I guess Mark has been on the LeSchander tour of Charles Town.


Everyone with an interest in the 4 run group/RORO and related DE policies should definitely come the the drivers meeting at SP. Saturday, after the track goes quiet, in the classroom. Beer lamp will be green.

Maybe instead of a "walk the track" after the event, we should have a strip bar crawl.

Any discussions on this at the track or drivers meeting?

yes, but it covered nothing more nor less than what's already in this thread. it appeared like it was designed to appease the masses, yet still concluded w/ nothing being resolved. ie: status quo. we'll do it the way we want to....

i found it particularly disappointing b/c after all the assurances that "there's no time", "we utilize all of it", etc etc... the last rungroup of the day (green) ended at 4:20pm. am i missing something? looks like we're pissing away 40 minutes of track time. not only have i understood that we ALREADY PAID for the track until 5pm, the price has went up too... it makes all those previous 3-sessions-is-all-we-can-squeeze arguments kinda silly and contrived

it certainly does not appear like we use what we pay for efficiently.

Don't get me started on this subject.

Yes, as a direct response to this specific thread and what has been said on it, there was a driver's meeting held after the track closed on Saturday. The purpose of the meeting was to provide a forum for these views to be heard, for questions to be asked, and for suggestions to be made.

A large number of Dorki were at the meeting, including the guy who started this thread. Not one of them said a word, with the single exception of Dave D.

Don't ask me about the many WTF? questions I got after the meeting.

And I prefer the 3 sessions per day, so I certainly did not help most of you guys! :D

Tony, I wasn't intending to stir up the entire debate again. Unfortunately I was not able to make it. I was just trying to learn what happened.

In the quote by Alen he mentioned something about a survey. "Someone Suggested" That was me.
Maybe many of the people in the room were waiting for that to happen. They may have been all talked out, or just tired.
Maybe they just felt intimidated when the oppertunity came up. Also many people dred speaking in public. (Very different than typing and hitting the send button.

Well, I was there for most of the meeting and was able to hear about every third or fourth word. I don't know what else I could have said. Bottom line is you get far more track time with other regions' events at SP. I don't care if it's an undersubscribed, away event or whatever. It is what it is. And I didn't really want to get up and tell everyone to sign up for Schattenbaum and NNJR events, so they could get more track time. I'd rather that stay a well-kept secret and let Potomac run the oversubscribed DE's with less track time. Potomac should cut the number of DE participants to make sure those who get in, get plenty of track time. First session yesterday I got two laps before a black flag brought us all in for a good 10-15 min. Session was extended, but that was 1/3 of the day right there.

I was there, but didn't speak up. Why? Well, I don't really care that much one way or the other to be honest. Not enough to stand up and make a stink about it. Its the same amount of track time either way, and I think our goal is not so much quantity of heat cycles, but maximaztion of track time.

Plus, and lets be honest, the environment there wasn't exectly conducive to an open discussion. We were told early on that the instructors want 3 sessions a day. Most of the rest of the meeting was basically the instructors that wanted 3 a day sessions standing in the inner circle of the meeting agreeing with each other. Tom did a very good job of being impartial and trying to get differeing view points, but it was clear that a lot of the PCA brass around him were in favor of the 3 a day model. WHen any talk of 4 sessions came up, there was a lot of head shaking, frowning, and interrupting.

I wonder this - is Kurt the ONLY instructor that has gone on record as preferring 4 sessions a day? Because to talk to the people at the track, this whole idea is a student (and more specifically a Dorkiphus) led idea. The common consensus is that the students want 4, instructors want 3. Since the instructors are the ones out there volunteering their time to teach the feeling is (and this was stated explicitly at the meeting) that if they want 3, then it should be 3.

I asked my instructor on Sunday about it, and her feeling was that 3 sessions a day is better because if her car breaks, she has more time to get it working again. Honestly, its a good point and I can't argue with that.

So to me, instructors are more apt to want 3 sessions because they are less likely to lose track time because of idiot maneuvers and getting a session black flagged. They are more likely to lose track time due to mechanicals, and want that buffer zone in there to fix stuff. So I understand why some would want 3. But what about all the talk from the instructors I know about student attention span, etc, and things being better in 4 shorter sessions? I didn't hear that mentioned at the meeting. And not being an instructor, I'm sure as hell not going to suggest it.

Dave (}{) above though points out something that did annoy me, though. If we've paid for the track until 5:00, why is it cold at 4:20? There was 40mins of wasted time that we could have use to make up for the black flagged session in white.

Like I said before, our goal is maximization of track time. Going to 4 sessions helps minimize the issue of a black flagged session. The waiting around thing, while somewhat sucks, I think is a much lesser issue. So is there a way to solve the lost session issue and stick with 3 sessions a day? How about this: On the last day of the event, combine the last black/red session (this seems to happen almost all the time anyway). Then, when green comes off, have open white/black/red session for anyone who's left until the end of the day. I'm sure the white students will be more than happy to give passing signals to the red/black guys in the same way they vote in Chicago - early and often.

Remember that the other groups events are mostly during the week. Apples to Apples. Another thing that is important is that advancing is a key component to getting lots of run time and not getting waitlisted. The instructors had more time that they knew to do with on Fri.