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If you all don't know. Moto P is the guy that ran the operational side on D1GP.
Here is what he had to say on www.club4ag.com and maybe this will answer some of you guys bitchyness about D1.
IMO. I thought it ran very well, It was on schedule and it went very smoothly.
-Al
Here is what he had to say on www.club4ag.com and maybe this will answer some of you guys bitchyness about D1.
IMO. I thought it ran very well, It was on schedule and it went very smoothly.
-Al
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I had another chance to participate in the D1 Grand Prix from the operation side and as such individual, I was able to express my opinions in many situations leading up to the event. My work for this particular event entailed 6 weeks of doing what I was contracted to do. I was mainly on the operational side of the event to strategically setup course workers and operate the track efficiently and work with the management at Irwindale.
In many cases, I was able to offer my views on things but in majority of the cases, I was also not able to control the decisions made by D1’s planning and requirements of DVD production crew and Irwindale officials.
I understand that there was many issues and frustrations that came out of the event but many of them had reasons, whether it was a good or bad decision, it was done for a specific reason and in most cases beyond my own personal powers to do anything about it in one or two days…
I apologize toward many of you that thought the event was lacking for whatever reasons you have expressed in another topic…
Please let me describe to you the reasons for some of disconcerts at this past February D1 grand Prix USA event. Perhaps you can understand and forgive the production staff that also included me among many others who spent the last 3 months toiling to that day.
Grand Stands in the infield:
Irwindale Speedway’s infield grass area is seeded and built on an 18 inch deep moisture trap layer which is designed to maintain green grass on dry Southern California climate. It was never designed to accommodate things to be placed on nor people to be standing on. It works fine when things are very dry but it does turn into a deep muddy layer that can sink 6 inches by walking on top during and after rains storms in some locations. It was our collective decision not to have that area open upon our inspections immediately before the event. Instead, we offered elevated grandstands to allow viewing for the many that did enter that infield section of the course. (I had no idea however that it was to be charged extra for the entry that day…) I do know that grand stand placement was not ideal but it was the best we could do as it could not be any higher in the banked oval raceway pavement. We just did agree to allow spectators to sink 6 inches into the mud for obvious reasons as well as insurance and safety point of view.
Event Scheduling:
The schedule of events by nature is not an easy thing to maintain when many different teams from all over show up to a venue that they are not familiar. It is also difficult to synchronize every resource with Irwindale Speedway, DVD Production Crew, Drivers and Teams, and All Security and operation staffing. After all, D1 Grand Prix as well as all drifting industry is still very much a collaboration of street tuning entities and not a racing operation with a multi-million dollar budget with a rich 50 year old racing history. Things can get out of hand quickly when over 60 teams and entrants don’t have a common understanding of what they can do and cannot, the ethic differences of many different organizations and in our case, countries and people as diverse as all of USA.
Our goal was to achieve as much as possible the means to cause not any delays. This event featured 32 teams from Japan and more than 30 entries from the USA. Since the total qualifying session cannot possibly be accommodated into one day of production, we took a part of the day before to make the 32 car qualified grid. This event was not open to the public due to the regulations set by the City of Irwindale and our production team. Due to many concerns the option of going later in the night for the Sunday was not an option either. One of the major reason was Irwindale’s city regulation has a new time restriction of events and 8pm was the shutdown on Sunday event. Many of these problems will be cured for next time but for this one, dates and time were difficult to change if not impossible for such large event that also includes the most complex logistics with 32 separate teams being shipped to the USA months in advance as well as USA teams that also has separate sets of issues and logistics.
The scoring was improved for the 2005 season and is still in implementation stages. One thing though that was important for this event was the following:
The scores were placed on certain criteria. Primarily, the banked exit on turn one was to be within 2 meters from the top of the bank at exit cone, then the chicane at the control line was to be traversed at close proximity to the white marker cone before continuing to turn 3 sweeper entries. The rest is traditional combination of speed, angle, proximity to borderline on exit and entry, and proximity and ability to sustain composure in tandem. This may have attributed to some of the inconsistencies between the viewed and perceived performance and actual performance against some of the objective scoring. The drivers were judged also for the asked for specific requirements and being able to execute that objective. This is how we train professional drivers for predictability and ability to be consistent with future demands.
