Irish Stockhatch, 2nd Nov, No "C" Final

Also not running a C Final today was seriously bad form i thought, S/H brings a huge entry to each round, over 40 today i think and a C Final was defo required today.. people will be put off if that sort of thing happens.

I wondered about that, was there any specific reason given?

When i asked, was told there was not enough time for C finals.

No Reason at all, i'm sure they'd say lack of time but i say a lack of organisation.. i was sitting on the dummy grid waiting to find out where i qualified because it took them so long to work out the stockhatch results, they came down to the bottom of the control tower with the grids for all the other classes but had no info to give about s/h. Everyone was just standing around baffled!!!

It was the guys first day doing the results. He did a brillant job and should be thanked by all you for his time and effort stockhatch is a victim of its own success. when running finals you need to build in time safety if you have incidents on track.

thats fair enough tom but i genuinly get the impression that stockhatch is just not regarded as being as important as other classes.. no C Final made no difference to me but i was speaking to a lot of disappointed and angry drivers that a C wasnt run.. so i dont mean to be having a go at any volunteers or anything like that, i'm always grateful for the work people do, i'm just pointing out that when theres that many cars out that we're all as important as each other and all pay the entry fee, imho it was an awful decision not to run a C Final.

(Moved these posts out of the weights thread)

Thats the Reason there is not a huge que of people to run events sometimes no matter what you do there will always be someone giving out if C's were run for stockhatch why not Modified then and something happens then you lose A finals and superfinal. Its happened and there is still nobody happy. The call was made and we have to respect it having done it myself in the past you cant please everyone at an event. I have had 2 backrow starts, track to dusty, track to wet, I missed my heat, a few of the regular things people complain about. You try to listen and help out as much as possable but it is not always possable to do it.

Unfortunately that's just what happens when it's an Autumn/Winter series. Light is always going to be the big enemy, can't start earlier so have to just hope and pray everything can get done in time.

Don't want a repeat of the situation a while back where the SuperFinal was cancelled and spectators invaded the tower!!!!

Thats the Reason there is not a huge que of people to run events sometimes no matter what you do there will always be someone giving out if C's were run for stockhatch why not Modified then and something happens then you lose A finals and superfinal. Its happened and there is still nobody happy. The call was made and we have to respect it having done it myself in the past you cant please everyone at an event. I have had 2 backrow starts, track to dusty, track to wet, I missed my heat, a few of the regular things people complain about. You try to listen and help out as much as possable but it is not always possable to do it.

Jesus tom you must have been watchin my heats or somethin(lol) cos thats exactly what happened to me, missed my first heat because we where standing in scrutiny tryin to figure what was happening with the weights and also had 2 backrow starts.. But hey i seem to be the only person mentionin the lack of a C Final and it dont affect me really so rant over..

If people are critical of how the events are organised, they should get off their back side and lend a hand. The Events in my mind are run to the best of everyones ability given limited resources.

it was a great event and well done too all who was involved in makin the day possible thanks again

I don't think anyone minds constructive criticism. But it needs to be constructive and attacks on volunteer officials aren't generally met with joy from those of us who actually do the volunteering.

Bottom line - if you're not happy with how something is done, you have a couple of options.


Make a formal complaint to the appropriate person/persons
Once you get an explanation, either accept the situation or sit down and work out a better method of doing things that will achieve the result you want - and then offer your assistance to make it happen.
if you want people to take your comments on board, make sure you do things correctly (see item 1) rather than just slagging people off on a website which is guaranteed to a) get their backs up and b) give them a negative opinion of the website!


It's always a shame when a race has to be cut due to time constraints, but it's hardly the first time and it won't be the last.

Best suggestion to avoid any races being dropped off the programme? Stop crashing! :)

All i ever meant for my comment to be was constructive, i was in the a final so i'm not giving out cos i didnt get a final or anything like that.. i was merely pointing out how many disappointed faces i seen when there was only a B and A Final.

It sounds to me as though the organisers were caught between a rock and a hard (dark) place. The only thing to be aware of is that drivers are customers too. If they don't get finals they may not come back. When stock hatch took off big time in Britain a few years ago there was the same problem with disappointed drivers not returning. Now the British problem is the reverse - stock hatch grids are far too small.

