09-10-2004, 06:38 PM
mongooze Wrote:Okay so I still need to post some pics.. And a writeup. Bah!
OK, since John is slacking... :wink:
j/k, we decided that we would each give our versions of the weekend. Sorry for the length of the post- wanted to get all the details in.
1. More of you f00ls needed to be there. It would have been MUCH more fun that way.
Saturday was kinda a cluster-fuck. They were running late, using *brand-new-never-been-tested-timing-equipment*, and the drivers only got in like 4 runs all day (time-frame: around 8 hours). There were timing problems, so the times from the day got thrown out completely. I think that the person who sold them the timing system got themselves ripped a new one on Saturday night... but I digress. We watched a huge rainstorm head across the valley and soak us to the bone before we got picked up to head back to the grid. Overall, Saturday left us wishing that we could cop out and not show up on Sunday.
However, we took the high road and decided that we would be dedicated MM members and give NASA-SE a good impression of the club.
So, Sunday rolls around and we end up back on corner 3. John flagged and I maintained com with start so they could keep multiple cars (2) on course at a time. There was a Snowshoe employee named Joe on the corner with us, a really nice guy- had a Chesapeake retriever named General with him. We talked a lot to him about his impression of the event from Snowshoe's perspective. Snowshoe really seemed to have their shit together, for only having a couple of weeks to set the whole thing up. NASA... well, they had a few hiccups in their plans. Things ran fairly smoothly all day, the cars got a lot more runs in, there were only a few minor accidents (a Camaro who took out a bunch of the haybales on our corner and left metal shards all over the road), and only a few timing glitches.
From talking to Joe, it appears that they could really use more skilled people working in the future, possibly pairing MM people with volunteers, or having a flagging/radio training session for all workers before the event. Possibly something that MM could talk to Jim Pantas (NASA-SE) about...
It was kind of scary that John and I were probably two of the most qualified people at the event other than the 5 or so NASA folks and the drivers- many of whom had their comp licenses. They could definitely use more people who know what's going on for next year.
Overall, it was a good experience, and we have a full free HPDE weekend with NASA-SE. So, we'll probably be headed down to ATL sometime in the future to take advantage of those credits. :twisted: Now that we've got the 300ZX, and a winter to work on it.
Recap:
Downsides:
-the first year the event has been held, there are bound to be glitches
-could have used a bit more organization, but they were running on about 2 weeks of planning
-yeah, that's about it
Upsides:
-beautiful weather (for the most part) and scenery... for those of you who haven't been up that direction, Snowshoe is a beautiful resort
-cool to work with another NASA region and get the MM name out
-some pretty sweet cars flying up the mountain at speeds that topped out somewhere over 100 mph right before they went around our hairpin turn