Why is it not to the point of being a required product?
Ojibwe is as close to a home event that you can really get with Rally America I would think, yet no stage times, no updates, nada. Par for the course for a Rally America event these days though so don't know why I expected more. And don't say it's not their job to report news and times and it's on the organizer because that is exactly what Rally America started out doing.
Then I remembered Gorman is going on as well. Of course, that's a CRS event so there is live scoring, tons of twitter shit, but also a nice service report with reports from many of the crews.

For any wondering, I got a text update from Scott. 8-10 cars lost at Ojibwe after 4 stages. Scott and AJ kissed a tree but minimal damage to front corner.

Not sure what the lost part means though. DNF or if Scott fell back 8-10 places after the four stages... I could decipher more with some times...

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Grant Hughes

There is a start list posted....

Their heart just doesn't seem in it.And its sorta annoying that their self-promotion as the "Profssional" outfit has such inertia when they don't even do a very good amateur job.

How much longer can the new millionaire owner bleed money I wonder?

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
NoCoast
Why is it not to the point of being a required product?

RA doesn't really support regionals in that manner, does it?

We only get "somewhat" live updates at our regionals when there is a national involved out west here. I think it's a matter of having to take a volunteer and dedicate that person to the singular task of "live updates". Is that a reasonable burden to put on organizers of a regional when they barely have enough volunteers to make the event run (generalizing here)? We could probably get it done, except it's a bit of a drive to where there is any sort of data network.

Eric drove around once checking his laptop periodically to find a wifi network that he could access to post Max Attack updates.
Most Burger Kings I've been to had free wifi. Then again, that's a sample of two since 2009 and both at rallies but that's a pretty good case study.

It's not something they provide for ANY rallies any more. Maybe I'm just old and missing the new metric. Maybe the important thing now is how many people like a pic on Instagram and that's what leads to money, but I still like to know how the rally actually went, and what kind of problems people had.

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Grant Hughes

I had no cell service untill recently.

8 cars out of rally by stage 3. Total of 14 cars DNF

Henry and Cindy won using tulips. Odriscolls were second. Bob Lafavor was fastest 2wd. Ian crashed out.

I will leave the details for the crews.

The checkpoint L impreza looked smooth and ran well when I saw them.

The little 73 corollary looked great too. Sadly I mistook it for a colt and sounded like a dumass.

I remember back in the olden days we had to wait for the results to be mailed to us after the event. Printed on real paper and everything. We didn't complain about it.

Now...

Neither RA or NRS have any sort of provided or required coverage for regionals. Alan Perry has provided updates on several of the DooWops himself (and a few other events out here), irregardless of sanctioning body.

RA does the nationals because they have the scoring crew and satellite stuff at the events.
Gibaults take care of the events they score (an amazing undertaking btw).

I think it is the organizers option for regional events to provide whatever they feel is appropriate or affordable. There is plenty to do already and providing internet updates has to be very near the bottom of the list. Providing a fun, safe, well run event for the paying competitors should be at the top, as well as taking care of the generous volunteers who make it all happen.

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heymagic
I think it is the organizers option for regional events to provide whatever they feel is appropriate or affordable. There is plenty to do already and providing internet updates has to be very near the bottom of the list. Providing a fun, safe, well run event for the paying competitors should be at the top, as well as taking care of the generous volunteers who make it all happen.

Yup. I was waiting for someone to say, "Eat it Grant! Regional organizers have enough on their plate without having to deal with providing updates and results in a timely manner."
Which I guess I kinda understand. I think it should be a higher priority item and I know that at least one sanctioning body will provide tools for scoring.
Scott sent me a text from service so there was some kind of cell coverage at a minimum.

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Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast
Eric drove around once checking his laptop periodically to find a wifi network that he could access to post Max Attack updates.
Most Burger Kings I've been to had free wifi. Then again, that's a sample of two since 2009 and both at rallies but that's a pretty good case study.

It's not something they provide for ANY rallies any more. Maybe I'm just old and missing the new metric. Maybe the important thing now is how many people like a pic on Instagram and that's what leads to money, but I still like to know how the rally actually went, and what kind of problems people had.

So, one of the things that RA is supposed to provide to regionals now is internet connectivity for live updates even when there is no local infrastructure? Why is it RA's responsibility and not the event's to have someone doing live updates?

