abqautoxer

I've rarely see the driver's meeting done before the novice walk. Usually the course is open for awhile, then a novice walk, then hopefully some more time for walks, then a driver's meeting. Regardless, you could bring up the course at anytime, even when runs are in progress.

Mussl Kar

Some clubs here have the meeting before the course walk, some after. I always have another course designer take a ride around with me. They sometimes make a suggestion, or not. Point is to spot any tarmac defects.
Did a rain course a few weeks ago. Forecast was 100% rain. Set the cones in a steady rain. Drove it twice in my F350 tow truck. I still had to make a few slight changes. Completely missed a big hole filled with water, could not see it. About 12" around with 3 inches of water in it. And right where a loaded tire would go.

MB_Fahrer

It could have been run by the SCCA....if you catch my drift

kjchristopher

No, I don't. Please enlighten me.

brave1heart

Interesting. At our events, we have 100 cars, get 8 runs on a 70+ second FTD course and wrap it up by 4 PM. You can only get this if you run the driver's meeting while the course is being put together. Ideally, they'd both be done around the same time. First car is out ~ 9:15 am. How many runs on what course do you get at your events?

HarryD

At 0700 we start setting up the course. Tech/Registration starts at 0730 to 0830. You can walk the course whenever you think it is ready. Drivers meeting at 0900 followed by a novice training session (corner working, general safety issues, getting them hooked up with instructors etc). First car out about 0915. For our lot, the runs are about 30-40 seconds. Typically we have two cars on course at any given time. We get 6-8 runs with 65+ cars each time and are done by 1400 or so.

Seems to work ok in spite being "wrong" per many posters above.

abqautoxer

Note I said rarely, so I don't think its wrong, just the other option and not my preference as someone who often give the novice walk. My local PCA is VERY small and the novice walk is done after the drivers meeting. First car off at 9:45, done by 2:30, about 8 runs and an hour stop for lunch.

SCCA here is a little bigger, 60 cars, 6-10 runs (varies a lot due to sites we have that prevent overlap or more than 2 cars on course at a time), first car off at 10:15, done by 3, 30 minute stop for lunch. I've been lucky enough to travel to one other PCA region and about 6 other SCCA regions and most I've seen do the walk before the driver's meeting.

Scootin159

We normally do the course setup the evening before, that way the course is open for walking as soon as people arrive in the morning (most people walk it immediately after hitting up registration). We normally have cars going from 9:45am to 3-4pm, but total runs varies a lot depending on the site. At bigger sites we can run a 15 second start interval, and get 100 cars through 12 runs. At smaller sites where we have to deal with repeated sections of the course our start intervals go up to 40s or more, leading to fewer runs (last event was like that, each car still got 7 runs, but we only had 40 cars). At one event last year we only had 30 cars show up to one of our bigger sites - we each had 15 runs in by noon, at which point we decided not to kill everyone's tires and just a test and tune from noon-3pm. I swear some drivers did over 100 runs that day.

sjfehr

We like to do that, too. We have setup Saturday morning, which gives tech/registration workers time Sunday morning to coursewalk. When we have our large venue, we can get upwards of 150 cars, and split it into AM/PM heats with a 30 minute gap after AM finishes to give the PM drivers time to coursewalk.

Even when we set up the course the morning of the event, it's always finished by 9am for walking.

brave1heart

Interesting and really good to hear everyone's experience above. Our courses are 70+ seconds (mile-long!) so they take some time to set up. It wouldn't be fair to the course designers to open the course for walking before they are done with it (or our designer Mussl Kar would need extra O'douls to calm down). So we do the drivers' meeting before the course is ready.

Mussl Kar

You know what would be a good idea? Take a friggin radio with me when doing setup. I always remember it at about the farthest point from the tent.

ltdan12a

We run about an average of about 235 cars per event. 4 runs per driver. 20 second interval. First car off at 0930hrs. We always have the AM driver's meeting AFTER the Novice walk through is complete.

brave1heart

Wow, that's by far the biggest field I've heard of anywhere. How long is the course FTD-wise?

johnclay

Dan's talking about the D.C. area SCCA. It's been a long time since I've been to one of their events, but it is impressive how they run an event with so many cars. They do a hell of a job. They do have the benefit of using the FedEx field lot, so they can have a course that doesn't have to double back on itself. I'm thinking they have 75-80 second runs. Having 235 cars makes the high lot rental cost reasonable per car.

Compared to our local PCA events, it also helps that they generally have experienced autocrossers where as a PCA event may have 1/4 of the field being new. You get much better course workers with the experienced guys which also helps.

ltdan12a

Sorry, didn't see the response earlier. Yup, I'm talking about the D.C. SCCA... We have access to Fedex Field, which is a great lot.. It also helps to have such a great commitee that puts the event on!!! Our courses usually run in the 60-70 second range, but that is spent almost entirely in the upper limits of 2nd gear, with the occasional shift to 3rd. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend coming out and running with us!!!