Faster staging for races

[Jeff Piazza]

I've been involved in our district-level races for the last few years. We use two separate tracks and run different age groups in parallel to speed up the event.

We've used the PPN schedule for our track, while the fellow who runs the other track uses lane rotation. I started to get some pressure from the District Executive to switch to lane rotation, because it was taking our crew a lot longer to run the PPN races than the other track's lane rotation. I promised we would work on speeding things up, and would switch if we couldn't.

I wanted to share with you the staging system we came up with. It involves a crew of three: the Stager/Starter, the Wrangler, and the Runner. There are also three carrying trays, such as the ones Randy carries (http://grandprix-software-central.com/p ... Path=26_33), or, in our case, I built some out of wood. The system works like this:

At the conclusion of each heat, the Runner collects the cars from the end of the track and brings them to the impound table. The Stager/Starter receives a pre-loaded carrying tray from the Wrangler, and gives an empty carrying tray to the Wrangler in exchange. The Stager/Starter then transfers the cars to the track (in order), and is ready to start the next heat as soon as he's done so.

The Wrangler, meanwhile, fills the empty carrying tray with the cars, in order, for the NEXT heat. (We've found it helpful to print out a copy of the full race schedule for the Wrangler's use, so he doesn't have to keep switching between looking at the screen and looking at the table. Also, using Race Replay can make the "next heat" screen unavailable for reference at times.) Finding the cars for the next race is the part that takes significantly longer for PPN than for lane rotation, but in this system, that activity is performed while another heat is running.

The Runner is responsible for replacing the cars from the previous heat back in their correct (numbered) locations in the impound. Again, this is done while another heat is running, and while the Wrangler is picking up cars for the following heat. The Runner and Wrangler stay on different sides of the impound table to reduce conflict.

It sometimes happens, of course, that a car will run in consecutive heats, in which case that car is still on the track while the tray for the next heat is being prepared; other times, a car will have to transfer directly from the Runner's carrier to the Wrangler's. These "pipeline stalls" are relatively rare, though, and don't seem to cause a big disruption in practice.

When we put this system into action last year, the District Executive actually had to ask us to SLOW DOWN because we were getting so many more heats run than the "lane rotation" crew on the other track!

If you like the PPN scheduling with it's wider mix of opponents but are hesitant to adopt it for fear of longer staging times, I highly recommend this system!

/JEP

[*5 J's*]

It may take a bit longer, but we have the Scout carry and stage his own car. I really think this is the way to go if time permits.

[dna1990]

We use your system almost to a T, including pre-printed lists (we use a large font printout with just car numbers), and multiple trays to stay ahead of the current heat. We allow scouts to carry cars back to the main table, but we do have an adult to stage.

We use more than three people, but the process flow is the same as you described. The only time this begins to slow, is for a small field. If you only have say 10 Bears, then you still sometimes have to wait on car #x to be returned. GPRM does a good job to distribute the load and not have a car be in two consecutive heats, but can only do that when the car count is high enough.

We average 40 seconds per heat over the course of 120-140 racers and a few Grand Finals.

[Darin McGrew]

That sounds very similar to the way we stage our races.

We have the car owners sit in designated seats at the finish line, and then carry their cars back to the pit table after the race. Meanwhile, the adult stager loads the cars for the next race in the starting gate, and the owners of those cars take the designated seats.

In the pit area, we usually have one or two people replacing the returned cars to their numbered locations on the display racks, and two or more people arranging the cars for the upcoming heats (moving them from the display racks to the staging area). The "wranglers" arranging cars for the upcoming heats work from a printed copy of the schedule, and usually have cars for the next few heats ready.

We've discovered that numbered cards help the "wranglers". When a car isn't available for staging (e.g., a car that ended up in two consecutive races), we use the numbered cards as placeholders. That helps everyone in the pit crew know that we need to get that car back from its owner quickly, so it can be staged for the next race.

[rpcarpe]

Our smaller packs are having the kids wrangle their own cars.
At District we use the same kind of system described.