Somethings been playing on my mind

[Si Coe]

Not sure if this is a rant, comment, question, discussion or what. Its just something thats been eating at me since yesterday and I want to get it off my chest.....

Last Saturday our regular race controller rang me up to say he couldn't make Sunday due to a family issue. I'd promised my wife I wasn't going racing because we've got a baby due next month and we still need to paint the nursery, but as the only available race controller I agreed so the meeting could go ahead.
Literally everything possible went wrong.
Track problems, generator problems, timing problems, complaints about marshals - it was never ending. I seriously considered packing up and going home, but with all these people booked in I felt I couldn't.
Then, near the end someone who was a visitor to the club made some comment to me about how he felt it wasn't a very well run club and he wasn't impressed.

Now I'm not really complaining about the comment. Its something I've heard plenty of times at other places, about other clubs, directors, drivers etc. Its a standard part of racing.
No - what bothers me is that if I hadn't come along there would have been no meeting at all. And during the meeting I was very very seriously thinking about packing away and going home.

Then it occurred to me that the people that run the meetings, no matter how badly, are what makes racing possible. Drivers naturally expect a slick, professionally run meeting but often never consider what goes on behind the scenes to do that. They complain when things don't go right, but so few actually try run a meeting themselves.

So you know what? I may be a terrible race controller but at least I've tried. Because if people like me don't, there won't be any racing left.

[Hpi_guy]

im with you on that, i always give credit to race controllers that give up their time to organize events, personally if i know or overhead someone making a negative comment then i would try my best to resolve it to take some pressure off the race controller, that is something that really aggravates me

[Steve.T]

I agree with you completely. You didn't deserve the abuse you got. If I go to a club for the first time I make a point of thanking the organising team.
People like you are needed in all sports and organisations otherwise we would have lots of very boring weekends.

[Si Coe]

Don't get me wrong - I hold my hand up and admit I screwed up. I was chasing missed laps the first two rounds before I realised that the problem was the minimum lap time was set at 20 seconds, we'd built a fast, short layout and the top guys were lapping in under 20 seconds. My fault, but I'd never encountered that before so didn't consider it. Thing is stuff like that you learn by doing.

Plenty of people did various things to help me out, but then they weren't the ones doing the complaining!

[Steveonamission]

It always was an issue for me when running a club, there never seemed much appreciation for it, although I could take a 'visitor' with a complaint, but never had the patients for a 'regular' of the club to complain about something as they could obviously see how much effort I would put in each meeting. After I've rolled out the carpet, taped it down, took out all the track markings, built a track, setup race control, hardly get any play time on track, to do it all over again, but this time pack it all up? While mostly everyone (apart from 2-3) sodded off home. I quit in the end, never been back, feel alot better for it too.

I feel for you I really do.

Steven.

[Dudders]

Here here Si !

Until you run a club or race meeting you have NO idea the effort, time and energy it takes up.

99% of drivers, newbies and F1's no not of the pains and the stresses involved.

I love it when someone comes up and shakes my hand and just says "thanks for running today", even if they have hated it or loved it. I am staggered when people are and then go with saying cheeri-bye bye. I think it grates so much with me.

It's not just the day, it's the planning and pre prep and organising, it's not a one day wonder every week.

Rant over but I'm with you Si. Cheers to more of your badly run meetings

[Dudders]

Originally Posted by Si Coe

Because if people like me don't, there won't be any racing left.

The best sentence I've seen on oople this year....

[Maritime]

Si Coe

I have been a race director for 15 year now for my sins.

Sometimes it is a thankless job but more than less of the time its a great job to do*
pleases alway think of all the good time.*

As committee member or race directors
We love the sport that's y we give up the time we do for others.*

People who complain are two a penny
So just forget about it and keep enjoying what u love*

Hope all go,s well with the new One that's on the way

Ian knight

[johnnygibbon]

Si your the man when we ain't got Rog
And to be fair we've had some damn enjoyable meetings if not perfect ones
7 min qualifiers 10 min finals are ace
Imagine if I ran the meetings
There would be put stops to change batteries and bump ups like 8 th
And tbh I reckon Si is one of the guys who would let it happen
If he could get the laptop running properly any way
Race controllers are needed more than ever nowadays with the sport growing

[danDanEFC]

I wouldn't do it for a big bag of pies.

Thanks to all the race directors, especially our Eric!

[AfroP]

As the saying goes fella.
"you can please of the people some if the time but you cant please all the people all the time"

People will always dwell on the negative and thats what sticks in they mind.
Am sure you dk a great job. Keep it up and dont let a couple of problems get you down

[jkclifford]

A Badly run meeting is normally down to the knobs that attend it. If you don't have to run around sorting out Cristal clashes and lack of Marshalls and oher crap which the drivers should do, it gives you more time to do what you should be doing.

The other one I hear a lot is ooh the tracks too bumpy, or the grass is a bit long or the jumps arnt wide/long enough, but on the work party days 2/3 people tops!!

[DCM]

I know your pain, but being RD is an important role and you only learn by doing it regularly, keep at it. Unfortunately, it is one of them roles that, when all runs smoothly, nobody notices you, when their laps get missed or things go wrong, they soon know who you are!!

