BUB Operation

[bak189]

NO, Bob did not forget, that s why he stated that AMA records should be made by running ONE-WAY only.................if running for FIM record (two-way) the racer has already spend  LARGE amounts of $ (doctors,license enc) that the extra vehicle fuel used to go to the far side of the course should be of no problem.............................Touche.....

[JackD]

Not at all, that single direction method has already been suggested to SCTA.
Along with it were suggestions also to spread the crush of record contenders across the whole running day and for certification also.
They have been doing something very much like it at 3 locations in the US alone now and SCTA has done it from the beginning at El Mirage.

[interested bystander]

My only comment- and with GPS today it's probably not a factor- as long as the course is accurately surveyed and the timing apparatus is equally accurate.
Been NOT there with Drag Race timing systems many years past!

[Larry C]

#1194: Lots of really good ideas here. I like the idea of the one line fits all, bring your own shade. Been done since 1949 in August and works quite well. The pits this year were long and narrow due to the close proximity to the two courses, but what a time saver the second course was. Due to the afore mentioned shortage of working folks the pits got out of hand with the center line instead of against the barrier on the rwyb side. If we had a pit person to manage the trailers and vehicles it would be a huge help. The volunteer help is really key to a smooth running event, the BUB folks work there tails off. I also like running AMA record return runs in the morning. We had to make our return pass in the afternoon because we ran late. It was then or start again the next day and we ran in a much higher wind than I normaly would have (bit of a pucker factor in the mile!) And I did talk to some riders who did run out of time because of a late aftgernoon down run.

[ol38y]

#591   As Aaron and others have said, I see no reason for more then one pre-stage lane. One line, first come first served. The minimum for the long course needs to be policed better. Even at the riders meeting, held daily, there were discrepancies. But, that is the AMA. This was only my second trip to the salt, but, why not have the pre-stage line start at the 2. Then, all the short course bikes are there and the long course guys can move down to the 0. Someone correct me if I am wrong,but, I can think of no other form of drag racing, which is closest to what we are doing, that have to ride their bikes 3 miles to the starting line. If we have to ride 3 miles to the start line, how about at least dragging a path. Many of these bikes are ridgid, and that was not a pleasant ride on a ridgid. As I told the AMA Steward, if things don't change drastically I won't be back.

[Sumner]

Jon I think you have a good solution with your waves of 10 assorted short/long course bikes, but I have one suggestion.

Let's say you have your wave of 10 bikes lined up at the 0 mile and 2 mile.  Behind them a hundred yards put a couple flags and send a second wave of 10 assorted long/short course bikes to line up behind those flags.  While the first wave is running the second wave could be preparing.

When the first wave finishes running, move the second wave that has had time to prepare forward and replace them with a new wave of bikes lined up at the flagging a hundred yards behind the start.

They kind of moved us forward in stagging behind the start line at Speed Week this year in that manner, so I can't take any credit for this.  SCTA has pretty well figured it out over the years  .

Hope this is clear,

Sum

[Dean Los Angeles]

A short line should be the objective. Don’t get in line until shortly before your run. A line that makes you wait longer than 20 minutes is a waste of your time. Assign daily run groups (A, B, C, etc). Use the entry form to establish run order, first received, first run.

At the end of the first day you can put your name back in the hat for the next day. (Eliminates entries that are not going to run) Assign run order randomly for the next day. You would line up when your run group is called. Everybody has a CB, use it for communication.

Publish a list with the estimated time that a particular group will run. Just as an example: If the average run is 3 minutes then group B will be estimated to run between 9:45 and 10:30. Not a time table, but an estimate to help the competitor schedule his day. If you understand that there is no chance to run before 9:00, you may decide to fix the broken (fill in the blank). You don’t have to try to do it in line while pushing up.

El Mirage puts a mark on the inspection sticker when you make a run. No second run until everybody else has one run in.

The 5 percent rule means that a 175 mph vehicle can do a record run when he is almost 9 mph short of the record. The idea behind it is that if you run faster on the record run then the average would give you a record. The SCTA method of being faster than the record works well. If you are looking for middle ground then study all of the runs to see how many resulted in records and adjust accordingly.

