Contemplating Cadwell

John Major was interviewed on the radio the other day, during the interview his negotiating skills were praised and he attributed his success in negotiating, amongst other things, the Northern Ireland Agreement, to his ability to think himself into the other party's negotiating position. An unexpected but worthwhile skill for a Tory politician negotiating with Sinn Fein. I thought that it could be interesting to apply this principle to those organising and managing race meetings for example Richard Culverhouse of CSCC at Cadwell Park.

I think that all parties would readily agree that their main requirement is for weekend's programme to proceed without hitch from start to finish providing the maximum enjoyment for the minimum hassle. Regrettably, events are rarely that straightforward and the organiser has to cope with the vagaries of the English weather, deficiencies in the fabric of the circuit, MSA requirements, as well as accommodating a diverse group of competitors. To take these points in turn.

The weather forecast for Cadwell on Friday and Saturday was dreadful. September had started wet, the ground was saturated and the rain forecast for Friday and Saturday was both heavy and continuous. Further north the trackday at Croft was abandoned with the track flooded as were some towns and villages in that area. With very little hard standing available at Cadwell complaints about third world conditions were inevitable. Equally inevitable was the wish of competitors to make maximum use of the hard standing available and that some competitors would stake squatter's rights and appropriate what others considered to be unreasonable amounts of the available area. By not publishing a paddock plan CSCC had probably sought to distance itself from these squabbles but when competitors, mainly from the MRC, started to use the lower tier area that forms the approach to the scrutineering bay, the MSA stewards pulled the CSCC back to the problem.

An MSA official tried to insist that the scrutineering tier of the paddock be cleared of competitors, despite the latter being neatly arranged behind the white lines. These competitors were confident that they were not impinging on any official area and were determined not to be cast back into the outer wetness. It was rumoured that by incanting the magic words: 'in writing' and 'solicitor' Lenny Coleman had stiffened the CSCC resolve and they faced down the MSA officials. It is worth contemplating how the MSA officials thought that they were improving the lot of the club competitor with their demands. But one can be confident that Richard Culverhouse had not budgeted for the time spent on this problem when he planned the meeting.

A side issue to this problem, which I offer without comment is that I was approached by an MSA steward while this debate was taking place and questioned about the outfit adjacent to the Monoposto hospitality site. In conversation we agreed that this ensemble was occupying an excessive amount of valuable hardstanding. The steward enquired if I knew who owned the outfit. I think that as we were standing in the Monoposto hospitality area surrounded by Monoposto outfits he assumed that the unit in question was Monoposto. On being told that I didn't know who owned the outfit but that it was servicing a solitary Jaguar, he disappeared. The outfit was not moved.

Back to the beginning, anybody wishing to run a long and complicated enterprise such as a race meeting in adverse weather would wish to start promptly. The meeting at Cadwell started half an hour late. My information is that this meeting started thirty minutes late because the necessary telephone communications between the various parts of the circuit had failed. Proceedings only started when all officials were issued with radios. A thirty minute delay is equivalent to one session. The time contingency planned was used before the first race started.

Another significant drain on the time available was the rain squall that struck the Mono2000/Classic/1800 grid, when they were slick shod in assembly. After a few cars decamped to replace slicks with wets and others started to change to wets in assembly, a wet race was declared. Assembly emptied as the majority of the cars returned to their paddock bases. By the time the whole field was reassembled on the grid at least 20 minutes had been lost. One presumes that tyre changing is not a problem that most CSCC classes suffer from because they run on treaded tyres. In the circumstances the action taken by officials was the only possible way to run the race in the prevailing weather. It is the first time I have experienced time being allowed for all competitors to change their tyres. In the past a wet race has been announced and competitors sent out on slicks. Well done CSCC, it was not their fault that conditions deteriorated from abysmal to near impossible.

Deciding to stop a race due to impossible weather conditions must be one of the most difficult decisions that a CoC has to make. Inevitably there will be complaints about being short changed and those going well in the prevailing conditions will be disappointed. However, the Mono2000/Classic/1800 race at Cadwell started in abysmal conditions that rapidly deteriorated. Those of us in traffic knew that any attempt to overtake was quite literally a trip into the unknown. In my opinion a suitable point to finish the race was before the leader started lapping and having to commit to diving/driving into a wall of spray. Just to show that poor weather is not restricted to the UK or Europe, the adverse weather generated by hurricane Ike caused the CoC of the recent MotoGP, at Indianapolis, to be faced with the same decision, the race was shortened. To declare a result a race has to run a certain percentage of the total distance, this does not necessarily conform with prevailing track conditions. The majority of riders at Indianapolis would have preferred to finish several laps earlier and I am sure that Tristan would have preferred the race at Cadwell to be a lap shorter!

Given the weather conditions it was more or less inevitable that Saturday's programme should run late and that the two MRC qualifying sessions be lost. Competitors anticipate rapid collection of their money followed by its slow return. The rapid refund of £60 by CSCC is to be commended. Naturally CSCC would have preferred to run these qualifying sessions and not refund what must have been a significant amount of the profit from the meeting.

Throughout the weekend the MRC was associated with problems that significantly increased the workload of the organisers. One suspects that the majority of the other races were similar. One must conclude that those who go into race management must enjoy crisis management as well as enjoying all the planning that goes into a race meeting. There must be easier ways of making money.

Patrick Huston

Inefficient use of hardstanding. For the benefit of certain officials, not many Monopostos have 4 doors and a roof.

More efficient use of hard standing.

But for sheer efficiency you can't beat the discipline of a hillclimb. No support vehicles in Loton Park unlimited single seater paddock.

Moto GP stopped for rain (pic:RedBull/Dana Garrett)

There is a car in that grey wall facing Tristan - and it has a high intensity rear light. (Pic:Tristan Cliffe)