Before padding yourselves on the back for the Lime Rock weekend

Before padding yourselves on the back for the Lime Rock weekend, I did not think we got what we paid for.

We were supposed to have four 20 minutes sessions (Fine, somehow on schedule that became 15+20+20+20 = 75 minutes of track time)

Somebody arbitrarily decided to cut out the last session for everyone. We only ran 3 sessions. Steward said they decided to extend the third sessions to 25 minutes and call it a day. There was no announcement.

I was in the red group. The red group certainly did not get the 25 minutes for the third session.

Here are the total minutes I was on the track on Saturday.
Session 1: 14:24
Session 2: 15:31
Session 3: 17:17
That's 47 minutes. Lets give some time to get on/off the track and round it to 55 minutes. That's still missing 20 minutes of track time.
Thank god we did not have any incidents that caused the track to be closed. We would have gotten no track time.

I found out about the change in schedule while talking to Steward before the student group went out. I told him that it wasn't fair to reduce the track time just because. I asked if I could go out with the students and then with the red group to make up my time. I was told "NO! You have to go out with the group you are assigned." But there were students running in the red group later.

Extending the sessions to 25 minutes does not make sense. Most of us are running street tires and brakes. They overheat and don't last 25 minutes.

We could have easily combined blue with white group and red with student group and have the fourth session.

It took me almost 6 hours to get in/out of Lime Rock for less than 1 hour of track time.

As far as I am concerned, EMRA owes me 25% of the money for this weekend. Because I only got 75% of what I paid for.

But, I still like EMRA, and I am planning to come to more events.
If this was my first event with EMRA and think this is how all events are run, I really don't think I would come back.

Lets take it as a lesson to be learned.
Stay on schedule.
Make announcements.
Be flexible.

Ken Eviner #114

I am hoping that the trend of no reply from management does not continue.

I was surprised at Ken's description - from the email I received advertising Pocono
the Lime Rock event "ROCKED" & "THE DAY COULD HAVE GONE ANY BETTER!!!"
Obviously there is a difference of opinion that needs explaining.

Like others, I have waited 3 days for a reply to Ken's post.

Would like to hear more details on the ending of the event.

It was supposed to end 6PM - when did it end? Early ? Why?

Who was the Chief Steward for the event?

Respectfully submitted
Tom M

I wasn't too thrilled with the decision made either but from what I understand they could get fined if we were on the track later than a certain time. The day should have started a bit earlier in my opinion as planned at 1pm and we would have gotten what we payed for. I agree with you that the track session were all cut short. I timed the second session and it was around 15 minutes. I was there as a student and although the day was short I learned alot and had a blast with EMRA.

I was a little surprised too but I think this had something to do with the Lime Rock Drivers Club staying on track beyond 1:00pm which pushed everything back.

WELL, I HAVE TO FIRST APPOLOGIZE FOR NOT GETTING BACK TO YOU, KEN, AND I'M SORRY YOUR DAY DIDN'T GO AS WELL AS IT SHOULD OF. THE VOLUNTEERS TRY TO KEEP TO THE SCHEDULE WHEN EVER POSSIBLE AND I KNOW IT CAN BE FRUSTRATING NOT TO GET TIME YOU EXPECT. SOMETIMES THE SCHEDULE CHANGES AND WE WILL BE MORE DILIGENT IN LETTING YOU ALL IN THE PADDOCK KNOW WHEN THOSE CHANGES OCCUR AND DEFINITELY DO A BETTER JOB OF REARRANGING SCHEDULE TO MAKE UP TIME LOST TIME IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
AND ON A PURELY PERSONAL NOTE I AM NEW TO THIS REGISTRATION STUFF AND WAS JUST REALLY GLAD THAT I DIDN'T TOTALLY MESS IT UP, SO YES, I WAS EXCITED, I GOT YOU GUYS AND GIRLS OUT IN A FAIRLY EASY AND SHORT TIME AND WANTED TO EXPRESS THAT IN THE EMAIL I SENT. I HOPE THAT YOU CONTINUE TO BE APART OF EMRA AS EVERYONE WHO IS ONLY MAKES IT A STRONGER ORGANIZATION. WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS TO MAKE THINGS RUN AS SMOOTH AS POSSIBLE, AND THOUGH NOT PERFECT I THINK WE DO ROCK,THAT REFERS TO EVERYONE, VOLUNTEERS, DRIVERS, AND ESPECIALLY ME :O)! I WOULDN'T DO THIS FOR ANOTHER ORG, BECAUSE OTHER THAN EMRA, IT JUST WOULDN'T BE WORTH MY TIME. I REALLY ENJOY MEETING ALL OF YOU AT THE REG DESK! THANK-YOU FOR YOUR INPUT,EVERYONE, WITHOUT IT, WE WOULD NEVER IMPROVE YOUR EVENTS!
MARY COX, REG GIRL :O)

