CURBOROUGH AGENDA - PLEASE READ CAREFULLYMods - feel free to make this into a Sticky, or start a new thread.
Earlier in this thread, people voted overwhelmingly for more structure to the day's proceedings, so here's my proposal for the day's driving / marshalling duties - I am more than happy to make changes - all suggestions very welcome.
I'm estimating that each run is around two minutes (two laps takes about 1m 25s in the wet, plus the time to get from the finish line down to the start line)
There will be five groups, each having five drivers.
Group A will be ready and waiting on the startline at 9:00am. Each driver in Group A will have two runs, taking a total of 20 minutes. This means that there will be a maximum of eight minutes between each run.
During Group A's driving, the drivers from
Group D will be performing timekeeping and startline duties.
At approximately 9:15, the five drivers from
Group B will be called to the startline area, ready to start their session as soon as Group A have completed their two runs each. At the same time,
Group E will take over the marshalling duties from Group D.
So - the driving rota will look like this:-
..and the marshalling rota will look like this:-
All being well, we should have 20 - 30 minutes at the end of the day for a "free-for-all"
A BIG CAVEAT - getting each group through four times will mean that people have to be ready to drive at their allocated time AND take over marshalling duties at their allocated time.
A SECOND BIG CAVEAT - if it's dry, we may get through more quickly - if so, we have some choices:-
1) Start doing three runs per group session
2) Try to do a fifth rota
3) Have a longer free-for-all at the end
I know this might come across as a bit too structured, but it will mean four things:
1) there will be no queues (other than the maximum of four cars waiting to run in each group)
2) Everyone gets a roughly equal time driving (in the past, people that have spent hours in the timing hut or at the startline have only had three or four runs)
3) Everyone does their fair share of startline / timkeeping duty
4) Each group will have a 20 minute "rest" between driving and marshalling, followed by a 40 minute gap between marshalling and their next driving session - this will mean that people can muck around, take photos, chat, take passenger rides or just be generally sociable, without fear of not being in the queue and thus missing valuable driving time.
Some other rules / suggestions
1) Get to Curborough on time (8:30-ish). You will have to sign on, walk the track (if you haven't been there before) and listen to a brief driver-briefing - to make this work, we need people not to hold up proceedings
2) Get together with the other members of your group to decide who will go down to the startline and who will go to the timing hut. There are only two people required for marshalling duties from each group, so the other three will be able to hang around or go for passenger rides.
3) For your first time at either the startline or timing hut, arrive a few minutes early, so you can pick up how things are done (there will be a walkie-talkie link between the startline and timing hut - timing is completely manual and involves the startline shouting "3-2-1-GO!" down the walkie-talkie, and the timing person starting and stopping a stopwatch, followed by recording the time on a timing sheet)
4) At the end of the day, there is a fair amount of packing away to be done - previously, this has taken a handful of people half an hour - it will only take ten minutes if everyone chips in - PorkyPaul will direct people.
5) If you want to let someone else drive your car, you will have to give up one of your allocated drives from one of the sessions - entirely up to you.
6) If you want to drive someone else's car, you're welcome (with their permission, naturally), but you will be taking one of their allocated slots, so you may wish to reciprocate by offering one of your allocated slots to them.
7) Given the above, I don't see why we shouldn't allow drivers to swap places with other drivers, but the default for each group is the five drivers in that group. If you swap with someone, it would be nice if you could let the startline know, so that the timing hut can record the right person / car. Don't forget, the timing hut will be expecting to know which five drivers they will be timing.
As I said above, I'm very happy to tweak things and depending on how the day goes, I may even make small changes during the day (for example, if only 20 drivers turn up, we may change to three runs per session)
Oh - one final VERY important rule - its supposed to be a bit of fun - don't take things TOO seriously, and have a great day's driving