In many ways, therefore, a scored “points” round is much more complex than just giving all for aspirations of creativity and is very demanding for driver and teams.
Entertainment Filler:
Yes, that department is being worked by various entities and I will make that point the next time about MC’s and music… I think that 4 separate groups trying to make entertainment work is good and bad in many ways…. But the bottom line is if it can’t make the numbers in tickets sales then it can’t happen. By the way, that really wasn’t our department and I wasn’t included in that portion of planning…
Japanese viewers want to see the American-ness of being in Southern California on DVD… While local audience wants to see Japanese culture being imported intact… It’s a crisis for Option Video planners and it almost always has to be somewhat of a compromise… Because why would Irwindale be presented the same way as Odaiba Tokyo or Fuji Speedway? If they want that effect, they’d just stay in Japan no? It may kill some expectations for the guys wishing to be in Japan by coming to Irwindale but I won’t lie and tell you that we can make Japan at Irwindale… So lets’ try to make the event happen as it should be considering these criteria all to be covered.
They did feature a TV set in the infield this time with great funds spent, but it was ultimately limited in its placement and feature contents due to demands from other departments such as safety concerns and proximity to the racetrack blocking view of some spectators and well as camera angles for DVD production team. Also the placement was decided for the importance of having the judges having a total line of sight.
Man! I keep mentioning to the planners and venue about the PA systems either not hooked or big enough for all of grandstand and infield! Sorry about that...that's guys in the other department either not having enough money or not doing something...
Foresight:
I can promise that December’s USA vs. Japan Exhibition will allow much more entertainment value as happened in last GT LIVE. We have much more freedom with this event as this will not have the following restrictions:
Since it’s not a points round, the Teams will be allowed to be more aggressive with driving. This is because the scoring will be based on exhibition skills more than accuracy on set criteria and the cars need not be so valuable for the next round. Drivers have less pressure to score and more room to please the crowds.
Exhibition rounds also do not have constraints of being fair in the conditions of lighting, meaning they can run during the twilight and dusk when sunlight changes drastically throughout the duration. This will allow the event to continue throughout the hours of 6-8pm when lighting can change between driver runs and become really unfair for single runs.
Due to the nature of drifting, that is serious abuse on tires, equipment and cars, the time it takes to reset and continue with each round will still take a bit of time. It’s impossible to cool down, change tires, maintain 30+ cars in less than one hour in between major sets unless you feel like watching half the grid disappear in the next round…
That is really something we all have to live with… It’s really a short period of time for the teams to must make broken things work and come back to feature the driver’s full talent in each rounds, and make the best show and competition possible. When’s the last time you changed a transmission in one hour in a parking lot?
In summary, yes I could have in hindsight, executed many more things to many different problems… Most o f which I had a solution was missing a link to execute though…and that would be powers within the organization and committee, funds, and permits and regulations within insurance, venue restrictions and physical constraints, time and logistics before the event for teams, and lack of direct and convenient production communications with Japan being 6000 miles away and their team holding much of the decision making process. City local regulations were not assessed in a timely manner for lack of information of provisions of changes from various entities, and that I will fix…
Club4AG / Drift Association’s team of volunteers with other entities and young help, did a excellent job of keeping the course tightly secured, cleaned up in rapid response, executed safety calls and signal flags and reorganized the grid and paddock for each round in an unprecedented manner… For that I take credit on behalf of all the people that helped us out on that track. (I hated those hey–stack borders but the production team didn’t give us funds to buy the nice plastic barriers that Irwindale had in previous events…apparently those were sold and we had to buy new ones… That would have cost $30,000… Gees…)
We don’t want to see D1 disappear so let’s all help out to make it better… If we can take more constructive criticism, it’s all to help but if it’s an attack to bury the series, then I will take that only as an insult for 50 of my crew’s hard labor of love in the 5 days we camped and tortured ourselves at Irwindale and my 3 months of talking and driving to 100 offices to the most influential people in drifting to make it happen. Meanwhile, I will keep screaming your collective voice in all those offices that can make the changes for a better show.
