Heat Setup

General race coordinator discussions.
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CBirnley
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Heat Setup

Post by CBirnley »

We just completed our AWANA GP and had an interesting situation arise. One of the families took home the majority of trophies in their group (Cubbies, Sparks, Truth in Training) as well as 1, 2, and 3 in the Grand Finals. The kids did do some of the work, however they are blessed with a very talented father and as such their cars obviously did well. The parents approached me (the Race Director) and expressed their "embarassment" for the kids doing so well. This is a core family in our church and they understand that the GP is an outreach to more of the fringe families AND an opportunity to get kids involved.

Where I'm going with this is, for next year, how do we setup our GPRM software in such a way that we avoid a situation like this year where one family has incredible success (ironically enough the Grand Finals 4, 5, and 6 places were all kids from a different core family).

Would using pre-qualifying heats have helped? Should we setup a Novice Intermediate and Advanced class (defining each of them differently of course)?

We want to see as many different kids get on the winners stand as possible (both sets of parents who did well were very supportive of figuring out a way to change things next year).

Your feedback is appreciated.
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gpraceman
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by gpraceman »

GPRM is unbiased, so it will not not know any family relationships. Nor will it introduce any type of handicapping in the standings.

One thing you might consider is hold off announcing any of the speed trophies until the Grand Finals is completed. Then you can exclude anyone who wins a GF trophy from the group level trophies. GPRM will not manage that aspect for you, you will just look at the group standings and note who needs to get promoted to fill in for someone that got a GF trophy. This will at least ensure that more people walk out with a speed trophy.

Another thing to consider is to get that dad involved in helping at your workshops. Maybe that will help raise the overall level of competition.
Randy Lisano
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
CBirnley
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by CBirnley »

Randy,

Thank you for the feedback...you don't sleep much do ya?

Ironically enough, "the dad" helped run our workshops...I honestly felt bad for he and his bride as they were somewhat embarassed at the success. For the record I saw his two older kids working on their cars at the workshops (dad was helping other folks).

We video taped and took still photos for marketing/advertising the workshops next year. We are also going to have folks who participated in the workshops give a quick talk in church next year about how great the workshops were for helping get their car completed.

Sounds like we may need to just go with the different classes of participants. The issue becomes as "the dad's" kids get older, they will do even more work on their car...potentially pulling down the caliber of work done and thereby "evening" the field...so then how fair is it that we place them in an Advanced class when in reality, they should possibly be placed in a lower level??

We are having our Race Review and Plan on Sunday...it should be good stuff.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by Darin McGrew »

I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to accomplish. Denying awards to the kids who build the fastest cars because they're siblings isn't fair to any of them, and presenting the awards to kids who built slower cars instead is dishonest. If you want more kids to receive awards, then present more awards.
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by CBirnley »

Darin,

Thank you for your input.

My goal is to avoid a sweep by one family, granted the trophies should go to the fastest cars, regardless of any familial tie, however we would like to see different kids/families represented on the winner stand.

From reading your posts, I know that you have a strong history with PWDs and would appreciate any constructive feedback you could offer.

What are your thoughts on setting up classes with lesser experienced racers going head to head and ditto for the more advanced? What options do we have to give those kids that may struggle with building a fast car (we do have Design trophies as well) an opportunity to be proud of their performance (their work and effort not withstanding)?

Thank you and I look forward to reading your input.
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Randy and Son
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by Randy and Son »

CBirnley wrote:What are your thoughts on setting up classes with lesser experienced racers going head to head and ditto for the more advanced?
If you have large enough participation, I can see merit in setting up classes for different levels of competition. You see it in lots of other areas like intramural sports. But to some extent you would be trusting entrants to sign up for a high enough class to challenge them and not sit back and sandbag in a level they know they can sweep.

The thought is nice but the reality would probably be far different. Not sure what else you could try at the moment. Its a worthy effort though to try to bring people together spiritually and get them active and engaged at the same time.

There really needs to be a transfer of knowledge so that the less competitive know there is more they can do instead of leaving it to chance. They need to be shown that there is more to it than just connecting a block of wood to some plastic wheels. Workshops are nice, but they have to want to come. It might be better to have a demo of some sort at a meeting early in the process. With the right kind of presentation you might just get some gears turning in people's minds. Then they will take more interest and things may start to work out better at the races.

Randy
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by gpraceman »

Trying to setup different skill classes could be difficult. The problem being how to determine who goes where. Level of adult help? Skill level of the racer? How to determine these? Not to mention the added cost of awards and making the event more complicated. Also, what about the lower skilled racer that happens to build a "fluke" speedster?

Personally, I think it better to spread the trophies around as much as possible, as I suggested earlier, and to work on raising the overall level of competition.
Randy Lisano
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by CBirnley »

Randy and Randy,

Thank you both for your feedback.

We had our AGP Review and Plan this afternoon and discussed some of your thoughts and input (along with many other points). We are planning to have a video that will be available (that we put together) discussing speed techniques and building. This video will be available on CD as well as at the ministry booth next fall.

We also discussed the need to market the workshops to folks and using testimonials in "big church" so the parents will better understand the workshops and how they can help with the car's performance.

