2E on it's deathbed in my district

[brownboy]

Well, I ran the district pinewood race today. I used the system Stan sent me. My pack ran our track, and I ran the race on a track another pack brought. In the past we always ran 2E, but now that we used this new system , I don't think we'll be going back. I must have heard 50 comments about how much better it was to have each kid run more times and it really did seem to help determine in a more precise way the best cars. The Finals were also a big hit. The races were slightly longer than traditional 2E, but each kid had at least 3 times the races. I think with a little system tweeking (read several more volunteers working each track) we can get the time down to a non issue.

thanks again to all that helped by posting info in this forum esp. Stan who's insights helped make the implementation of what seemed like a radical new idea very easy.

[Stan Pope]

Congratulations, BB! Way to go!

Sounds like your hard work paid BIG dividends! You may become a legend in your district!

I agree with your plan to train more people in the method ... it will make a difference and, perhaps, allow you to retire after a few years. Additional knowledgable people may also be able to see improvements that would help even more.

If you would, send me a write-up on the final configuration of your plan ... we talked about a lot of ideas, but I don't know exactly where you ended up.

[brownboy]

Thank God we talked about things I thought I didn't need to know, I'll explain why later. As for the set up, we ran the 5E with finals on two tracks running different age groups with a 15 minute staggered start. Due to lack of room we used the token method we discussed. One poker chip was marked to correspond to a car in the race, these tokens were placed into 6 Tupperware type containers marked 0,1,2,3,4, and "out". All racers started out in the 0 (loss) group/container the token were counted prior to each draw and the appropriate number of "x" or bye tokens was introduced into the group to give all racers an equal chance of being in any lane and or in a heat with a bye racer. The container was then shaken and tokens pulled to fill all lanes and heats for that group. The groups draw was then transcribed onto paper with the particular info Group #, Round# on top of the page and the car numbers entered into the grid where the columns were the three lanes and the rows were the heats. The tokens were left on the scheduling table in heat and lane order until the completion of the individual heats. After conferring with the finishing judges the heat winner(s) token were placed back into the container from which they had originated the non winners were placed into the container that represented one additional loss. As a backup/safeguard the winner(s) were also circled on the heat sheet. As many rounds proceeded as needed always starting with the lowest alive group number and finishing each round of racing with the zero group even if it was just a "victory lap" for that groups lone remaining racer. As per the system when each container held only one chip the finals began with the lowest seeded groups racer challenging the next highest seed for position, with the stipulation that the lower seed must win two races consecutive to advance were the higher seed need only win one. For added strategy we gave the lower seed racer lane choice in the initial challenge with the higher seeded racer having lane choice for a subsequent race if necessary. The finals proceeded accordingly from the lowest seeded participant to the highest.

reflections of a tired volunteer...

All the effort and prior planning was well worth it, the race package really did enhance the experience of the scouts and for the first time in the three years I've been active in Cubs I didn't hear anyone complain about the results or the fairness of the methods. I was stunned by the number of pack leaders taking notes and asking me about particulars of the system. I was also pleased to have so many parents thank us for such a well run derby.

Well to the untrained eye, everything went perfectly, here's the truth. (things I learned, things I'll do different next year)

The second track was owned by another pack, we were told it had an electronic finish and they knew to be there.. Umm OK 10 minutes to race time, no second track. The pack in question showed up minutes before race time they had brought the track "just in case someone needed to use it". Nobody from my pack had called anybody from their pack to confirm plans, in retrospect we got really lucky they showed. It was one of those round table discussions where things that were talked about, were never acted on. Next year I pick up the phone myself, 10 calls is better than none. The tracks electronic finish was a project in the works, this brought me to my next problem, you can NEVER have enough well trained volunteers. The week before we had a dry run during our packs test-n-tune where the groups adults were introduced to the nuances of running a derby and the particulars of the race methods we planned to use. This was all great and one half of the District races went nearly flawlessly, unfortunately for me I hadn't thought ahead to realize that we were in fact running two races at the same time. I had assumed that the pack bringing the other track would also bring a race staff, but that was a big maybe, even if they had known they were expected to bring a track. So off I was 10 minutes after start time trying to put together a derby staff on the fly with impartial volunteers to learn a new system in real time. The Finish line judges in my opinion were the most important to not be biased, so I ended up with a guy with bad vision and a lady whose son was racing in later age group. Thank God you told me that the judges need not to call the same winner in a close race, because there were many heats with more than one winner due to the human error element of our finish line. Due to the multiple winner concept, finish line judges that would have been a complete disaster in Double elimination were a total non issue. Another room for improvement was the token system, due to the size restraints of our derby (we have one park pavilion on the beach for the event) we elected to use the token system. It worked great for the adults, but screaming out numbers over two groups of boys and parents in close proximity wasn't fun, and in retrospect I'm lucky if my son comes when I call his name, let alone some assigned number. Next year we'll tweak the system somehow or abandon it altogether. I think maybe one more volunteer each track to round up the next wave of racers might work, but there I am adding another position when I had initially thought Stan was the king of overkill for suggesting I have seven volunteers for each track.

The brain is already in gear for next year's districts. next task:
My pack is hosting a multi-district race at the mega scout show next month where all the area district winners (top three) will I hope bring their cars to race, should be about 12-15 cars per group if everyone shows.


P.S. my son's car won 3rd in bear, he came back from 4th spot to sneak onto the podium in the finals. I was proud of him, he designed and did almost all his own work this year.

[Stan Pope]

Thanks, BB!

[brownboy]

Stan thank you, you made me and my pack look real good this weekend.

[Stan Pope]

Stan thank you, you made me and my pack look real good this weekend.

You are welcome, BB! You made it work for you. Take your bows!

Work on how you can run it without having to call out the numbers! How well you get the boys organized to run their heats is usually the biggest contributor to fast or slow operation. To my thinking, the faster their next turn comes around (i.e., the more heats per hour,) the better! We talked about using a few pads of paper with racers for one heat per sheet in large print. If adults are given a pad with an upcoming heat, they can hold up their pad until their racers are collected ... then take their group to line up at the starting line. 6 or 8 such adults (trained "on the spot") might be sufficient to make that work. The same sheet can be used tell who is racing and then, by circling the winner number(s) to "announce" the heat result. You might end up running heats "out of order" but this isn'nt a problem so long as you "clean up" loose ends between groups and rounds.

Now, for the coming event, you have all kinds of options... round robin (e.g. PPN + CPN finals), Nochart 4E or 5E (running only 2 at a time ... 3 at a time reduces groups 1 and 2 too quickly) + ladder finals, etc.

The selling point for nochart when folks travel significant distances to unfamiliar locations is the ability to work late entries into the mix with penalty scaled to tardiness. On the down side, with a small group, the rounds will go by pretty quickly, so the tardiness penalty scales up pretty quickly.