I train Scoutmasters and have run large Scouting events. Volunteers have to be trained before they will be any good. A volunteer that just shows up expecting to work has no idea what the task is and is very likely to screw things up not because of lack of effort, but lack of information. Training the day before is best, or in the morning before anything else starts, even if that is really early. Give them written instructions for that job. Give them the names of the officials in charge and how to contact them for information. If someone  misses the start of training then go away and come back when you have the time to do it correctly. Volunteers run the bell-shaper curve like everything else. If you don’t know their experience level then do a quick assessment and assign accordingly. If the person isn’t particularly quick on the uptake, then give them a simple job. Been there, done that.

[aswracing]

After what I saw, I really don't think a run group system would work. I think you'd have mass confusion again, misinformation, people not ready when called, others going when not called, etc etc. The more opportunity you create for things to get messed up, the more they'll be messed up.

I really think the system needs to be simplified, not made more complex.

A single line, first come, first served.

[landracing]

Dean,

I would avoid the run groups you described like the plague. Remember El Mirage runs for points for season championships, and that is why they run in groups, I think is the reason.

Avoid at all costs at Bonneville. When your ready get in line.

Also the bikes in line are ready to run, they are not working on them, 98% of the time, that is because they are allowed to ride bikes to line and back. So if they are riding them they probably don't need much work if any if they are already in the line.

Jon

[bak189]

I would think if the BUB people were to take a close look at the way SCTA/BNI run both El Mirage and Bonneville events it would be helpful, after all
SCTA has been doing Speed Trials since 1949.
Also very helpful would be the input from a form
like Landracing.com.  We had 4 racers pre-entered
for this years event.......and only got to run 1...the sidecar.......there was no way  to race the other bikes with all the problems at the event......next year, we plan to take 1 piece of equipment unless the BUB's can show us a improvement in their operation.  I have strongly supported the BUB Trials in past years, but this years event showed that some drastic improvements need to be made
in the future, or they will lose my support.
Jon, also noted to post the plus-factors.........
the AMA Steward (Ken Saillant) and Drew (engine measurement) did a great job under difficult conditions.........also the BUB people worked very hard to give us the best race courses possible........
Denis Manning was out early in the mornings, dragging the courses with his pick-up...........sigh-up  worked great and was fast..........
Tech. could stand some improvement but with Ken's and FIM Charlie's help it worked out O.K.
Hopefully, some of the input from this forum will be helpfull..........we all know that somethings have to improve or the event will lose support.

[JackD]

Part of the reason the run groups can work at EM is because like a Drag Race, they are all in very close proximity and not spread out over miles in various directions, and with limited spaceit works for them..

[aswracing]

At WOS, they had us line up in two lines, short course on the left and long course on the right.

When they told us about the plan in the driver's meeting, with the memory of the Bub meet still fresh in my mind, I thought to myself oh no, this isn't going to work. There's going to be one short line and one long line and the folks running long course will get all the runs they want while everyone else waits.

But in the car world, it seems the ratio of short to long is much more even than it is for bikes. It's probably not 50-50, but not far off. With bikes it's more like 95-5 or something. So it actually worked out OK at WOS.

I would not, however, recommend that plan for the Bub meet. I think a single line is the only fair way to do it.

On supporting or not supporting the event, I've had one good friend and fellow event sponsor tell me point blank they won't be back. I personally haven't made any decision though. I have mixed feelings. I want it to work so badly, but I also want to go racing without aggravation. The contrast between the Bub meet and WOS was stunning. We had a fantastic time at WOS and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. That's the way it's supposed to be. It's no fun going racing if you're aggravated the whole time.

It's gonna come down to what they decide to do about the pre-stage mess and whether or not I think it'll work.

Most disappointing to me about the Bub meet was that my wife was so miserable. She hasn't come with me to an event since 2003, I finally got her to come along, and she was miserable. She told me point blank she won't come back next year. I lost a lot of husband points over the whole thing. She did come with me to WOS, though, and she set a decent record and had a good time, so hopefully I earned a few back.