I guess not everyone believes that regional rallies are just a bunch of friends out playing in the wood. Or does social media now give the expectation that a bunch of friends out playing in the wood are supposed to go out of their way to find internet connectivity to post their Facebook updates while doing it?

I think that criticizing RA for not doing live updates of national rallies is valid. They bring in staff to do that kind of thing and live updates should be part of "The Show". Live streaming should have worked at all of the nationals.

But, criticizing RA for not doing it at standalone regionals is dumb since RA's presence at these events is just the steward(s). Regional competitors aren't paying the entry fee for "The Show", so they aren't getting the full dog and pony show package.

And criticizing a likely insufficiently staffed standalone regional for not being able to provide live update is unfair. When I was doing live updates for Wild West and Doo Wop (under RA and NRS sanction), when the event got praised for the updates, my reaction was "oh, crap. we have to do it just as good or better next year" and "am I now stuck doing this forever or until I find someone to take it over who will work just as hard on it".

alan

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tipo158
And criticizing a likely insufficiently staffed standalone regional for not being able to provide live update is unfair. When I was doing live updates for Wild West and Doo Wop (under RA and NRS sanction), when the event got praised for the updates, my reaction was "oh, crap. we have to do it just as good or better next year" and "am I now stuck doing this forever or until I find someone to take it over who will work just as hard on it".

Yup. And I don't expect live updates from anything other than facebook or twitter anymore because that bar has disappeared.
What I do expect is some kind of results or standings and that is something that I think SHOULD be provided by the sanctioning body. Maybe it's not, maybe it's optional, maybe it's something they'd have to pay for, I'm not really sure. But I'm pretty sure that the other sanctioning body will provide scoring software and such.

What exactly does a sanctioning body provide?
Licensed potential entrants
Insurance
Rule book and operations manual
A steward?
Time cards?
Website?
Registration?
Payment processing?
Results/scoring?
Live updates/news?

I'm not really sure about anything beyond the first three from an organizational standpoint.

---

Grant Hughes

Quote
NoCoast
What I do expect is some kind of results or standings and that is something that I think SHOULD be provided by the sanctioning body.

And you should get that from RA after the event organizers report the results to RA.

Quote

Maybe it's not, maybe it's optional, maybe it's something they'd have to pay for, I'm not really sure. But I'm pretty sure that the other sanctioning body will provide scoring software and such.

Will they provide the internet connectivity as well? Probably not.

The first year that we did Wild West in Pomeroy, I spent the entire rally waiting in service for cars to come in, collecting scores and stories, driving a few miles into town to the WiFi hot spot, uploading reports, driving back to service and repeat.

The next year NRS was the sanctioning body. I had 4-5 jobs, including scoring. I figured out how to set up the web site to pick up tweets from our competitors, attach their car/team to the tweet and post it to our site. Plus, I was tweeting scoring updates.

Quote

What exactly does a sanctioning body provide?
Licensed potential entrants
Insurance
Rule book and operations manual
A steward?
Time cards?
Website?
Registration?
Payment processing?
Results/scoring?
Live updates/news?

Opinions vary.

What I would want as one of the organizers for a standalone regional (with an experienced team that has their own way to do things) is the first four and preferably only one local steward* to minimize costs. I want the sanction/insurance fees to be as low as possible so entry fees can be as low as possible.

A novice group of organizers would probably want help with all of the other items you listed.

My personal opinion is that standalone regionals should be oriented towards the competitors first, the local community next. A bunch of friends out playing in the woods. Unless the event is practicing to become a national someday. Live internet updates are nice if they have the resources to do it, but not necessary. Just my opinion.

alan

* The steward is there to represent the interests of the sanction body and the insurance underwriter, so the sanction body should be providing the steward.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2012 03:51PM by tipo158.

Grant,
Scoring software isn't a big deal...having a dedicated person to get the stories, verify and consolodate the stories and scores and then take the time to upload that where and when possible is a big chore. Many places don't have cell coverage still and certainly not connectivity. Regional events aren't always centered around communications or a big city. Staff is already in short supply and over worked. Alan worked his butt off to provide that service for several events and was soon forgotten.

