Sibling Race format?

[tmbnorm]

We are having a sibling race this year after the regular race. We are using Raceview software to run our Cub race. With 25 to 30 cars, it takes about 70 minutes to run the races. Raceview uses the point total elimination method. 1 point for 1st, 2 points for 2nd, 3 points for 3rd. After 10 points you are eliminated. The top 3 then race for the championship.

We are not sure how many sibling cars we will have. We could have 20 or so and that would take another hour to run.

What methods have others used in sibling races? I am thinking that we should let each car run 1 time in each lane and the declare winners based on fastest time.

Thanks for any hints.

[Go Bubba Go]

What methods have others used in sibling races? I am thinking that we should let each car run 1 time in each lane and the declare winners based on fastest time.

Thanks for any hints.

Norm:

We have a 4 lane wood track, and historically we have run the Open Class cars one run down each lane, with the winner based on lowest average time.

The only change we're looking at making this year is using the Perfect N selection on the schedule creator portion of GPRM rather than the Lane Rotation selection, so that the racers will race at more varied times and against more varied "opponents".

Bubba

[Darin McGrew]

We run our All Comers race (siblings, parents, leaders, etc.) the same way we run our regular race. Each car gets 2 runs down each lane, with PPN-like scheduling.

[Nitro Dan]

Our computer person enters everyone from the entire pack into the computer ahead of time, then if someone doesn't show, he simply marks the car as DQ'd before the race begins. When we introduced our first sibling/parent race, the computer guy was concerned with having to take the time to enter all the entrants from that race into the computer on the day of the race, so we decided to give him a break and ran the race as a "No Chart" Triple Elimination style race (using a six lane track). This gave most of the racers three runs down the track at a minimum, with winners doing double that or more. This produced the desired results and took no longer than any of the Den races took.

-Nitro Dan

[Stan Pope]

... so we decided to give him a break and ran the race as a "No Chart" Triple Elimination style race (using a six lane track). This gave most of the racers three runs down the track at a minimum, with winners doing double that or more. This produced the desired results and took no longer than any of the Den races took.

-Nitro Dan

How many entered? How many run at one time? Opponent and lane randomizing procedure used? Who staged/retrieved cars? Did you run a finals ladder or accept the sole remaining member of each group as the trophy winner? (I like the finals ladder because it preserves the feeling of multiple elimination and it delays 1st place determination until the last race.)

How would you estimate your proficiency at this point? How did your heats per minute compare to den racing?

Questions, questions ... I'm just full of questions!

[Nitro Dan]

Since this was our first time at having a sibling/parent race, we only had nine entrants. "Numbers ran" varied by heats as we equalized the number of cars ran in each heat according to your web site (for example nine cars split to five in the first heat and four in the second, instead of six and three). Opponent and lane selection was done purely by "luck of the draw" (everyone's name and car numbers was on an index card; cards were shuffled and cut, then layed out one at a time for the heat). We always started with lane 1 and went until we reached the maximum number of racers for that heat (example, four racers equaled lanes one through four). Cars were staged and retrieved by derby officials (I'm still working on trying to get them to change this). We did run the finals ladder, in fact the last car that remained in the 1 loss group managed to come in first place over the last car in the zero loss group.

I helped run a "No Chart" N Elimination method for a sibling/parent race at a different pack the year before and recommended this method when the pack we are at now expressed the concern about not being able to add the names to the computer in advance (we had a total of twelve entries that time, running on a three lane track). I would say that our proficiency with this method was very good. With us using index cards the process seemed to run like a game of solitaire, but with a much higher concentration level (needed to be sure that no mistakes were made). Our heats per minute were actually faster than the timed Den races, but they averaged 2.5 minutes per heat on the Den races (considerably slow by most standards). We were easily doing about one heat per minute.

-Nitro Dan

[Stan Pope]

Cool!

I'd probably pick the 2 or 3 most closely matched lanes and run there.

With a small group it winnows more slowly ... more races before down to 1 in the top group. And less impact for lane variability.

And more heat winners. And more races for everyone!

The neat thing when the kids stage their own is that you can manage the kids by group and everyone can tell how their kid is doing by which group he is in!

Three racing at a time makes a simple draw for opponents and lanes: Last year I made a 5-token container for racers to draw from: 1-2-3-x-x. Most of the time the next 5 in line draw for lane; those who draw x get back in line. If four left, they draw, in turn until two lane numbers have been drawn. If three or two left, remove the x's before the draw.

But, the method is so adaptable that you can do it lots of ways.

[pack529holycross]

We also wanted to add Siblings to the Race day festivities. I had the Registration table write the names down and give them numbers, and then I did the data entry during a break in the action. There were 13 kids who were racing, so I just added another racegroup.

We are using GPRM, which allows you to add Groups at will, and run race schedules as soon as the cars are passed through inspection in the system. Since I knew all the cars that were running passed inspection, it took about the same amount of time to enter the names as it did to write this post. Then I hit " PASS ALL " and generated the race schedule.

We organized our scoring system by points, with ET used for any tiebreakers. It was just a matter of adding the group, passing the cars, running the schedule creator, and project the first heat onto the screen for staging. Took ony about 5 min to enter the group and get going.

We did the same thing for adult cars after that - 6 cars in one group.

The best thing about having the ability to integrate groups on the fly is that you are able to capture more data on the performance of your track system... the more runs the more data you have to determine if you are having any issues with lanes, problems with cars getting launched off the track, etc.

Nicholas

[tmbnorm]

We only had 10 sibling cars to enter. Actually 11, one Cub Scout showed up very late and had to be put in the sibling race.

Running 11 cars in Raceview only too about 22 minutes, so it was not a long time.

[doct1010]

I believe we had 22 entries in the sibling/outlaw class this year. In the past we used Raceview, this year it was GPRM. We had all entrants fill out info on index card, data was entered at conclusion of cub race. I am not the "computer guy" so difficult to say how tedious a task it is. I do know GPRM was favored over RaceView in terms of ease of entry operation. Always best to enter as much data before hand, however not entirely necessary with GPRM. We had many issues with RaceView, reason Pack decided to change way too buggy.

We ran the same schedule as cub racing using cumulative time.

[Go Bubba Go]

I believe we had 22 entries in the sibling/outlaw class this year. In the past we used Raceview, this year it was GPRM. We had all entrants fill out info on index card, data was entered at conclusion of cub race. I am not the "computer guy" so difficult to say how tedious a task it is. I do know GPRM was favored over RaceView in terms of ease of entry operation. Always best to enter as much data before hand, however not entirely necessary with GPRM. We had many issues with RaceView, reason Pack decided to change way too buggy.

We ran the same schedule as cub racing using cumulative time.

We had 26 entries for our Open Class and 5 entries for Old School.

We used GPRM and I had entered as many of the entries as I knew ahead of time for both classes. One thing that worked well was I also added a number of "Spare" entries, then renamed the Spares to the name of any additional participants. I did this to try to keep the car numbers grouped together because of the way we have our staging area setup and numbered.

Ran the perfect N format with results based on average time.

Bubba

[tmbnorm]

At our Pack Race, we only had 11 Sibling cars.
We ran the points elimination race through Raceview and it only took about 25 minutes.

At District, we had 23 sibling cars. I think the District only had the Sibling race to collect more entry fees, but that is a different story.
They took in an extra $69 in entry fees and awards two $3 medals.

We race each car three times and awarded 1st and 2nd place on fastest time.

It was not the most elegant solution. We had to write down eash car and its times and then search for the fastest.