Managing mail-in tournament dates
I'm starting to outline a new web app that lets you create and organize mail-in tournaments and one of the things I need some input on is dates. It seems everyone but me has hosted and managed a mail-in tournament, so I need some thoughts and insight, lessons learned, etc.
The way I see it there are 3 dates to worry about with a mail-in tournament:
- The date when the racing happens
- The date when the host needs all the cars by, a receiving deadline
- The date when a certain number of people have to have entered for the race to happen
My biggest hang up right now is on the last date, call it the registration date. It should be the trigger that tells people whether or not the race is happening. I should be able to register to enter the race but I shouldn't mail in my car until I know for sure the race is really happening. Once that registration date passes and the race hasn't been canceled, that is a green light to build a car and mail it in. I feel the host of the race should be able to cancel a race if there isn't enough interest in it (or whatever reason people don't register)...but the entrants also need enough time to build cars AFTER they know the race is happening. The time given before this cancel date happens seems somewhat dependent on the date of the race itself and how far out it is from the current date. Is there a minimum requirement for how far out a race should be scheduled? At least 2 months? You have to account for registration time, build time and shipping time...how long does all that take?
Dealing with live event scheduling is an interesting challenge that I'm trying to think about and can hopefully create some tools that will help organize and automate some of these problems. Any thoughts you have from experience or otherwise and can share is appreciated and will help make things better for everyone.
Discussion
I'm hoping that this tool takes care of a lot of the confirmations, addresses and reminders. I'm also thinking that if some of these generic rules are in place that the app will kind of guide people to picking good dates that work and give everyone enough time to do what they need.
Although your mention of the Hardcore series has me thinking about series races. Right now I was just thinking of one-off races that are run-and-done...I didn't think about tournaments that travel and are all part of one set of scoring. Another interesting situation to consider...or maybe that's phase 2.
Alabama Here..This is what i dont understand..For a month i have hitting around about doing a mail in, but i have had only Two People respond!!!...and also we Race every Saturday Night....Starting at 7:PM and thay know if there late,Thay don't get to Race, but so far this year no one's been late...Last Year we Race from March-November....I also posted this on H/T and now have had over 120 Views, but NO one has respond..I Guess No one Like to Race ???
way 2 go paul, well here goes..i can send you (1) plastic based midnight otto,(1) plastic based '32 3 window cpe.,
(1) plastic based '32 vicky...
1. how much ? ... unless you want to pay everyone's return shipping...
2. where do we mail them ? your full address...
3. how many cars per entrant ?
4. gaffite ; y / n ...
5. when do YOU want the cars ? no build time to worry about here...
6. how can i help ? P.M. me for phone # if you prefer talking to typing...
Hopefully Carl will chime in. He did an incredible job of organizing and communicating with everybody involved with the Featherweight Challenge. A model anybody should look at before trying to organize a series of races.
Two months would be good, too far out and people forget (like me), too soon and it might not get done.
This is true. I for the most part can only work on cars on the weekends.I seem to have fallen into a pattern (if there is a specific goal) of starting on three or four cars at the same time. Getting halfway into them and then completing them the following weekend. It maybe another week before I can test them. Then the process starts again (if there is enough time before the deadline) where I try to build a faster car(s) based on what I learned in testing, if anything.
Fisherman
I think since your running races regularly, you should just pick a future date and give people a deadline and rules. I'm sure a couple people will enter. After that, other people will see they missed it and pay more attention for the next race.
Right now I was just thinking of one-off races that are run-and-done...I didn't think about tournaments that travel and are all part of one set of scoring. Another interesting situation to consider...or maybe that's phase 2.
You gotta walk before you can crawl. (EDIT) Or vise versa
After being on this site for 2 years and trying to get site members to send me some clunkers for at least one year, I have received a total of nine cars including the three I got at Carlisle last Sunday. I need at least 20 to have 2 full gates. I also have some matching Nascar models to loan out if anyone is interested. Lots of racing for the cost of a car and postage. Cars are eligible for all races for life!
I sent you a car yesterday
It's crazy that Hot Wheels Collectors.com has like a million registered users, and there's only a hundred or so around here. What the heck do they do with their darn Hot Wheels?
