Opinions sought on upcoming District and Council Races

Discussions on race planning, preparations and how to run a "fair" and fun race.
Post Reply
User avatar
pack529holycross
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 555
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:25 pm
Location: Dr. Phillips, Florida
Contact:

Opinions sought on upcoming District and Council Races

Post by pack529holycross »

Here is my dillema:

I have designed the qualifier system to be top three of each rank, or 15 qualifiers per unit. We have 24 units in the District. This totals 345 entries.


My question is this - even if 50% turn up, should I try to field a division for siblings and adults?

NOTE: our staging/impound team are a well oiled machine, having heat turnaround times as low as 32 seconds / avg 40 seconds.

I am fairly certain that we will be able to load in the night before, so setup is not an issue, and we intend to open doors at 8am.

( 6 lane bestrack/fasttimer/gprm )


Opinions?

Nicholas
User avatar
psycaz
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 667
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2005 9:21 am
Location: Somewhere, US

Re: Opinions sought on upcoming District and Council Races

Post by psycaz »

Why not? The more, the merrier. :mrgreen:

If you don't limit it to those related to district qualifiers, you might be able to lure more of the boys who didn't qualify and let them get a feel for how that level is.

That is what our district is doing this year.

Good luck with the racing.
User avatar
ohiofitter
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 693
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 10:30 am
Location: Uniontown,Ohio

Re: Opinions sought on upcoming District and Council Races

Post by ohiofitter »

My question is this - even if 50% turn up, should I try to field a division for siblings and adults?
My question is if you thought under 50% would show up and said there was a sibling/adult race would it affect the time of the event if lets say 80% of your district showed up....I'd hate to announce a race for others and then at the last min....then say they couldn't race because more scouts showed up then anticipated
User avatar
Stan Pope
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 6856
Joined: Sat Jul 05, 2003 7:01 pm
Location: Morton, Illinois
Contact:

Re: Opinions sought on upcoming District and Council Races

Post by Stan Pope »

pack529holycross wrote:Here is my dillema:

I have designed the qualifier system to be top three of each rank, or 15 qualifiers per unit. We have 24 units in the District. This totals 345 entries.


My question is this - even if 50% turn up, should I try to field a division for siblings and adults?

NOTE: our staging/impound team are a well oiled machine, having heat turnaround times as low as 32 seconds / avg 40 seconds.

I am fairly certain that we will be able to load in the night before, so setup is not an issue, and we intend to open doors at 8am.

( 6 lane bestrack/fasttimer/gprm )


Opinions?

Nicholas
In my experience, 50% to 60% would be a typical turnout with those parameters, at least after you have run that way for a few years. The first year, you might show a higher percentage, just due to "novelty." OTOH, you might show lower because of "strangeness."

I don't know exactly your concerns ... Is there a fixed time limit for event completion?

Our leader's races tend not to have a large audience, although if we left some of the cars out for viewing and made a few promotional mentions during the boys racing, more folks might stay around for it. Our leader's race is held after the boys events and awards have been completed ... just before we do the final tear-down.

The small number of entries in our leader's races suggests that the extra time to run a leader's race is not as big an issue as the time to complete the boy's racing! What have you done to make the boy's racing go swiftly?

Are you racing by grade? (The qualifying by grade suggests that you are.) Can you run a second track for about half the racers to almost cut the time in half? For instance, race Tiger, Wolf age on track 1 and Bear and Webelos age on track 2.
Stan
"If it's not for the boys, it's for the birds!"
User avatar
PWD_addict
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 705
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 10:35 am
Location: Middle River, Maryland

Re: Opinions sought on upcoming District and Council Races

Post by PWD_addict »

pack529holycross wrote:Here is my dillema:

I have designed the qualifier system to be top three of each rank, or 15 qualifiers per unit. We have 24 units in the District. This totals 345 entries.


My question is this - even if 50% turn up, should I try to field a division for siblings and adults?

NOTE: our staging/impound team are a well oiled machine, having heat turnaround times as low as 32 seconds / avg 40 seconds.

I am fairly certain that we will be able to load in the night before, so setup is not an issue, and we intend to open doors at 8am.

( 6 lane bestrack/fasttimer/gprm )


Opinions?

Nicholas
That's the same number of Packs in our District. Last year, we invited the top two from each rank in each pack (10 per Pack) and had a total of about 60 boys race. This year, we've opened it up to Top 3 from each rank. We allot 60 minutes per rank and had a lot of down time last year. We register one rank while the next older one races. Keeps things moving well if you have enough helpers.

We're not even considering a Sibling/Adult race for Districts. The day is already about 7 hours long, given our schedule. I don't want to tax the volunteers more than that. Plus, no one has asked for it.
Post Reply