How would you feel if your first chance to talk to Mr. Keiichi Tsuchiya for any long duration was all filled with complaints for the better??? Well, I did that and he probably thinks I am nuts…but I did make him stop and listen when all others were trying to kiss his hand… I think I made my points and I’ll be on his cell phone list soon…hopefully.
[/blue]
I had another chance to participate in the D1 Grand Prix from the operation side and as such individual, I was able to express my opinions in many situations leading up to the event. My work for this particular event entailed 6 weeks of doing what I was contracted to do. I was mainly on the operational side of the event to strategically setup course workers and operate the track efficiently and work with the management at Irwindale.
In many cases, I was able to offer my views on things but in majority of the cases, I was also not able to control the decisions made by D1’s planning and requirements of DVD production crew and Irwindale officials.
I understand that there was many issues and frustrations that came out of the event but many of them had reasons, whether it was a good or bad decision, it was done for a specific reason and in most cases beyond my own personal powers to do anything about it in one or two days…
I apologize toward many of you that thought the event was lacking for whatever reasons you have expressed in another topic…
Please let me describe to you the reasons for some of disconcerts at this past February D1 grand Prix USA event. Perhaps you can understand and forgive the production staff that also included me among many others who spent the last 3 months toiling to that day.
Grand Stands in the infield:
Irwindale Speedway’s infield grass area is seeded and built on an 18 inch deep moisture trap layer which is designed to maintain green grass on dry Southern California climate. It was never designed to accommodate things to be placed on nor people to be standing on. It works fine when things are very dry but it does turn into a deep muddy layer that can sink 6 inches by walking on top during and after rains storms in some locations. It was our collective decision not to have that area open upon our inspections immediately before the event. Instead, we offered elevated grandstands to allow viewing for the many that did enter that infield section of the course. (I had no idea however that it was to be charged extra for the entry that day…) I do know that grand stand placement was not ideal but it was the best we could do as it could not be any higher in the banked oval raceway pavement. We just did agree to allow spectators to sink 6 inches into the mud for obvious reasons as well as insurance and safety point of view.
Event Scheduling:
The schedule of events by nature is not an easy thing to maintain when many different teams from all over show up to a venue that they are not familiar. It is also difficult to synchronize every resource with Irwindale Speedway, DVD Production Crew, Drivers and Teams, and All Security and operation staffing. After all, D1 Grand Prix as well as all drifting industry is still very much a collaboration of street tuning entities and not a racing operation with a multi-million dollar budget with a rich 50 year old racing history. Things can get out of hand quickly when over 60 teams and entrants don’t have a common understanding of what they can do and cannot, the ethic differences of many different organizations and in our case, countries and people as diverse as all of USA.
Our goal was to achieve as much as possible the means to cause not any delays. This event featured 32 teams from Japan and more than 30 entries from the USA. Since the total qualifying session cannot possibly be accommodated into one day of production, we took a part of the day before to make the 32 car qualified grid. This event was not open to the public due to the regulations set by the City of Irwindale and our production team. Due to many concerns the option of going later in the night for the Sunday was not an option either. One of the major reason was Irwindale’s city regulation has a new time restriction of events and 8pm was the shutdown on Sunday event. Many of these problems will be cured for next time but for this one, dates and time were difficult to change if not impossible for such large event that also includes the most complex logistics with 32 separate teams being shipped to the USA months in advance as well as USA teams that also has separate sets of issues and logistics.
The scoring was improved for the 2005 season and is still in implementation stages. One thing though that was important for this event was the following:
The scores were placed on certain criteria. Primarily, the banked exit on turn one was to be within 2 meters from the top of the bank at exit cone, then the chicane at the control line was to be traversed at close proximity to the white marker cone before continuing to turn 3 sweeper entries. The rest is traditional combination of speed, angle, proximity to borderline on exit and entry, and proximity and ability to sustain composure in tandem. This may have attributed to some of the inconsistencies between the viewed and perceived performance and actual performance against some of the objective scoring. The drivers were judged also for the asked for specific requirements and being able to execute that objective. This is how we train professional drivers for predictability and ability to be consistent with future demands.
In many ways, therefore, a scored “points” round is much more complex than just giving all for aspirations of creativity and is very demanding for driver and teams.
