Thought for Safety -- Pre-driving Course

[jbyrd]

Here's a though for us to "kick around." This is not a proposal.

Source for Thought:

After setting up the course at the recent school, it was discovered there was a safety issue at the finish while instructors were pre-driving the course.


Result of Discovery:

A gate was moved 5 feet which corrected the problem. Additionally, the "pivot cone turn-around" was slightly adjusted which improved the flow of the course.


Reason for Thought:

If "instructors" had pre-driven some of the previous courses where safety issues have been questioned, those "bugs" could have been worked out before the event got started.


Though/Solution:

In order to address the competitive questions that arise from pre-driving the course, here are some thoughts.

Your thoughts???

[lagunamiata]

We've discussed having the Safety Chief at the event pre-drive the course. Comments on that?

[C4Shane]

I'd vote for letting the safety chief do it, or perhaps the Pro Class drivers as there are only a few of them and they are often involved in course setup anyways.

Otherwise, we should have Team BEER do it!

But, I would agree that it made a real difference at this last event.

[bogner47]

I like the idea of having the pro drivers do it. Their classing is already separate, and one could argue that they should be at a level of competition that they best understand the dynamics, safety, and flow of minute details of the course (and changes upon it) anyways. Of course the safety chief could be included in that argument as well, whether he runs Pro or not.

[trdriver]

I thought it had already been decided that the event chief safety steward would pre-drive the course. Certainly some potential problems might have been avoided over the past year had this been done. I don't regard a safety pre-drive as giving anyone a significant competitive advantage - there being a huge difference between focusing on safety concerns rather than focusing on how to reduce your run time.

I also think allowing another group to pre-drive the course, in effect, allows that group to, perhaps inappropriately, usurp the god-like authority of the safety steward to judge the safety of the course.

Competitive concerns could be addressed this way: announce (or post on this forum) who the safety chief will be for an event and what time he/she will be making the safety pre-drive and allow any concerned competitor from their class to show up at the same time and pre-drive the course if they so desire.

Actually, I think allowing the Pro class to predrive the course while obeserved by the safety staff would probably work just as well - provided they'd all agree to do that.

Note that I said "Safety Staff" - I think all the Safety Stewards present should make the initial safety walk with the event safety chief - with that interaction I think that eventually (probably sooner rather than later) we'd all get better at recognizing potential problems.

Cheers,
Jack Mc

[autoxdad]

It has already been decided that the event chair will walk the course with the course designer, the chief safety steward for the event along with another safety steward, and that then the chief safety steward will drive the course. This should stop any saftey issues. Thanks Dave

[damnyankee]

I'm not concerned if the Safety Steward predrives the course. That's why he is there. If he doesn't want to, I'll do it!! ;D

[C4Shane]

Sounds like we have a plan. Let's move on with it!

[C4Shane]

It works - let's keep it going this way.

[autoxdad]

saabstory said:

It works - let's keep it going this way.

It shall be done!!!!

[lagunamiata]

Now if we can stop people from changing the course after it's approved... ggrrrr....