Where Does Your Time Go? (Continued)

We continue as we have for the last several posts, asking... "Where does your time go?" Here are four more ideas that will help you finish shows earlier, and send fans how with smiles on their faces.

HOT LAPS... Almost every track hot laps race cars. Most before time trials, some before each race. How much time do your hot laps take? How many laps? How many sessions? How many classes? Do your hot laps really accomplish anything? Sunday-night Stuart (IA) Speedway did away with hot laps years ago. We've watched hot laps take as much as an hour. If you must hot lap, do it at 4:30 or 5 p.m., long before fans arrive.

TIME TRIALS... If you time trial cars, add up the overall time all the timing takes. One minute per car timed (a warm-up lap plus two on the clock) isn't a bad time estimate--that’s 30 minutes for two 15-car classes. If you must time cars, do it before fans arrive. Few really want to sit through single car laps anyway, and track records are not often set these days, so what’s the point? Most announcers can't make time trials exciting, and sponsors can be mentioned some other time.

YELLOWS... Racing today has too many yellows. Most races we see spend between 30 minutes and an hour on yellows. Most are unnecessary. We recently watched a 5-class, 100-car race meet with a very modest 15 yellows. We usually see more than that. But half of those resulted from cars waiting to draw a yellow to gain track position, and could have been avoided. Add yours up and get rid of all but the unavoidable yellows.

SLOW RESTART LINEUPS... One way radios are taking the industry by storm and rightly so. Promoters like Delaware International’s CHARLIE CATHELL proved years ago that there is nothing better to stop driver shenanigans during restart lineups than one-way radios. People on track with chalkboards should be a thing of the past. Discipline drivers who do not cooperate. Put an end to nonsense right now! How much time would that save?

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