True but that lead to the problem of having 'E' finals for stock hatch but then running out of time and the superfinal not being run - not an ideal situation either.

HA an E final, now theres a thought.. but i was wondering how is it judged at the start of a day as to how many finals will be run.. for example the last day in mondello there was an entry of 25 modifieds i think and they ran an A & B Final so that means 60% of drivers got a final, Compare that to stock hatch where there was 40 drivers and an A & B Final so 37% of drivers got a final.
I would think that if they ran it so that a minimum of 50% of whatever drivers enter got a final would be fair. Just a thought.

That's not a bad idea - set a percentage for all classes then everybody knows exactly where they stand. The problem then is what order to run them - whoever is last stands the greatest chance of getting cut due to light/time.

That is true but we were finished early enough last day and in 3 years of racing in mondello i've only seen us run out of light once i think oh and another thing that always baffles me about the running order, why not leave rallycars til last, they do have headlights after all :rofl:

...in 3 years of racing in mondello i've only seen us run out of light once...

I've only been to Mondello once - there was barely any light at any point throughout the 'day' ;)

Well the program had space for the grid positions for a "C" final so I'm assuming that the original intention was to run one and it was cut later in the day. At one point we were at least 40 minutes behind schedule so I'm sure that was the reason. In that situation the organisers can't rely on fast turnaround to bring the timetable back. Start a campaign for a Stock Hack "consolation" final where the 8 fastest cars NOT to make it in to the B final get a run, but only if there is still light.

That is true but we were finished early enough last day and in 3 years of racing in mondello i've only seen us run out of light once i think oh and another thing that always baffles me about the running order, why not leave rallycars til last, they do have headlights after all :rofl:


It's been a lot better since the curfew was brought in, but it's definitely happened more than once and there have been several meetings where we saw less finals that we initially expected, although I don't know how many were originally scheduled.

The bottom line is that the amount of time available is always going to be directly proportional to how many stoppages there are over the course of the day and how long they take.

I hope everyone realizes, this is the start of the quest for domination that was first started by Bernie Ecclestone. Unlike the aforementioned poison dwarf, I suspect an Evil Pumpkin is much more scary!

So beware! :)

But taller. Definitely taller. And with better hair...... :laugh:

I'm just wondering and i'm not giving out or trying 2 jump down anybodys throats as i can only imagine wat a long day it is for officials and marshals but wat was de story wit de one hour lunch break on sunday . . . . . as far as i can remember it used 2 be only bout half an hour . . . . i maybe wrong can somebody correct me if i'm wrong . . . . .

Again, wasn't there so can't answer that. But based on the last meeting I was at (and just about every rallyx I've been at in the last 9 years - and I've missed very few):

When lunch is called, every person in the paddock decided to descend on the diner at the same time. At the last event, even with the priority queue, some marshals took nearly 40 minutes to get in from their post, get their lunch voucher, queue for their food and then get back to post. I saw at least 2 marshals who ended up having to take their lunch back out with them to post and struggled to eat it while cars were going by, kicking up huge clouds of dust.

Remember your lunchbreak starts whenever suits you unless you're in the last race before lunch. Ours starts after the last car has passed, we get a clear circuit and then we have to make our way into the paddock.

30 minutes isn't long enough to get in, get food, have a wee and get back out to post. Please feel free to try it if you think can do it more quickly.

Again, there is some wiggle room here. As an example - if the food counter served marshals only until all of us had been fed - instead of the current practice of two regular punters to every marshal in the priority queue - then we might get fed quicker. I really don't see why that would be such a problem. After all, there's usually only about 20 of us at the most.

Equally if everyone in the paddock who didn't have a strict deadline to finish eating by didn't descend on the diner at the same time as those of us that DO have a time limit, that would probably help too.

If you want to cut the marshal lunch break, then you have to ensure that the time they're getting is sufficient to eat, warm up/dry off where applicable, attend to toilet requirements and get at least 10 minutes sit down.

If you can't do that, then we're back to "stop crashing and you won't lose any time".

Incidentally, you're right - they used to have 30 minutes. Sometimes no lunch breaks at all.

That's why we can only field a max of 20 marshals for these events, when we used to be able to field 40.