughts on another issue.

One other item affecting drivers was bought up. It's one of those little details that can have far reaching effects.

When the sups are written, they sometimes say something like: (Race Day), "15 minute Practice/Qualifying sessions followed by races by groups ...."

Two points were brought up regarding the resrictiveness of this wording.

1: Certain large groups of over 40 requested a split qualifying session to alleviate traffic issues. Obviously this needs to be agreed upon by the group as a whole, but the wording of the supps precludes any such change.

2: If an incident occurs to throw off the timeline, any track curfew will force officials to change race lengths, not other sessions as the supps have guaranteed the session length.

A concern we drivers brought up was the planning some drivers/teams put into final Q sessions. Some will plan on setup changes, others will "Cycle" the session, two hot laps, some cool down laps and repeating. Abbreviating the session throws those plans into disarray. It was suggested that if the session needs to be shortened, that an indicator (a board) in grid be posted with the session length so adjustments can be made.

New supp wording discussed was along the lines of " up to 15 minute Practice/Qualifying sessions followed by races by groups ...."

Thoughts? discuss...

Also, many may know by now that Jim Vaill, the man most responsible for carving Lime Rock out of the farmland with a plow and creating one of the great American road circuits has passed away, form natural causes.
The region has decided to rename the June Lime Rock National in his memory, as the "Jim Vaill National", dropping the previous "Flower Power" designation.

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

[This message has been edited by lateapex911 (edited April 25, 2004).]

"2: If an incident occurs to throw off the timeline, any track curfew will force officials to change race lengths, not other sessions as the supps have guaranteed the session length.
"

Jake, would you have the track officials shorten the last three practice/qualifying sessions because of an incedent in session 3? No matter what, someone will be upset. I understand that some people spend way more effort than me at this hobby in the never ending goal of eeking out the most of man and machine,but The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men....

Quote:

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Originally posted by ulfelder:

Here's a neat opportunity: The American Le Mans Series is coming to Lime Rock for the July 4 weekend. ALMS has a super media and public relations group that grinds out press releases during the event. They are looking for volunteer pit reporters to help them.

Volunteers, who must wear a fire suit (not a problem for us, but ALMS does supply suits if needed), go up and down pit lane during the race gathering info on teams, cars, problems, drivers, etc. They then radio this data to the press room, where the ALMS PR machine is hard at work on reports and press releases.

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This is an excellent opportunity people. If I weren't going to be there already, taking photos I'd get on the list. You will NEVER be able to get closer to the cars/teams than you can with this access.



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Doug :)
NER.org
the16v.com
briansgarage.com

Quote:

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Originally posted by Scott Nutter:
Jake, would you have the track officials shorten the last three practice/qualifying sessions because of an incedent in session 3? No matter what, someone will be upset. I understand that some people spend way more effort than me at this hobby in the never ending goal of eeking out the most of man and machine,but The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men....

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As a guy who drove over 5 hours in the rain to Watkins Glen, then had his (last group) race cut short drastically (over 75% cut off) due to time line issues, your darn right I would want stewards to cut short earlier sessions. Three minutes from the last 5 Q sessions would have meant that I, and the other 45 guys in my group, actually got to race.

Too much stuff can go wrong with the car, another driver or whatever. I applaud the efforts of stewards who think on their feet. We're there to race, right?

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

[This message has been edited by lateapex911 (edited April 25, 2004).]