Right so this is a hill climb info thread and I’m going to use it to address issues and comments from people as well as explain how and why we did what we did as well as what we learnt from the improvements we implemented this year v last year.
Guest cars (this includes some people who turned up with pre-arranged cars which had no MOT and so did not comply ie race/track cars and they paid for their sessions)
So what would have been 6 cars (Minor, Skyline, Quatro, Golf, Cortina and Nappier Bentley) had a few additions in both morning and afternoon sessions
We ran them as a group for a number of reasons
1. The return road is a public road and we needed to effectively “close it” to anyone while those cars ran (no insurance, MOT or Tax)
2. The guest cars also included the previously agreed track cars that had paid for sessions so they got as many runs as others who had paid for hill time
3. The guest cars and track cars then knew when they needed to be ready for a run simplifying the process for everyone (they need to be warm and don’t like waiting around)
Running order
Last year was frankly a nightmare for the first 1hr until I introduced the stickers (I covered this last year and said what I had planned to resolve it which was to run in lanes)
This year the lanes principle was adopted and cars were stickered up at the start of the day and we started on time even though not all the cars were in the pit
The intention was to have 5 lanes of 12 cars max per lane making 60 cars only due to car obstructions we only effectively had 4 lanes)
The problems were
1. Not everyone understood what was going on initially and we had some problems with cars/owners in Line 4/5 (I’m not going to go into details but was glad that that they actually went back and apologised to the team members)
2. When we filled the lanes up initially we ran out of space as the cars had too much space between them – lane 4/5 was sometimes double stacked as a result.
3. Some cars were in the pits (because they’d arrived and gone to purchase morning sessions but not been sucessfull) but did get afternoon sessions and in the way for the whole morning session
4. The best in show also kinda upset the afternoon session but we found a way round that.
The afternoon sessions ran like clockwork – everyone had seen how it was running and it damn near ran itself bar the best in show car issue which we actually managed to work round nicely and thanks to Prescott allowing a small extension to the time I think everyone got at least 3 runs
A top day! only problem was the mix up with forms in the morning resulted in my passenger only getting her band as the car was idling to the start line, don't understand why passengers had to attend a driver briefing? But this seemed to be venue staff rule not RR staff!?
Errr this surprised us too – we need to have a better work around for this and will work on it – I understand the reasons (passenger needs indemnity form completed and green Prescott wrist bands get issued after briefings)
I think the hill climb worked very well, and all the Marshalls from both Prescott and RR did a great job and were all very friendly. The only change I would make is perhaps open the afternoon session booking later in the day to allow late arrivers a change of a go.
4.Hill Climb signing on times, I'm sure many missed out because they were hung over or jaded on the Sunday morning. How about giving some allocation to those camping on the Saturday night???
We will work on the track booking element but bottom line we set a time to sell the afternoon sessions as 11am – by 10.30 the Queue was daft !!!!
Also please see response from David
The track is a victim of its own success, it gets over subscribed very quickly. The session sizes are what they are, we're all trying to think of ways to keep everyone happy on that score. Using it on the Saturday isn't the answer for us, not just because of the limited number of days it can be used (although that is a pretty hard thing to change!), but also because of the fact we don't want to kill ourselves trying to do a two day show. We are considering (if we can find a suitable venue, or another date at Prescott) running another track session of some sort at a different point in the year.
Also in the morning people were being allowed to book into both morning and afternoon sessions, I was under the impression that this wasn't allowed?
I answered this in another thread but I’ll repeat it here
You raise a very good point - it resulted in a lot of discussion before the event and it really was a difficult decision we went with yes to booking both - we've reviewed it after even though it was only 5 cars (pretty sure about that as I did the stickering) if we run the event in the same way we are all in agreement that will not allow it to happen again
Sorry but we get it wrong sometimes - helps us learn
Quick thought on the demand for hill action that may or may not be helpful.... Run it as a 'lottery' so that everyone that expresses interest (by filling in the form & showing the documents) gets a raffle ticket and then those picked out get to run. Winning ticket numbers would be noted down and driver would have to show their ticket to get into a briefing. Probably difficult to arrange in time for the morning runs but if a draw was done at say 11:30 it would let late comers enter the fray and be in with a chance of an afternoon run, while allowing long enough for the safety talk/wrist band distribution before the lunch break for the lucky folk picked out.