[pdubu]

#6544
I wrote this and a couple others last night so, they may be redundant to topics posted today.

Topic: Prestaging (lists)

I had reasonable expectation that the list would solve some of the problems from last year. On the RWB side, I would say that it did for the most part. I would attribute that to the ability to treat the queue as one long line (per Aaron's suggestion). The list did help as the bikes lumped up vs. stayed in a line. So when they were placed into their particular group of five those being towed or hauled was less likely to be overlooked.

Two problems I saw with the list on that side (and heard anecdotally from the other side) were bikes being on the list but nowhere near the prestaging line or the rider off who knows where when it came time to make a run. This wasted efforts on the volunteer side as they tried to track down those bikes/riders, wasted time as vehicles had to find their way through the line to the front, and caused ill will as someone twenty back in line suddenly jumps up to the front.

There are some administrative problems with the list, but some standard formatting could rectify that to keep the FIFO order intact.

I agree there should be no distinction made within the queue between long and short course bikes at this time. I do however would not rule out that 'n' years from now that a ratio of long-to-short will be useful.

Topic: Getting into and to the head of the line (tied to list comments)
A proposed solution for that is to require the bike (with support vehicle if needed) and rider be on-hand at the time of sign up. If there is going to be some downtime the rider can go off have some lunch, take a nap, etc while a crew member baby-sits the bike in line. But once the bike advances to a given point, the rider must be within that area until sent down the line. At that time the bike and rider are placed into a group of five to ten. This would have the following occurring at prestaging: one group going to the start (really they are past prestage), another readying to go to the start, and another being assembled. (Batch processing in manufacturing vernacular)

The result is that the line would fairly represent the queue and the expectation of readiness would be promoted.

I'll address blending those riding with those using a support vehicle in a separate post, as well as some other proposals.


Paul

[pdubu]

#6544
Another one written last night.

Topic: Return runs

There were two big problems with this year's return runs: 1. not being able to make a back up run; 2. those making ‘return’ runs taking advantage of the rules to keep running without reentering the queue.

Barring bad weather, timing equipment problems, or lack of safety crew availability anyone making a qualifying run should have the opportunity to make their backup run during the event. Period.

To allow both FIM and AMA to meet there respective requirements, I'd propose three changes: 1. Replace the AMA 5%+/- qualifying run with a .001 mph over requirement (I can't seem to find or remember the FIM qualifying requirements); 2. Schedule return runs to occur at the top of every hour; 3. Whether a return run qualifies or not, if you want to try again you get back in line. Of course 'liners are excluded from these proposals for the most part.

As to the first and third proposals: it keeps people from making 'laps’ and using up time others could be out making their qualifying attempt.  On the second proposal, unless a majority starts qualifying every run return runs shouldn't use up too much of each hour. Using a rough model with some random numbers, some simple ratios of records-to-runs from past meets, and using the three minute takt time goal between zero and 15 minutes would be needed each hour. Most likely many hours will have no or very few return runs. Also it would be easier to set the expectation of readiness. If someone wasn't ready at the top of the hour, they would just be slated to make a return run at the top of the next hour versus delaying down runs. If really needed, the course steward could make exceptions on a case-by-case basis.

Paul

[pdubu]

#6544
Last one I wrote last night

Topic: Where to place the line and blending the line

I love having the pits in the middle of the mile. Watching bikes launch is nowhere near as exciting as watching them come by at speed. The line of bikes and support vehicles winding through the pits and the attendant congestion is the problem.

There are pluses and minuses for moving prestaging, but for arguments sake lets leave prestaging in the pits.  I'd propose swapping tech and impound with prestage. The queue would then snake out towards (and past) the backside of the fuel trailer.

To blend the line of ridden bikes with those hauled to the line, two quick options: 1. We could put everyone in one long line as is basically the case at other events; 2. The other option would be to have a volunteer line monitor that radio's the hauled bike(s) number to the list keeper for placement into the queue (see my other post about the list).

A long line is simple and works, maybe some squabbling if bikes bunch up along the way.  The other option requires keeping the list, but using it as suggested in my list post.


Paul