I see the "you must run in the assigned group only no matter what" policy in many organizations and I really do not understand it.

I was at an event where it was snowing and at least half if not 3/4 of the drivers left, and even then the officials were sticking with this policy.

in responce to mx5 there are several lessons learned the track giving us a late start is beyond our control but particulary when we have to adjust printed times we need to have some kind of sign board as well as more announcements more help in pit lane would have been extremely helpfull the sessions ran well thanks to our very experiecened flaggers there was less than 1 min. between sessions, but we could have used someone in the false grid it was way too far for me to run as for changing race / run groups that is generally reserved for some kind of mechanical or simalar circumstance not for confusion although we were a little off our game. i would be glad to talk or correrond with you any time cbwcf47@g.mail.com ph. 631-749-3244 brian w. chairman EMRA

the limerock drivers club stayed late and then the track needed to open the back gate to let one of the rigs out which took another 30 minutes. That put the start back almost a full hour. they tried to get the time back to us but it was difficult. I agree there werent any announcements or anything which would have helped.
thats why the event ended when it did and we werent able to get the extra hour of time. there were compromises on both ends and I got three full sessions of 20 minutes plus. although I didnt time any other sessions.
the chief steward was Brian.
I did think there was going to be four sessions, but cars were constantly on track and they just ran out of time through something that wasnt in their control.
Hopefully we can get it back at pocono.

mac342 wrote:WELL, I HAVE TO FIRST APPOLOGIZE FOR NOT GETTING BACK TO YOU, KEN, AND I'M SORRY YOUR DAY DIDN'T GO AS WELL AS IT SHOULD OF. THE VOLUNTEERS TRY TO KEEP TO THE SCHEDULE WHEN EVER POSSIBLE AND I KNOW IT CAN BE FRUSTRATING NOT TO GET TIME YOU EXPECT. SOMETIMES THE SCHEDULE CHANGES AND WE WILL BE MORE DILIGENT IN LETTING YOU ALL IN THE PADDOCK KNOW WHEN THOSE CHANGES OCCUR AND DEFINITELY DO A BETTER JOB OF REARRANGING SCHEDULE TO MAKE UP TIME LOST TIME IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
AND ON A PURELY PERSONAL NOTE I AM NEW TO THIS REGISTRATION STUFF AND WAS JUST REALLY GLAD THAT I DIDN'T TOTALLY MESS IT UP, SO YES, I WAS EXCITED, I GOT YOU GUYS AND GIRLS OUT IN A FAIRLY EASY AND SHORT TIME AND WANTED TO EXPRESS THAT IN THE EMAIL I SENT. I HOPE THAT YOU CONTINUE TO BE APART OF EMRA AS EVERYONE WHO IS ONLY MAKES IT A STRONGER ORGANIZATION. WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS TO MAKE THINGS RUN AS SMOOTH AS POSSIBLE, AND THOUGH NOT PERFECT I THINK WE DO ROCK,THAT REFERS TO EVERYONE, VOLUNTEERS, DRIVERS, AND ESPECIALLY ME :O)! I WOULDN'T DO THIS FOR ANOTHER ORG, BECAUSE OTHER THAN EMRA, IT JUST WOULDN'T BE WORTH MY TIME. I REALLY ENJOY MEETING ALL OF YOU AT THE REG DESK! THANK-YOU FOR YOUR INPUT,EVERYONE, WITHOUT IT, WE WOULD NEVER IMPROVE YOUR EVENTS!
MARY COX, REG GIRL :O)
     

I find these all caps posts and emails very difficult to read. I can't be the only one here. With that said, I'm "new" to EMRA. I've yet to do an event but I've been considering joining EMRA for a while now. Just waiting for my schedule to free up but I hope what was described by OP is not the norm.