Someone has to send the data to RA before they can post it...a regional someone. Live updates requires someone to pay for that also...data plan, air time, whatever. Just not always possible at regionals and I can't honestly see anyone connected with the event losing sleep over it. As Alan said regionals are friends having fun and the event should be about that.

Absolutely no reason to knock RA or NRS over regional scoring...kids are so damned impatient these days..

Quote
heymagic
Grant,
Scoring software isn't a big deal...having a dedicated person to get the stories, verify and consolodate the stories and scores and then take the time to upload that where and when possible is a big chore. Many places don't have cell coverage still and certainly not connectivity. Regional events aren't always centered around communications or a big city. Staff is already in short supply and over worked. Alan worked his butt off to provide that service for several events and was soon forgotten.

Someone has to send the data to RA before they can post it...a regional someone. Live updates requires someone to pay for that also...data plan, air time, whatever. Just not always possible at regionals and I can't honestly see anyone connected with the event losing sleep over it. As Alan said regionals are friends having fun and the event should be about that.

Absolutely no reason to knock RA or NRS over regional scoring...kids are so damned impatient these days..

Didn't some guy with some strange name devise some system to really make this sort of thing like dead easy from anywhere?
Whassis name? Gamb, Jamb Rand no...., yeah Ganders Reen, or some such..
I heard he contacted one of the organisations somewhere in the Mid-west and they were like 'meh, like, whatever"
Some "Don't call us, we'll call you...never" thing with some worker database, Scoring and everything else hinting at any sort of cooperation..

Maybe they didn'y like his accent. Or name. Must be that.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
NoCoast
What exactly does a sanctioning body provide?
Licensed potential entrants
Insurance
Rule book and operations manual
A steward?
Time cards?
Website?
Registration?
Payment processing?
Results/scoring?
Live updates/news?

My thoughts:
Licensed potential entrants - should provide tools to communicate with them.
Insurance - yes, can't function without
Rule book and operations manual - yes, can't function without
A steward - there should be one, "provided" makes it sound like one needs to be flown in or something, but that's not really nessecary.
Time cards - a twenty minute job (for me) to make PDFs if the schedule is done. Sure.
Website? - I'd say space/access for a couple pages, beyond that, organizer
Registration? - Absolutely. That process is needs to be tuned to the requirements of the sanctioning body and the resources to create that system monumental for an individual event. Not having something that boosts efficiency on that laborious task of registration is akin to punishment.
Payment processing? - The tools to do so should be provided.
Results/scoring? - They should absolutely provide the tools to do so. Again, the resources to create a quality tool for this task are massive. You can't race without scoring. If you don't know who's 1st, 2nd, 3rd... you're not racing. Not having a quality tool for scoring would be pouring hours of extra work on volunteers who are already stuck in a room at a computer all day.
Live updates/news? - The tools to do so should be provided. As far as producing content, I wouldn't expect them to staff it unless they said they were going to, or it was part of a championship where live updates/news was important to them.

And tools to manage volunteers. And all the forms you'll ever need (logs/waivers/etc). And help structuring all the tasks that are needed for a rally. Yeah, I know some folks think a sanctioning body is just good for insurance. Ok. That's fine. I don't, I think they should do much more. You can get insurance without a sanctioning body easily enough. If one wanted a sanctioning body that gives you nothing but insurance and provides nothing else... one could probably find that.

My feeling is that the sanctioning body should work like a franchise. If you buy into the NRS Hotdog Cart-o-Rama, you buy the cart. I provide the recipies, the logos, the menus, a micro-web site on my main site, connections to vendors that supply the correct items, procedures for opening up in the morning, shutting down in the evening, directions on how to clean the cart, software to run the sales. You still have to buy the hotdogs, cook them on site, push the cart, and sell them. But all the rest of the processes, these can be made so much easier by having the francise suppy them. You want to sell hot dogs. Why would you want to spend nights figuring out if the logo to go on the napkins needs to be in raster or vector format, and what resolution, and who prints them in small quantities? How does that let you efficently sell hot dogs? It doesn't. And if there were 1,000 Hotdog Cart-o-Ramas around the country, and all any of them got was a cart, the amount of duplicated effort would be huge. Or, lots of substandard menus, that's another possible result too.

I can't think of a good reason not to provide all of those things.

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.