Thanks Bull. I believe I will. It was nice running with you I will say though I did not get a chance to meet you personally

 

There is a middle ground here. CVR staffs the Pit-in, Pit-Out, and "Gate" with paying participants at every DE. I have never had to "work" more than an hour total for a 2 day event, and that's with only around 100 participants to draw from (Instructors are excluded). I have no problem whatsoever doing that, and will volunteer for an extra assignment on my "day off" if someone scheduled goes home or doesn't show. It's the least I can do. NNJR usually runs larger events yet requires 2-4 HOUR work assignments AND in the case of the Gate steward, he (Ralph Sannato, who is great guy was the GS when I was there) sits there ALL day.. I don't get how that works out. My wife, on her 1st DE day, got pit-in on a 90+ degree day. Between my running and working I didn't know until it was too late they told her she had to stay out there for 4 hours (3 hours, then she ran, then back for the remainder). She had a great time.. NOT.

 

I won't argue with you there. I will bring it up at the next meeting. Unfortunately, there is a lot of politics involved and there are many things we must do although it might not be to anyones liking.

What do they charge students and what dates do you have? Track dates are hard to come by and costs vary so i am told.

NNJR is a very large region and has been doing DE events for 36 years. (I found video from 1986 and boy were things different back then).. I think you will find in time the lawyers, IRS and other agencies will ruin it for all of us and many regions will be copying NNJR. We were discussing this during lunch on Sunday (BTW I had a large vat of sausage peppers and onions, I had an open invite to, but I guess nobody took me up on it or heard about it) I am amazed at how many restrictions we are stuck dealing with and other regions have been ignoring. I for one hope current issues don't make it even tougher in the future to enjoy the fun.

Again I said I will inquire about this I was informed but do not recall the particulars about why we had to cover these jobs. Change takes time and I hear what your saying I will bring it up although I can't make any promises. This is also why we require the waivers and coverage to a very high $$ value much more so than other regions and the cost is extensive.

 

Independent of time of year booked, the "gate" NNJR brought in is roughly $50K based on the number of participants and instructors. That is one healthy profit which illustrates there is PLENTY of money to cover the proper staff to run the event and still have a good chunk of change to put in the coffer.

Personally, like Chris L stated, I wouldn't feel comfortable at all having an assingnment like pit out when the potential for personal liability is high like in the Keaton case.

 

Thanks Chris. I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to meet. And I don't think I saw you for long on the track as you went by me! I never see Brian on the track...it is more like B..r..i.......and then he is gone! I'll see you around a track another time.

 

I don't have the numbers off hand but from what we discussed I think you would be surprised if you truly knew the facts and did not speculate.

 

It would be interesting to know why we needed to cover Pit-out. In the past, back when I was Tower Steward, I remember using the VIR people for Pit-out, particularly Lee (tall, thin guy) who did an outstanding job.

 

I'll offer two comments;

- I run a lot of NNJR events, and have been for a number of years. having run with other groups, I can say they do a good job. They are generally quite well run, they are usually three days, they have good drivers, staff (mostly), they go to places I want to go, and since I am not made of money, it is important to me that they are more than competitively priced.

- Participation was down at most other events this year. Big regions are addicted to track revenues, and I think they may have overbooked the event to make up for a shortfall in revenue. If so, this was a very bad idea. I was not privy to any of the "problems" highlighted here, but from my perspective the run group size was the only problem. If you can't fit all of the staged cars in the hot pit and let them go en masse to the hot track, you have too many!

 

I was discussing this and IIRC properly they were not available for this event. I wish I knew this yesterday because I saw those responsible last night and could have asked.

Back when I was doing this in the 80's they didn't even have flaggers to hire. We had to man each station ourselves. It was a big responsibility.

I would talk to Russ about this but I believe he was trying to accommodate everyone many people showed interest in this event as it was the end of the year. We received more drivers from other regions than NNJR. I think he had to turn many away and did not want to make any NNJR members miss out.

The words have been spoken I will pass them on and see what happens. I think the rest of this is just beating a dead horse. Other than what has been stated I believe the rest of the event was enjoyable for most.

If you have any other peeves let me know and I can add them to the list. These are very reasonable people and I am sure they will take your comments into consideration when planning next years events. Although we have a new BOG next year and a new track chair so your guess is as good as mine.

Hey you never know.

 

Then by all means please enlighten then. My statements are not speculation but rather approximation based on numbers. It's actually very simple to calculate revenue brought in based on cost to attend for non-instructor/instructor slots and numbers registered.

Regardless, people still had a great time and there are just constructive comments and discussion to try and make it a more enjoyable experience in the future. The two biggies are smaller enrollment and no work assignment.

 

dell will give you his opinion!

 

This is not the place to discuss actual numbers. There are underlying expenses which I am sure you are omitting. There are also tax related issues which I am sure you are not factoring in. It is more costly than one might imagine and you will find that the IRS treats this like a business like anything else so don't be so quick to judge based on simple calculations. If you are a CPA I am sure you know what I am talking about.
I agree and as I said I will bring it up at our January meeting. There are no guarantees but I will see it is addressed. Like all things, change takes time. I don't think work assignments will ever be ruled out but there may be a way to reduce them. I for one see no issue with helping out, I volunteer where ever I can to make it enjoyable for everyone. I actually enjoy meeting people I normally would not meet without my work assignment. Believe you me I was not happy waking up at 5:30am to make my way down to tech but I was there early every morning freezing my butt off. I actually made a few new friends because of it and glad I did.

I wish I can say "let it be written let it be done" but these things don't work that way, I am sure you can sympathize with that.

I hope to meet more of you at future events. I for one enjoy meeting everyone as much as the driving.

 

930 man your car looked great. I got some pictures of you coming around oak tree with the yellow lights. Very cool. If I get a chance I will try to post some.

 

Need to be an example for my students. I encourage them to give their opinion at all times...... whether I agree with them or not.

Well said. There is no reason to discuss actual figures in an open forum. However, I never said that the "gate" was all profit. Just stating that what was brought in to what the expenses are is still nothing close to a loss.

And as for the work, that is what it is. However, if you want "volunteers" that is another ballgame. For that you have a sign-up, etc., but to require shift work is not volunteer work.

FYI....not a CPA but rather a statistician

 

I'm curious... if a club decided to use the membership to control pit-out instead of the paid professionals, and there was an accident at pit-out, is there a liability issue? What if the paid professional was replaced by someone who is brand new to the track - does that change the answer?

FYI, I had this exact situation happen to me many years ago. My first time at the track, I was assigned to pit-out, and I had the afternoon session of the last day. This happened to be when the red and black groups were combined and I was waving cars into moving traffic at Pocono while we were running the bowl configuration. At the time, we had a guy driving a 962 and those things seemed to move rather quickly. It was probably the first time I've ever seen cars pushing 150-160+.

A few times, I really screwed up in waving traffic onto the course and caused at least one spinout as cars tried to avoid each other. It was one of the more sickening moments of my DE experience (certainly more sickening than the crashes I have been in - although not as sickening as receiving the bills for those crashes).

As you can imagine, I'm not a big fan of using volunteers to wave traffic onto a hot course. That being said, I've learned to use my mirrors when leaving pit out and to pay extra close attention whenever I pass pit out.