Interesting idea – as you say impossible for the morning session but has potential for the afternoon runs
Also I can totally see the reasons why but it's a shame people weren't allowed to chuck the cars around a bit more (on the track obviously), the escort got a massive cheer as he went sideways but I fear he may have got a bit of a telling off for it.
He actually didn’t if you mean the one from the “avin a crack” group
1. the guest cars were a bit lame apart from the Napier. Do we really need them??? I mean there were limited runs for those RR'ers who signed on due to the the guest cars having multiple runs that were frankly pretty to look at but boring to watch! And I would much more prefer to see RR'ers "on it" up the hill anyway.
the only two complaints I heard all weekend were from people turning up in serious machinery and not getting to take it up the hill, and some of the demo cars being really quite boring, as they pootled up the hill rather than giving it some beans like the privateer public were!
Only guest cars were the ones mentioned right at the top of the thread – any others were paid up (except the team running the pits which was Rob (1 run), James (1 run) and myself (3 or 4 runs can’t remember exactly)
in regards to the demo cars, yes some were disappointing, but I supect that is down to the owners/drivers more than anything. lets not forget as well how awesome cars like the napier were- and that the owner has taken the effort to bring it to an event really not aimed at that kind of car to 'open peoples eyes' to that kind of car and that kind fo motorsport, which can only be commended. the majority of people I spoke to said it was car of the show for them- I think he should be told as such!
I agree totally about the Napier Bently (I think the reasons for cars not being as impressive as they were expected to be has already been done to death) – despite being a bit close when he fired it up and having a little loss of hearing for a while
Big up for the organising in the hillclimb paddock. I don't think it could have been any more efficient.
And appolgies for holding up the queue for the last run of the day. I got caught off guard having a drink and then the damned ignition switch fell apart as I tried to start it!!
This was a problem directly caused by the change from last year where all the lines constantly shuffled up and so the drivers had to stay with the cars –this year with approx 30-45 mins between runs there was time to go and do something else and get back in time for your run – so a better process could end up as a worse process if drivers stray to far – the few times it happened makes me think I’ll ask that the cars are left open with keys in so if the driver does wander away and isn’t back in time at least we can roll it out of the way?
Track action was really good, the lanes system worked brilliantly think everyone gauged it right getting back to their cars (even KFW
). The only downer was the confusion over signing on sheets and bands, not necessarily an RR problem. I was there when it seem to kick off over track cars (no mot/tax) and them not signing the sheet, and then about helmets. They seem to be sticklers for the rules unlike last year? Was handled well in the end it would seem.
Polly covered a bit of this
Sorry for those who missed out on the track time I wish we could let everyone have a go but we can't, the mix up with the forms and non road legal cars was beyond our control, the helmets have never been allowed at prescot and was noted on the track sign on info thread IIR I think it's daft but it's prescots rules
But I’ll add a few changes surprised us – we had to react to the changes – next year we’ll have it covered by asking first what they want and when
my one downside is the amount of track time just isnt enough, especially if its wasted by people taking slow, boring, stock cars up the hill.
If they turned up – booked a session and the car was in retro parking or on a club stand they got to run – I don’t think we can “decide” what is or isn’t OK to run
And by PM
OK – covered this earlier and we need to find a better way especially as it’s difficult for us to take more cars in the time we have avlailable.
Right I think that’s all I found so far but if I find any more comments on the Hill climb element I’ll add it in here and try to respond or give some kind of feedback on what we will do to make it better next time
Ax GTi Turbo
