Race Schools/Demo Days....

[Andrew 4CE]

Can the clubs who host these type of events post the basics of what they do?

- do you have demo boats/motors or are racer volunteering their equipment?
- is there a fee?
- insurance?
- ambulance?
- class room type discussions?
- literature handed out?
- radio head sets used?
- follow the leader around the course?
- one at a time, two at a time, etc...
- if it leads to racing the same weekend, where does the equipment come from
- if demo outfits are used... is someone dedicated at towing them around?
- what else? Fill the masses in!

[BP125V]

MRC driving school

Andrew,

Friday July 23 Marine Racing Club held a driving school in conjunction with our Rochelle, IL Stock / Mod / J race.

It was a sanctioned driving school through the APBA so we had it as part of the race sanction with full insurance and ambulance coverage.

We set up a short course and the drivers used club members rigs (3 CSH's, 1 20SSH and 1 ASH).

Class room instruction was based on the MHRA PowerPoint presentation that we downloaded from the APBA website and printed in color and put in a clear plastic binder. I also added to this and discussed the sport in general, racing clubs and schedule in the Midwest, and briefly touched on the history of APBA and our club.

After class room instruction we had Chicago Paul get in his boat on the shore and show the students the different driving positions they would need to be in - getting on plane, straightaway, turning etc. Then we had each student get in a boat and show us that they understood.

Two important hand signals were stressed to the students - two hands in front palms down with an up down motion means slow down when coming into the pits and the all important both hands vertical meaning STOP!!! Let go of the throttle. We also put a buoy in front of the launch area about 75' from shore and the students were instructed to be off plane by that buoy when returning to the pits.

We then sent Mike Pavlick and Dakotah Fairchild out, each in a 20SSH, and had them run laps so the students could see how to get on plane, go straight, turn etc. While Mike and Dakotah were doing this we had the students in the safety boat in the middle of the course to give them a better view.

Our club owns some safety gear plus we had members loan their own gear. We had plenty of kevlar and life jackets and this proved to be important as we wanted the next person in line to be suited up and ready to go when it was their turn.

Each student took a boat out for two solo laps and then came in for debriefing and instructions for the next ride. The next ride was 6 solo laps. The third ride was 4-6 laps and we sent out one student with one experienced racer. A few of the students got in a little more boat time at the end of the day.

MRC charged $60 for the school which included the $35 APBA single event fee (good for the entire weekend for students) and $25 to the club to help cover expenses. This $60 also entitled the student to race BOTH Sat and Sun. Quite a deal. Students were required to pay in advance with a deadline 2 weeks prior to the school. We thought our limit would be 8 students since we wanted them to get enough boat time on Friday, but we were not going to turn anyone down if they contacted us at the last minute or if they would put us over 8.

We used word of mouth and some local advertising in a paper. We will do both again next year but also use races prior to the school to advertise as well.

We had 8 students on Friday and on Sat we had 1 race in ASH, 1 race in 20SSH, 2 run CSH in a demo race with 2 experienced racers and 3 run in a seperate demo race wtih experienced racers. One of the students was going to race on Sat but his neighborhood flooded Sat am and he could not make it in time. The students used regular race rigs, that is why we had to have the CSH's in a demo race. We were able to get an ASH rig and 20SSH rig to let the students run in the regular race.

On Sunday 4 of the students raced again.

As of right now there is a possibility that we might get 2-3 of the students to race next year and 2 of them should be racing at Pleasant Prairie, WI Sept 18-19.

I think the key to the whole thing was that we had complete buy in and support from our club. We don't have a lot of members but we had 14 members there before 9 am on Friday to get set up. By 10:30 we had the safety boats in the water, PA up, course set out, inspection set up etc. The only thing we did not set up was the clock and video.

Everyone helped and were quick to take care of issues without being asked or told what to do. Great teamwork sure made it an easy and enjoyable day.

Bill

PS - Not school related but we ran JH and JR 3 heats each day. Worked out fine and the J drivers and parents appreciated the extra boat time for the same entry fee.

PSS - wow, I thought we did good with 8 students. Way to go SOA!!

[Andrew 4CE]

Excellent post, thanks Bill! I'm sure this is informative for many!

Others, please feel free to continue to post how your school operates...

[propnuts]

Here goes...

I was really hoping someone else from SOA would step up and answer this, I didn't have that much to do with the driving school (I was the flagger I appreciate the post a lot, there are many things I think we (SOA) can learn from Bill's post and what MRC does. Here's what I have:

1) We had racer volunteered equipment. The club owes gigantic thanks to Dave Sullivan (and Drew for fixing his boat), Dave Williams (who almost ran himself out of race gas), Rautenbergs, Alan Reick and Butch.

2) We charged only the $35 APBA membership fee

3) Sanction and insurance are the same as a regular race. Once I have my act together I will submit my ambulance bill to the PRO commission, they pay most or all of it.

4) Ryan Johnson ran the instructional portion so hopefully he can answer how we did that. I was that we had them sit in a boat to try out the controls. We then sent out experienced drivers for a couple test laps to check setups and show drivers around course. I was going to say that we didn't do a great job with the signals, since we had one driver beach a boat, but I think this guy would have done that no matter what we did

5) We got some drivers from the Seattle Wooden Boat Festival, almost all the rest from friends, friends of friends, and word of mouth.

6) We had one driver race with us this weekend using Butch's equipment, that was it. I think we probably would have had a few that would have liked to race, but the equipment wasn't really available.

7) It would be nice to have club owned boats available, as a matter of fact I had 2 offers for boat donations at the end of the day. The big problem is that we have a VERY difficult time even getting club equipment towed to race sites, anything more would be impossible.

As with MRC we had huge support from our club members, most of the stuff was already set up when I got there thanks to the Shaw crew. I am really concerned that we don't, to my knowledge, have any follow up plans. It might be nice to see if anything comes of this, and offer mentoring to those interested in pursuing racing with us.

Tony

[John C167]

Tony;

Good points, one thing we have is some extra trailer space (I have room for a boat or 2) and would be more than happy to tow SOA "loaner" boats to this or another venue . Do we have members with "older" boats that would be willing to turn them into "loaner" boats?

With the amount of participation (40+), maybe we need to do it in groups (5-10), rotate groups through each step, that way we get them on the water a little faster !

I brought 2 friends from work that did the new driver program, both were impressed with the set up and I know 1 will most likely have a boat this winter !

John Biagio