Randy and Sons
If you're open to it, I would enjoy coming to see your workshops or raceday - we would extend the courtesy next year for our race. Another team member and I visited a church last January and picked up a few tips.

Again, thank you both for your input. Have a great day.
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by Darin McGrew »

CBirnley wrote:My goal is to avoid a sweep by one family, granted the trophies should go to the fastest cars, regardless of any familial tie, however we would like to see different kids/families represented on the winner stand.
It seems to me that the main time you can have a single-family sweep is for your Grand Finals. To avoid a single-family sweep for the Grand Finals, there are basically two choices.

Our approach is to downplay the Grand Finals. At the end of the derby, we race the fastest car of each class in a final race, and the winner receives a blue ribbon (in addition to the trophy they already won for first place in their class). But the main trophies and medals are in the age-specific classes.

The other approach would be to present more awards for the Grand Finals. If you present awards 6 deep, then you can't have a family of 3 taking all the awards. Of course, you can still have two families of 3 taking all the awards. I'm not sure where you should draw the line.

But the real solution is to improve the level of competition, so others give these families some competition. We spend more time and effort on our workshops than we do on the derby itself. I think that's a pretty good way to do it.

You'll still run into families that just want to build the car with minimal effort, but the workshops will help them build a car that looks decent and makes it down the track. And those who invest more time on their own can still build better cars than those who don't.
CBirnley wrote:What are your thoughts on setting up classes with lesser experienced racers going head to head and ditto for the more advanced?
Defining the experience levels would be very difficult with a derby. We have experience-based classes for gimmick car rallyes, but we have a gimmick rallye every month, so we can use the number of times you've won as a criteria for when someone moves up a class. And still we end up with anomalies that ruffle feathers, like a group of intelligent, well-prepared first-timers who came in with a score that would have been competitive in the expert class.
CBirnley wrote:What options do we have to give those kids that may struggle with building a fast car (we do have Design trophies as well) an opportunity to be proud of their performance (their work and effort not withstanding)?
Design awards are pretty competitive in our group. The skills required to build a car that wins a design award may be different from the skills required to build a car that wins a speed award, but neither competition is likely to recognize someone who doesn't invest a fair bit of effort into the project.

Everyone gets a participation award.

For the last couple years, we've videotaped everyone saying "Ready, set, go" and we've used those videos to start the races. The person whose car is racing in lane 1 is the person whose video we use, so everyone's video is used twice. Before that, our MC would let different kids start each race, letting them say "Ready, set, go" into the microphone.
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by CBirnley »

Darin

WOW WOW WOW!!!

Thank you again for your feedback. You do a monthly race, that is AWESOME!!

We are in the process of revamping our Design Judging - if you would be willing to share what format you folks use - and would allow us to use/modify it, I would be greatly appreciate it.

I agree with increasing the level of competition, the main challenge being to get folks to commit to the Workshops. THAT is a primary goal of our's for next year. We discussed in length yesterday the need to market and promote that aspect of the program...to your point, even more so than the race itself.

Thanks again for your feedback and please keep it coming.
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Darin McGrew
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Re: Heat Setup

Post by Darin McGrew »

CBirnley wrote:DarinThank you again for your feedback. You do a monthly race, that is AWESOME!!
No, we do NOT do a monthly derby. The derby is an annual event at our church.

The monthly event is a gimmick car rallye (see What's a Rallye?), which is not a church event.

I was using the experience classes in the gimmick car rallyes as an example. Experience classes work okay for a monthly event (a gimmick car rallye) where some people are first-timers, others have been competing for years (if not decades), and most people are somewhere in between. I do not think they would work well for an annual event (a derby) targeted at kids and their parents (or other adult mentors).
CBirnley wrote:We are in the process of revamping our Design Judging - if you would be willing to share what format you folks use - and would allow us to use/modify it, I would be greatly appreciate it.
Our current format is pretty simple. Registration is on Wednesday night, and the derby is on Saturday night, so sometime Thursday and/or Friday, the person in charge of coordinating the design awards drafts impartial adults to do the judging. They are generally church members without derby-age children, who do not work in children's ministry. Sometimes they are friends/neighbors/relatives of someone in our church, but they don't know any of the kids.

The basic format is that each judge gets a score sheet for each award category (automobile design and unusual design, for each age-based class). They are asked to rank the top n cars (where n is greater than the number of awards that will be presented). Then a simple scoring system is used (e.g., 5 points for a 1st-place ranking, down to 1 point for a 5th-place ranking), the points are totaled, and the cars are ranked in order of the number of points. This system allows the judges to work independently, at different times, and even on different days.

A different system, which we have used in the past, requires the judges to meet at the same time. We created named awards: Best of Show, Best Automobile Design, Best Unusual Design, and Best Finish & Detail. First, each judge would pick their top two or three Best of Show cars, and then as a group they would discuss their choices and come to consensus on the Best of Show award. The same process was used to choose the other awards, with the caveat that any car would receive only one design award. Then the judges would look at the cars they strongly believed deserved an award, but hadn't received an award yet. They would create appropriate awards for those cars (e.g., Most Nautical, Most Edible, Most Realistic) by consensus.
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