I enjoy being RD as long as the rest of the club pull their finger out with setup and tare down.

[dodgydiy]

just to add something, even the best most experienced race director will have problems if there are equipment issues or his team of helpers dont pull their weight. one of the meetings i was running the computer at a few years ago turned into a total nightmare due to amb problems, in the end after being moaned at continuously we gave the 100 odd drivers the choice of me counting manually and times not being perfect or f... off home. the cause of the problem turned out to be with the serial port on the computer so nothing could have been done about it on the day. so many people dont realise how hard it can be to get everything organised and how one little thing can cause so many problems. hats off to anyone who runs a meeting, no matter how badly, and thank god we dont have procount dongles any more........

[Dave Dodd]

+1 to what everyone has said.

Its an important role in any club, i can understand why so few wish to take it on. Im currently coming up to my first full yr as RD (after taking over from RobJ) and whilst there has been a few stressful evenings (usually a cable not working) but most of the time it runs really smoothly again this is thanks to RobJ setting it all up in the previous yrs, im really enjoying the role and im looking forward to the nexr yr.

"Sorry, thats not a missed lap!, i watched him bounce off every track marker all the way round"

[qatmix]

I dont think there is anything wrong with people highlighting problems, thats how people / clubs improve.

Having a go at the organiser, and being negative is not on however. I've been racing for many years and think all organisers are top blokes, as their commitment is way off the scale compared to us racers.

I wouldn't take the comment as a personal attack, they guy may not have been aware of the issues on that day (You said he was a visitor), so he may have have been offering some friendly criticism.

[RogerM]

Human nature sadly is quick to complain, slow to compliment.

If you do get a hot head ask them for suggestions for practical & specific improvements and ask what their experience of running an event is ... usually find they slope off quite quickly at that.

Keep up the good work, people like you are keeping the sport alive .. GOOD JOB!

[Bosscat]

Dont let the b'stards grind you down mate I have been running races for longer than I care to remember it's always yelling for marshalls and for help to clear up afterwards so we can all go home, you cant take it to heart if you do it will mess with your head.

Just remember you are doing a good job however the meet is going and 99% of the assembled company support you, not only that but you control which heat that guy that just upset you is in next time!!

Remember too that the World is Run by people who turn up, Its good to get involved!!

[fidspeed]

Just to confirm what every one else says we need Race directors more than the drivers at times

without them you dont have a race meeting i have done it on and off for almost twenty years at our local club and i must be getting grumpy old man syndrome when i hear bitching about "im in the wrong heat " "he took me out " "im here to race not help" .My usual response is why not go and race somewhere else if your not happy ,and your no benefit to our club

these guys work tirelessly to put on our racing for us the least we can do at club level is help to put out the track and put it away .If i visit another club if i cant help pack away i always make sure i thank the RD for hosting us whether i have a good day or not


at the end then of the day its "toy cars" not life or death

i work all week and car racing is supposed to fun and social, competitive Yes ,worth getting excited about No !

please keep up the good work all you RD's out there toy car racing needs you

Fid

[Robbiejuk]

Well I have done race control for over ten years and have heard it and seen it all. Even once had a transponder chucked at me for not sorting out someone interference problem, despite changing other people crystals so there was no-one in the whole meeting even on the same band and anywhere near the only crystal he had turned up to race with . He soon came and put the transponder back in the rack after I reminded him they cost 80 pounds each.

As a race controller you are expected by most people to:

• time laps to perfection
• Put them in the top heat because they don't believe the ability that has been set for them by the computer
• watch every car on the track at the same time
• remind them that they are on
• hold the whole meeting up because they have forgotten to change a battery in the hour they have had between races
• post the results up so that they can read them before go out and marshal
• remind people what number they are at the start of each race
• tell them what colour handout transponder they are using for the fourth time that day
• remind them to put back said transponder after they have used it
• Pick up that they have put the same number transponder that they have been using all day despite being a different number in the final.
• make sure that they are not held up in their qualifying run even for a millisecond
• Make sure a marshal attends to their car before it has ended up on its roof
• Make sure that the track (despite being three meters wide all the way round) is wide enough because they can't get the corner on to the straight right.
• make sure that if a ramp is used on track that is the perfect angle, width, length etc...

I could go on but I have had most of these on a regular basis. As people have said before constructive criticism is good, if there is a definate problem then we can deal with it there and then. Personally I would rather people came up to me and told me problems so we can sort them out and look into if they need doing. The people I can't stand are the people who don't say a word all day, and then come on a public forum the same evening or the day after and list minor problems which could have easily been sorted.

At the end of the day us Race directors put a lot of time and effort into providing a race meeting for people to turn up and race at. We are all volunteers who don't get paid for it and we do it because we want to and not because we have to, and also either don't get to race or effect our own racing because of it.

SI you stepped in at the last minute, to put on a race meeting and you succeeded to run a race meeting which is what you were asked to do. If you hadn't have done that nobody would have got to race that day.

It's a shame that people have moaned at you especially as you had given up a Sunday to run the race meeting, which you had planned to do other things on. Unfortunatley, despite your best efforts things will always happen out of the ordinary that is out of your control. Don't take people moaning to heart, People moan for the sake of moaning.