There has been concern about the Saturday Race Day Schedule taking too long. I believe it has become too tight and any disruptions (red flags) will easily send us past the 5pm finish time we are looking for. We have had days that have lasted as late as 7:00pm. This isn’t easy on any one, Racers, Spectators, Super Streeters or Board Members. But the people we should be most concerned about are the corner workers.
We should take a look at this Schedule from a corner worker point of view. At minimum they are dealing with an 11 hour day. Between driving to the track to be there by 7:30am and not leaving the track until after 5:00pm (or later) then drive an hour home. And for this they get $50.00 and lunch for 11 or 12 hour day.
After working as a corner worker for a year I know the issues they are facing. And since we have added Super Street I think we need to take another look from over the past 2 seasons and make a few changes to try and help.
1. I would like to propose that we schedule in a 5 min break every hour to allow corner workers to sit down, go to the bathroom, get things like water transported out to them etc… Currently there is a 15 min break between the endurance races that can be used for this in the afternoon on Saturday. Other adjustment can be made to make this work.
2. I proposed we remove one set of Saturday morning practice sessions shorting the Saturday schedule by an hour and start races around 10:15am. I understand how racers want time on the track but padding an hour to ensure we can get Super Street gets done by 5pm or earlier.
3. I proposed we move LW / MW Endurance to just before lunch on Saturday and have HW / Open Endurance just after lunch. These are the longest races we have. Corner workers have to stand a min of 30 for each of these. Having them earlier in the day means cooler conditions than standing in the afternoon sun and having lunch between them means it gives corner worker a large break between them.
Of course these are just my opinions and I welcome and comments or any other ideas (especially from any corner workers out there) that you guys might have.
Thanks