Adrian Astorina and I were the co-event chairs for the very first CCSCC autocross event of the 2010 season. For the most part, things went well, at least when it wasn’t raining. Well, at least all of the things that I didn’t mess up. Despite some issues with getting the heats and bumps set on time, as well as some fumbles on my part in putting together the final results, things went well.
When Dennis Miller announced at one of the club meetings that the club needed an event chair for the first autocross of the season, I volunteered myself and persuaded Adrian to do it with me, despite the fact that I was the event chair of the Labor Day Parkland autocross this year and I was to take Adrian then under my wing and show him (read: make him do all the work) how to put on the event. And so it was: this would be the first (and maybe only) time that I would have the chance to plot my own autocross course at the vast expanse of concrete that is Rantoul.
Because the first autocross took place on the very last weekend of the U of I’s spring break, I called the event the “Spring Brake” Autocross and had Sport Print print a batch of trophy t-shirts that had a picture of my old Miata skidding into a couple of cones.
Adrian and I had a three day plan, starting on the Friday before the event where we would run out to Rantoul, set up the course, and have it approved by the safety steward, Barry Rowe, before Saturday. I arrived at Rantoul at 4pm that day to find almost ten people there. Overwhelmed by the help (and constant barrage of ideas and suggestions on how to route the course), Adrian and I managed to make a course that satisfied both of our desires for something fast, relatively open, and unique. There was a loop at the very beginning of the course, followed by an optional slalom, a long and very fast sweeper, some switchback turns, and finally a straight and fast finish broken up by a single offset gate. I wish we could have done more with the course after the long sweeper, but the condition of the concrete more or less dictated where we could put the cones. Runs were normally in the 45-48 second range.
Barry arrived to find a course completely set up and ready for evaluation. After making some minor adjustments to avoid some crumbling concrete, the course was given a seal of approval. One less thing to worry about!
Of course, come Saturday morning, I completely forgot to worry about everything else. Because the only autocross events I had ever chaired in the past were at Parkland College and not Rantoul, I neglected to think about opening up the bathrooms in Grissom Hall or putting up trash bags around the site. Instead, I simply set up the waivers, registration, and tech. My main focus the entire morning was on tech; Adrian and I spent quite some time roping people into working tech as, being the very first autocross event of the season, everyone had to be teched. All 60+ cars. Amazingly, once tech got rolling, things went pretty quickly. We got all cars teched in less than two hours!
Once registration closed, the “fun” really began for the event chairs. First thing that happened was that the computers crashed after we audited the entrants. So Tom Ingles and I had to do a quick audit again. Then the computer refused to let us do bumps. A few restarts later, we finally had the capability. While Tom and I were doing the bumps and heats, I had my safety steward Barry start the drivers meeting so that we’d stay on schedule. My goal was to have the meeting done by 10:30.
I come out of the truck with the heats and bumps in my hand to find a crowd of autocrossers standing around at the back of the truck, killing time. I had taken so long to get the heats and bumps together that Barry had long ago run out of things to say. So I announce the heats and bumps, and promptly get several inquiries as to why some people weren’t announced in a class or heat. A few more trips to the computer fixed that problem.
As the cars staged in the grid, we had one more hitch in timing. For some reason, the computer could not record the times sent by the timing box. A few more frustrating moments passed before we ultimately set the AxWare software to accept manually typed time inputs. By the time we were ready to start, it was 10:50am. Rats.
Since I didn't have to work, I took pictures of the heat instead.
The first heat was also very slow to start. We had cars starting about an average of 45 seconds at first, not quite the pace wanted when the course is 45 seconds long. With such a short course, I had hoped that we’d get six runs. Things sped up by the third run as timing and the corner workers got into their groove, but by then, I’d made the decision that we’d only have five runs. It allowed for a 30-minute lunch break, which I thought was a reasonable alternative. If anyone wanted to keep running the course, we’d have fun runs at the end of the day.
We finished the first heat at 12:40pm. The first car of the second heat started at 1:20pm. Not a bad turnaround time! Second heat went pretty smoothly, despite one hiccup: a car slid into the timing light, resulting in (hopefully just) a bent sensor stand and a cut timing cord. We replaced the cord and the timing light with backups. (The club’s new timing system can’t come soon enough.)
Second heat was done by 3:10pm. Ten minutes later, we started fun runs and kept going until 3:50pm. I did the awards and most everyone was gone by 4:30pm. Not a bad day, considering all the delays at the beginning.
Sunday’s event simply didn’t happen. We I arrived at the site, it was a lake. The course went through several areas that literally had inches of standing water. Even if it had stopped raining early in the morning, it would have taken until noon for the lake to dry sufficiently enough, and there’d be no time to run. So we picked up the cones and equipment, turned away the four novices that foolishly and commendably braved the pouring rain to come to Rantoul, and headed off to Dunkin Donuts for some coffee and breakfast.
Not quite the perfect start to the 2010 autocross season, but it was a start. From talking with others, it was apparent that the desire to shake off the winter blues was strong; we wouldn’t have 70+ competitors on the very first event otherwise, an unprecedented turnout for such an event!
John Li, Event Chair
There was a misunderstanding on my part that led me to disqualify the guests from Indiana from the final results. I was the one who changed the results; since Adrian and I were running about doing whatever it is event chairs do, I didn’t notice who worked and who didn’t, and when someone brought up the concern that some may not have worked, the few people I have talked to couldn’t recall if there was an absence or not. Mindful of the problems the club has had in the past with long-distance participants skipping work, I wrongly went ahead and assumed the worst. As it turns out, they work the second heat, so I undid the changes to the results. Once again, this was my bad.