Last minute change to car handling rules

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dfscott
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Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by dfscott »

Well, I'm 3 days away from the PWD and as PWD Chair, I attended the Pack Committee meeting last night to report on where we are with volunteers, car workshops, etc. Everything was going fine until I opened my big mouth and stirred up a hornet's nest:

Me: "So, that's about it. The only open item is that I'm trying to find a nice wide bench or stepstool so that the boys can reach the track."

PC member: "What do you mean, 'reach the track?'

Me: "You know, for when they put their cars on the track prior to the heat."

PC member: "But I thought the cars were being impounded after inspection and the boys couldn't touch them after that."

Me: "Well, yes, that's true, but they need to touch them to race them."

PC member: "Oh, no! We can't have boys touching cars! What if Z*** is getting his car from the impound area and bumps D***'s car and breaks it!?!"

I have to admit that I got a little heated at this point since Z*** is my son and a generally well-behaved Tiger Cub, and D*** is his not-so-well-behaved Bear.

Me: "Look, adults can drop cars just as easily as adults. Sometimes there's loose pieces just waiting to fall off and I don't want to be the one to break someone's car. And these rules and procedures have been distributed to everyone and was available on the web site for the past two months -- why is this coming up now?"

PC member: "Well, I didn't really read them.... but doing it this way will take forever. While one boy is staging a car, he might bump another kids car, and then that other kid will have to come back and he might bump another car."

At this point I talk about having the impound area near the starting line and setting up an on-deck spot so we can have two sets of four moving through the course (thanks to Stan for his tips on how to do that).

Still, he's just shaking his head.

At this point, the Pack Committee Chair steps in and says, "he's the PWD chair, he gets to decide how it runs. We can take notes and if it causes problems, we'll fix it next year." She then turns to me and says, "however, I can see his side of it, so I think you should really consider what he said."

At the end of the day, the PC chair (who also happens to be my wife) will back me up as PWD chair, but she wants me to look for some middle ground. I felt very strongly about having the boys put their own cars in the starting gate, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have them fetch their car and putting it a staging box next to the (adult) Starter, who actually stages the cars? They'd still get to retrieve them and put them back afterwards.

I've only experienced one other PWD, and it involved adults staging the cars and pre-school age children acting as car runners -- I don't need to tell you what a disaster that was. So, any thoughts or ideas are welcome.
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FatSebastian
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by FatSebastian »

Interesting topic!
dfscott wrote:I felt very strongly about having the boys put their own cars in the starting gate...
I encourage you to go with your gut.

We have participated in races with kid staging and in races with adult staging. Based on those observations, the kids did the staging in races that I have managed, and there have been no problems of consequence. If you have an "on-deck" spot, that will tend to make things go very fast - perhaps even faster than adult staging. Careful adults will take their time and this can be just as slow or slower than the kids. Careless adults will make mistakes; in addition to the valid concerns you mention about the fragility of some cars, they can place the car on the track backwards or in the wrong lane, sometimes requiring a heat to be rerun - nothing is slower than reruns or having to stop to have a 5-minute-long discussion with an irate parent.

Whenever there is a problem with a car (loose wheel, unsecured weight, etc.), it is instinctive for a well-intentioned participating adult to "just fix it" while the car is in his hands without even thinking to keep things moving along. I saw this happen once in an adult-staged race and the boy whose car was "fixed" was really upset (along with his parent). I have lost track as to the number of stories where a car was dropped by its adult handlers. IMO the potential for drama is likely to be much reduced if the kids do the staging, as long as you take the time to explain to all the kids what they need to do, how to watch the "on-deck" status, staging one-at-a-time, no running, shoving, etc.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Darin McGrew »

I'll echo FatSebastian's suggestion for you to run your derby the way you think it will work best for your group. However...
dfscott wrote:I've only experienced one other PWD, and it involved adults staging the cars and pre-school age children acting as car runners -- I don't need to tell you what a disaster that was.
In what way was it a disaster? The only way I've seen a derby run is with adults staging the cars, and the youth (car owners) retrieving their cars from the finish gate and returning them to the storage area near the starting gate. I haven't seen any disasters, even with pre-school age children retrieving their cars.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Stan Pope »

