Zate,

I appreciate your support. To those here who don't know me, I'm the guy that seems to have people all pissed off that they weren't invited on Saturday. My name is Frank Edwards. I'm the guy who did the novice walkthru at 9am, followed by the driver's meeting a little later.

I haven't read some of the other posts, only what has been cc'd to me via private email. Shawn did a good job of describing what it's like to do some of the administrative work in putting on an event. He described how the event chairman has very little time to themself for prepping the car by checking air pressures, changing shock settings, and so on. He really didn't tell you much at all about how much work goes on in the background. I'm going to describe some of that. If you want to attend an invitation-only event, contact me if you think any of these next few paragraphs are things you'd be interested in. You can also send hate email my way, but I won't even read it, so save your fingers some work.

An event setup usually starts 6-8 weeks prior to the proposed date. I contact the Florida State Fairgrounds and beg for a weekend where we can use parking lots A & B (where we were on Sunday). I now have dates scheduled in July, Aug, and Sept. Our Sept date has moved because the fairgrounds told me they have to have that area and there was nothing else they could do. (As you can see, we are "low man on the totem pole" for that kind of thing.)

Then I create event flyers. Yes, these are the ones you see on the website in PDF format. (Visit http://www.eec.com/racing/ and scroll down until you see the link to "Autocross Log and Schedule".) Since Microsloth Word can't seem to get its act together with Adobe Acrobat, I have to manually edit the PDF file and move the hyperlink fields around to get a usable PDF flyer. This is a bummer because it means I can't automate the process. It takes about 30 minutes to do a flyer if I have a pre-existing flyer to use as a template. It takes a couple hours if I don't.

The flyer has be placed on the website and the appropriate links updated. Not a big deal except that I have a real job to do and this is all voluntary stuff that doesn't make money, like my day job does. The flyer also needs to go to the Checker editor so that it appears in the monthly newsletter (lately, it doesn't appear to be showing up; could be that I got it to them late).

Some event officials need to be obtained well before the event. A Safety Steward must be found before the insurance coverage for the event can be requested from SCCA National HQ. This person's SCCA membership number must be reported on the insurance request. It is best to have multiple safety stewards, since the primary SS cannot participate in the event without a backup SS on duty. Other officials include Registration, Tech Inspection, Driving Instructor, Work Assignments, Course Design, Setup/Cleanup, Timing and Scoring, and Equipment. Each of these jobs requires someone who will attend the event, or find a replacement if they can't make it at the last minute. It's best to have two or three people for each position; otherwise, a flat tire could delay the event for an extended period (such as the Registrar or Safety Steward not arriving on time).

The person placed in charge of the equipment needs to make arrangements for the truck to be at the site the day before so that the course designer and a crew of volunteers can setup the course for the next day. This will take 4-5 people approximately 1.5 hours. Once complete, the course designer should draw a map of the course to have available for entrants at registration. The safetysteward will review the design on the morning of the event and any necessary changes must be made before the event is allowed to begin. The equipment chief is also responsible for ensuring that the generator has fuel, that there is chalk available for marking the course, and that brooms, shovels, and other supplies are present and in sufficient quantity.

The registrar needs to be one of the first people at the site in the morning. They need to setup the laptop and begin taking registration almost immediately if all entrants are to be processed before the event begins. This means: checking drivers licenses, verifying SCCA membership (for discounts), handling applications for new members, verifying the information already in the computer with the yellow registration card filled out by the entrant, and giving instructions to the driver that their car needs to be "tech"'d (described more below). This is a high strees job that requires early arrival and somewhat quick typing skills.

The registrar is not really the FIRST person to arrive. Ideally, a worker has been found who will man the main entrance to the site and ask attendees to sign the insurance waiver and hand out wristbands (so we know at a glance who has signed). They also should hand out yellow registration cards so that people can fill them out before approaching the registration table. This job lasts 1.5 hours and should then be switched to another worker. This fulfills the individual's work requirement for the event. These people generally have only a little time ot walk the course, and even less time to change wheels or make other upon-arrival adjustments to their vehicles.

Tech insepctors should arrive early also. They are responsible for verifying the condition of the entrant's car as it relates to safety. Battery must be securely mounted, no loose articles in the car, good tread on the tires, air pressure in tires within acceptable range, and so on. The tech inspectors should help newcomers determine what class their car will run in after they move out of the Novice class. Inspectors should also give novices hints on how to choose tire pressures, alignment settings, and other such simple adjustments, but they need to do so without overwhelming the novice with information.

The event chairman will announce the closing time of registration via the PA system hooked up by the equipment chief and the setup crew. The driving instructor should take the novices on a walk around the course and describe how a vehicle should be controlled in order to get the best time on the course. The best "line" thru the course depends on the characteristics of the vehicle, and the driving instructor should endeavour to be as complete as possible without overwhelming the novice with too much information. Basic information such as how cone penalties are determined and how the red flag should be used are also discussed by the driving instructor during the walkthru.

Timing and scoring personnel should take the data file created by the registration process and use it to figure out the run groups. Run groups break the entire entrant list into more manageable pieces and defines what the work/run order will be. In general, CFR tries to schedule work-first-run-second for all work groups, typically with the novices working first or second shift. This allows the novices to see how other cars are running the course so that when they get out there, they already know where others are making mistakes. The timing and scoring personnel are also responsible for teaching the people who will be working first shift how to run the equipment. Generally, this can be a high stress job, especially when there are 4 cars on course and the starter is sending vehicles before the T&S crew have entered the car number information into the computer! The T&S chief also has to train the rest of the T&S crew how to receive radio reports from the course workers and record the cone penalties and off-course excursions in the computer. Also tricky when there are multiple cars on-course!

Well, my fingers are tired or I would continue to describe the jobs of the Area Coordinator, Event Chairman, Safet Steward (as concerns safety during the event and not just course design approval), Work Assignment chief, and cleanup crew.

Remember that these people spend all of their time at an event trying to make things run smoothly for YOU! Not only do they arrive very early and leave very late, but many of those jobs have behind-the-scenes tasks to perform: re-solder the cables for the timing lights when they fail, produce the event results from the (lousy) format generated by the laptop software, do a financial auditing of the event to see if we at least broke even, make sure there's oil in the generator, dump the trash on the way out of the site, buy new batteries for the radios, fill out the post-event audit form to be sent to National HQ, and so on.

And remember: "To those whom much is given, much is required."
--
Frank Edwards
Solo Chairman
Central Florida Region of the SCCA