Another large pack scheduling question (long)

[Darth Gator]

I would like to get your opinion on our scheduling set-up for this year's PWD. You all were very helpful last year with my newbie questions and I am need of your advice again. Our set up is as follows--

4 Lane Track with FastTrack (Micro Wizard - K2) Timer, GPRM 5.0 software

Our rank headcount breaks down as follows:

Webelos 1 & 2: 19
Bears: 24
Wolves: 20
Tigers: 14

We want to award speed trophies for the top three in each rank as well as the top three in the pack. I would like to run two rounds using PPN in each rank (2 races per lane) and use the timer (either cumulative time or average time) to determine the top 3 in each rank. My questions are:

1) Since we have a timer this year and can get each car's times, do I need to run a "rank" finals?

2) If I only take the top 3 from each rank to the "pack" finals it is possible that a faster fourth place car in a rank may not make it to the pack finals. Should I expand the pack finals to include cars that have faster times than the slowest third place car?

3) What is the optimum number for a 4-lane track to use PN/CPN to determine pack finals trophies or does not even matter since we'll be using times?

Last yearwe used PN, PPN, CPN with GPRM and points to determine winners and had accurate results but it was a very long day of racing with our large pack. I would prefer to use points again but am under some pressure to reduce the amount of time during the race which is why we're using the timer.

Thank you for any insight you can share!

Jeff

[SuperDave]

Don't know if that setup will do it, but one great advantage of averaged time across all lanes scoring is that with only moderate organization 75 racers all running as one big group will take only about 2 1/2 hours and you'll have the overall winners plus the winners in each group you define and lots of happy kids who, not having been eliminated, are still there at the end of racing.

This of course assumes that your race venue is large enough to handle 75 kids and 120 plus others. But, if you break up the groups, most of the above still holds including the total time.

(Note: the author is a vendor of tracks, timers and software. Comments by him or to him should take that into account as appropriate.)

[Stan Pope]

Looks like total of 77 racers, so running twice per lane means total of 154 heats to perform rank racing. Gain over point system is "fewer ties to resolve". In fact, If you have ties, I'd suggest that you honor them by for instance awarding duplicate trophies: Tie 1-2: Award 2 first place trophies and a third place trophy. Tie 3-4: Award first place trophy, second place trophy, an two third placed trophies. Oops ... there goes the budget!

Now, if you can be reasonably certain that track characteristics will not change over the course of the day OR if you interlace the racing by the several groups so that everyone is equally affected by any change that might occur, then you can forego the finals. If you believe that the track characteristics will not change, at least arrange to prove that point by timed runs of a "calibration car" in each lane before racing starts and after racing ends and show that the before and after averages for it are smaller than the differences between the upper competitors in the several groups.

Why would track characteristics change? You can list all the ways. Temperature changes, Humidity changes, Bumps by track staff et.al., vibration from the starting mechanism (or earthquakes/tremblers if you are in California or Arkansas), the EL going by if you are in downtown Chicago, etc.

Otherwise, Finals are in order, and you need to advance as many from each group as there are trophies at risk. Dunno where the "4" came from in your question, cuz you said 3 pack trophies. Guessing you meant 4 overall pack trophies???

If you advanced one from each group to contest for the 4 trophies, then there is a high probability that a deserving racer was excluded. As you increase the number advanced, the probability that a deserving racer is excluded declines until, when you advance 4, the probability becomes 0. The cost of avoiding that issue is so small (2 heats per racer) that I'd not consider giving Murphy an extra shot at me.

Regarding question 3, you are correct. The charts are equally good for timed racing, except for correlation to points and distribution of racers along schedule.

[Cory]

1) Since we have a timer this year and can get each car's times, do I need to run a "rank" finals?

Scoring by time obviates the need for the prelims/finals approach. The major concern is that changing track conditions might favor certain parts of the schedule. This becomes more of a concern if your schedule does not spread each racer's heats evenly throughout the group of heats.

2) If I only take the top 3 from each rank to the "pack" finals it is possible that a faster fourth place car in a rank may not make it to the pack finals.

Not only possible but likely. In fact, unless you bring every car to the pack finals, it's likely that some non-finalists will be faster than some finalists.

However, the objective is not necessarily to get the N objectively fastest cars to the pack finals. The objective is to get the T objectively fastest cars to the finals, where T is the number of pack level trophies. And although some people will treat the average/cumulative times as "that which is true beyond question", they are not beyond question. For example, the times of one rank might be faster than another rank simply because some clumsy, big-footed Scouter bumped the track between ranks. Unless you can somehow validate track consistency across all ranks, then the times from different ranks are not comparable, IMO.

If you're awarding three pack level trophies, then you should bring at least three finalists from each rank. Just to be on the safe side, you could also bring a 4th car from each rank -- however, it's very unlikely that a 4th or 5th place car in one of several homogeneous ranks could finish top 3 in the pack.

3) What is the optimum number for a 4-lane track to use PN/CPN to determine pack finals trophies or does not even matter since we'll be using times?

In a perfect world it will not mattter with timed scoring, but similar caveats as the answer to 1.

Bottom line is the timed scoring can save you time by not having to run rank finals. Be sure to set GPRM to give you charts that evenly space the heats for each racer.

[Darth Gator]

Thanks guys! This is exactly what I needed!!!

Have a great weekend!

Jeff