Maybe the title "car runner" was taken too literally. :(
Stan
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dfscott
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by dfscott »

Darin McGrew wrote:In what way was it a disaster? The only way I've seen a derby run is with adults staging the cars, and the youth (car owners) retrieving their cars from the finish gate and returning them to the storage area near the starting gate. I haven't seen any disasters, even with pre-school age children retrieving their cars.
The pre-schoolers here were not the racers of the cars -- they were just random siblings that the parents were trying to keep occupied during the races. After each heat, whichever ones were down there grabbed the cars directly from the track. After a few races, they started fighting over who gets to carry the "cool" car, or "that's my brother's car! you can't carry that one." That led to fighting and lots of dropped cars. One kid even rolled another kids car across the floor, where it hit a chair, dislodging the wheel -- you can imagine the drama.

Thanks for the feedback. I think a lot of our parents don't have much faith in the kids being able to handle this. I've found a small platform about 12" high that I think might work. I'm getting the track tomorrow so I should have a good idea how high the starting gate is.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Darin McGrew »

dfscott wrote:The pre-schoolers here were not the racers of the cars -- they were just random siblings that the parents were trying to keep occupied during the races. After each heat, whichever ones were down there grabbed the cars directly from the track. After a few races, they started fighting over who gets to carry the "cool" car, or "that's my brother's car! you can't carry that one." That led to fighting and lots of dropped cars. One kid even rolled another kids car across the floor, where it hit a chair, dislodging the wheel -- you can imagine the drama.
Ah... now I understand. It never occurred to me that anyone but the car owner (or possibly a specific individual designated by the car owner) would retrieve the car.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Stan Pope »

Darin McGrew wrote: Ah... now I understand. It never occurred to me that anyone but the car owner (or possibly a specific individual designated by the car owner) would retrieve the car.
I think that the car owners would be much more responsible.
Stan
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Darin McGrew »

Stan Pope wrote:
Darin McGrew wrote: Ah... now I understand. It never occurred to me that anyone but the car owner (or possibly a specific individual designated by the car owner) would retrieve the car.
I think that the car owners would be much more responsible.
In general, yes. And the few owners who abuse their own cars would have no one but themselves to blame.
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by AlabamaDan »

We always have the adults stage the cars. Webelos have the honor of carrying cars from finish back to start and are given a speech before to walk and handle like eggs.

Just our tradition. We've never had compliants.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Stan Pope »

AlabamaDan wrote:We always have the adults stage the cars. Webelos have the honor of carrying cars from finish back to start and are given a speech before to walk and handle like eggs.

Just our tradition. We've never had compliants.
If you are in a position to do so, how about an informal survey of the boys and (separately) of their parents regarding "Would you rather stage your car yourself for each heat or would yourather see Mr. (cubmaster) stage your car for you?" with appopriate wording for the query to parents.

I have asked some key ex-cub scouts and their feeling is that being the "owner/driver" (i.e. staging the cars themselves) is more fun. (Keep in mind that their "tradition" was that adults have a "strictly hands off" role!) And if the scouts are having more fun while learning more responsibility, I'm doing my job! :)
Stan
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dfscott
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by dfscott »

Well, we had the derby this past Saturday and I let the boys stage their own cars. The Webelos were first, so I had one of them stage the test car. He had no trouble at all so I told the Starter (who is also the Tiger Den Leader), to allow the kids to stage their cars if they want, and help them if they have trouble. Every kid staged his own car, no cars were dropped or dislodged as a result, and the kids (especially the Tigers, had a blast). They would stage their car, dash down to the finish area, and skip back to the "bullpen" after the race with their cars.

Our groups were small enough (the largest was 12) that I even allowed the boys to hold their cars during the races -- most boys had to wait no more than 2 races before they were staging again. There was only one dropped car (by a Webelos) and it was not damaged by the fall. Having them involved really helped hold their attention. Several parents commented that they'd never seen the boys more well behaved.

Oh, and the concern about "taking too long"? We finished ahead of schedule! :bigups:

Thanks for the support and helping me stick to my guns!
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Stan Pope
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Re: Last minute change to car handling rules

Post by Stan Pope »

dfscott wrote:Thanks for the support and helping me stick to my guns!
Well done! :nod:

What do you think they will do next year? :)
Stan
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