short/long practice format staying?

[brady]

I like the short 1st practice, longer 2nd practice format instituted last round? for weather reasons; anyone know if it's staying that way?

[Chippertheripper]

I have no idea, but I'll throw my full support behind it also.

[Jim]

wasn't done that way because of the weather? It was wet in the morning, but dried up by the time the 2nd round if practice sessions started.

[tls25rs]

Personally like the two practices the way they have been run with the two equal length sessions.

I am also not a fan of the on the fly changes to the practice schedule.

Two reasons.

First, If I was someone in the later practice groups, planned my morning around arriving at the track in time for my first practice time only to arrive and find out I had missed it, even though it was shortened and I would have a longer second practice, it would bother me. It also didn't help get the track as dry for the first practice group as it wound up being for the later practice groups. Had the first sessions been run for their normal length time than the second session for the first practice group would have most likely been on a drier track due to bikes circulating for a longer period of time.

Second, (this has been addressed numerous times in the make the track better post) the PA system is terrible which makes it difficult for all the racers to remain aware of the schedule changes as they are happening. The only way myself and those around us knew was by watching the checkered flag fly so quickly on the first practice group and putting two and two together and figuring out they were running shortened sessions.

Joel

[Johnny B]

The Starter is forced to make judgement calls on how to run practice by the weather. If we are dealing with a full wet situation, then it's usually "everybody in the pool!" with a re-examination of the conditions at about 9:15. Then a decision is made to either continue Adult Swim or do the normal group rotation starting at 9:30.

At the last event we had a damp but drying track, with 3 or less riders coming out for each session. Dick made the decision to shorten the sessions for the first round in order to have more time for the second round, when more riders would be coming out on a drier track. I see nothing wrong with this logic.

Regarding the ongoing PA issues, that's out of my hands, but a small improvement I can make is to get Bruce to give me custody of the wireless mike on Saturday evening so that I can make announcements Sunday morning pending his arrival. The hard wired mike I usually use doesn't cover the paddock as well as the wireless.

Something we can do is to utilize the new scoring pylon to get information out. Take a look at it during the next event. During practice you will be able to see what session is out there at any given time. You can also see the clock counting down the time left until the checkers are thrown. After the end of a session, if you watch the pylon closely at the beginning of the next session, you can see how many minutes each session in that round is going to be.

While racing is going on, you can keep track of what race is on the track and see how many laps have been completed. I use this feature to help me to determine whether a race is complete or not when a red flag is thrown.

[tls25rs]

Johnny B, thanks for the reply.

The new scoring tower does make it infinitely better as far as knowing what is happening on track.

Though I do understand the logic in the discussion about the weather and the changes to the schedule due to it, personally I would prefer the two equal length sessions regardless of weather conditions. In the event of an all swim, the re-eval at the normal time to start the second round of practices makes complete sense.

Just one person's opinion to go along with the others being presented.

Thanks

Joel

[butcher bergs]

I see what you're saying, Joel, but keep in mind there would definitely be situations where practice sessions would have zero bikes on track.

Why needlessly burn the track time if no one is going out?

I remember a couple years ago during an open practice session I was out there with 5 other bikes. Even with open practice, only 6 bikes total were in circulation for at least the first 10 minutes of that particular Open Practice.