Entertainment Filler:
Yes, that department is being worked by various entities and I will make that point the next time about MC’s and music… I think that 4 separate groups trying to make entertainment work is good and bad in many ways…. But the bottom line is if it can’t make the numbers in tickets sales then it can’t happen. By the way, that really wasn’t our department and I wasn’t included in that portion of planning…
Japanese viewers want to see the American-ness of being in Southern California on DVD… While local audience wants to see Japanese culture being imported intact… It’s a crisis for Option Video planners and it almost always has to be somewhat of a compromise… Because why would Irwindale be presented the same way as Odaiba Tokyo or Fuji Speedway? If they want that effect, they’d just stay in Japan no? It may kill some expectations for the guys wishing to be in Japan by coming to Irwindale but I won’t lie and tell you that we can make Japan at Irwindale… So lets’ try to make the event happen as it should be considering these criteria all to be covered.
They did feature a TV set in the infield this time with great funds spent, but it was ultimately limited in its placement and feature contents due to demands from other departments such as safety concerns and proximity to the racetrack blocking view of some spectators and well as camera angles for DVD production team. Also the placement was decided for the importance of having the judges having a total line of sight.
Man! I keep mentioning to the planners and venue about the PA systems either not hooked or big enough for all of grandstand and infield! Sorry about that...that's guys in the other department either not having enough money or not doing something...
Foresight:
I can promise that December’s USA vs. Japan Exhibition will allow much more entertainment value as happened in last GT LIVE. We have much more freedom with this event as this will not have the following restrictions:
Since it’s not a points round, the Teams will be allowed to be more aggressive with driving. This is because the scoring will be based on exhibition skills more than accuracy on set criteria and the cars need not be so valuable for the next round. Drivers have less pressure to score and more room to please the crowds.
Exhibition rounds also do not have constraints of being fair in the conditions of lighting, meaning they can run during the twilight and dusk when sunlight changes drastically throughout the duration. This will allow the event to continue throughout the hours of 6-8pm when lighting can change between driver runs and become really unfair for single runs.
Due to the nature of drifting, that is serious abuse on tires, equipment and cars, the time it takes to reset and continue with each round will still take a bit of time. It’s impossible to cool down, change tires, maintain 30+ cars in less than one hour in between major sets unless you feel like watching half the grid disappear in the next round…
That is really something we all have to live with… It’s really a short period of time for the teams to must make broken things work and come back to feature the driver’s full talent in each rounds, and make the best show and competition possible. When’s the last time you changed a transmission in one hour in a parking lot?
In summary, yes I could have in hindsight, executed many more things to many different problems… Most o f which I had a solution was missing a link to execute though…and that would be powers within the organization and committee, funds, and permits and regulations within insurance, venue restrictions and physical constraints, time and logistics before the event for teams, and lack of direct and convenient production communications with Japan being 6000 miles away and their team holding much of the decision making process. City local regulations were not assessed in a timely manner for lack of information of provisions of changes from various entities, and that I will fix…
Club4AG / Drift Association’s team of volunteers with other entities and young help, did a excellent job of keeping the course tightly secured, cleaned up in rapid response, executed safety calls and signal flags and reorganized the grid and paddock for each round in an unprecedented manner… For that I take credit on behalf of all the people that helped us out on that track. (I hated those hey–stack borders but the production team didn’t give us funds to buy the nice plastic barriers that Irwindale had in previous events…apparently those were sold and we had to buy new ones… That would have cost $30,000… Gees…)
We don’t want to see D1 disappear so let’s all help out to make it better… If we can take more constructive criticism, it’s all to help but if it’s an attack to bury the series, then I will take that only as an insult for 50 of my crew’s hard labor of love in the 5 days we camped and tortured ourselves at Irwindale and my 3 months of talking and driving to 100 offices to the most influential people in drifting to make it happen. Meanwhile, I will keep screaming your collective voice in all those offices that can make the changes for a better show.
How would you feel if your first chance to talk to Mr. Keiichi Tsuchiya for any long duration was all filled with complaints for the better??? Well, I did that and he probably thinks I am nuts…but I did make him stop and listen when all others were trying to kiss his hand… I think I made my points and I’ll be on his cell phone list soon…hopefully.
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