You have to account for registration time, build time and shipping time...how long does all that take?
The mail part, I've noticed that some people have P.O. Boxes and sometime don't have 24hr access. Mine is open Mon-Fri. So if the race was scheduled for a weekend, cars would have to arrive by Friday at the very latest, and I would have to be able to get there on Friday. So, you need a cushion there...plus the shipping time. I would say cars should arrive a week before the scheduled race date.
Build time: Seven weeks before the mail in arrival deadline?
Alabama Here..This is what i dont understand..For a month i have hitting around about doing a mail in, but i have had only Two People respond!!!...and also we Race every Saturday Night....Starting at 7:PM and thay know if there late,Thay don't get to Race, but so far this year no one's been late...Last Year we Race from March-November....I also posted this on H/T and now have had over 120 Views, but NO one has respond..I Guess No one Like to Race ???
Fisherman,
You've had three people respond on this thread http://www.redlinederby.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=779&p=6970#p6970 and now we're waiting for the rules and such. Some of our members wait behind the scenes and will probably respond when there is more info out there.
I've noticed that there aren't many racers on H/T, mostly customizers and collectors.
Depending on how formal or informal the race is...It seems before this step, there is the tossing out (on the message boards) of an idea for a "theme" of the race. Usually a weight limit. Although right now there is talk of a "Gasser" race (which also has a weight limit). I suppose to judge how much interest there is in such a race.
After enough people have shown interest, the question go's out, 1. How many cars can each person enter. 2. How much time will it take for the people to get together/build cars for this "theme". Then there is some feedback from potential racers and the first "deadline" is set. Right now there is a relatively small number of racers out there and deadlines come together slowly. I think as more and more people get involved the whole process will speed up.
I mean anybody any day of the week can mail me cars and I'll race 'em. Then what happens is, "Well, since Joe and Bob are sending cars...who else is in"?
At that point, since all the cars are together in one spot, why not send them all together to another race track?
Then once the race(es) get started you've got to keep the interest up by ! That's where the Redlinederby Forum comes into play again. I think it's great to see all of the chatter here! And I believe using the google docs for results helps too. Anyone can access results for all of the races in one place anytime, and the host of each race has access to input data when their particular race is over.
Brian, I can't wait to see what you come up with. Things can only get better!
Thanks for all the thoughts! Whatever web app I create is NOT intended to replace forum banter, organizing or whatever...I see it as a way to keep things clear for everyone. As threads grow to pages and pages, it's hard to find the info you need, hopefully this will help that trouble.
It comes down to what TLD said...just pick a date and start there. Polling everyone for ideas on themes and stuff in the forum is great but when it comes down to dates and times, everyone is going to be different and very little gets decided by committee. All of this mail-in stuff boils down to time. I think if peopleknow dates up front they can plan and carve out some time for the hobby and enter mail-ins when they can. Rather than asking "what do you want" take a more "here's what you get" approach to at least get the ball rolling, the revise from there.
The forum is still the center of everything. I can be used to get ideas for mail-ins and then use the new app to manage entrants, but then it'll all go back to the forum to discuss cars and share your work. I love seeing all the in-progress shots you guys share and have to say that it's starting to wear me down...I might make a custom racer yet!
Whatever happens, my goal is to carry out Carl's wise words of "communicate, communicate, communicate" with e-mails, Facebooks and everything else that can be somewhat automated. I'm not trying to make a silver bullet, just a tool to help provide some sort of standard for tracking races and people.
I figure a race is a race. You get at least 2 people confirmed and it's on...the rest of the folks will fall in line when they can.
The first two are the most important for sure, get cars there and then when the race is.
The problem is confirmation that you are entering a race is sometimes it doesn't happen...I didn't get cars done in time for the last Hardcore Downhill but sent them to the next race venue to compete.
Two months would be good, too far out and people forget (like me), too soon and it might not get done.
oh yeah, a database for addresses/names would be awesome so cars can get shipped back where they need to go if they need to. I started a file with addresses but sometimes I forget to write one down.