Motorama 2004 scorecard

For those of you attending who haven’t checked your email…I thought you might want to know what’s up with Motorama.

Course Setup
Course setup will be completed Friday. So far it looks like the following guys will be there: Kris Holm, Mike Menichini, Ben Plotkin-Swing, Joey Cohn, Dan Lucal, Bill Hamilton, Brian Maw, Jeff Prosa.

I will gladly accept voluntary cash donations to help buy materials. Last year I spent $100 at Home Depot. This year, I expect to spend about $200-$300 on wood in order to build a great course. If each person chipped in, I would greatly appreciate this.

Scorecard
Please take a look at the attached MS Word document and let me know what you think of the score card I put together. In case you didn’t catch this before, the competition will be run as follows:

  1. Bike sections will be assigned u-style point values.
  2. Attempts on bike sections will be limited to the number allotted by the event.
  3. Bike section judges will use bike-trials score cards and will be instructed to watch simply for cleans or failures. (Yielding point values of 0 or 5). Stratodabs will not be permitted for unicyclists. I am suggesting that we use bike-trials scorecards on the bike sections and transfer the results to the unicycle score cards after the competition. This will eliminate confusion on the bike sections and keep things as simple as possible.
  4. Unicycle sections will be run according to the u-system. If you need a copy of the u-system rules, let me know.

The suggested score card allows us to keep track of “on-sight” or “first-try” cleans which could potentially be used as a tiebreaker. As Kris had mentioned, we will need to make sure that we can accurately record first attempts. This may be difficult, but if it doesn’t work out, nothing is lost

Safety Requirement Reminder
The U-system trials rules require that helmets, knee and shin protection, and gloves or wrist guards are used with no exceptions.

Registration
Don’t forget that pre-entry applications must be postmarked by Feb 1. I believe the fee goes up after 2/1, but it’s not exactly clear on the online form.

Competitor List
It looks like we will have 20 or more riders. I know some of you by first name only – sorry about that. I’m guessing at some of your locations also. Let me know if you have corrections to this list.

Massachusetts
Ben Plotkin Swing
Joey Cohn
Dan Lucal

New York
Mike Menichini
Joe Merrill
Lazslo

New Jersey
Brian Maw
Jeff Prosa
Dave Kimmel?
Scott Bridgman?

Connecticut
Tim Colegrove plus 2 (Jonathan Sigworth…?)

Pennsylvania
Bill Hamilton
Chris Wonderly
Mike Carroll
Phillip
Nick

Virginia
Frank
Trip Glazer

Vancouver
Kris Holm

Toronto ?
Jeff Groves plus 2 ? Hey guys, What’s up?

Are we going to use the hole punch system on this one?

I think that works better than using pens to check off cleaned or not for sections.

I was also thinking with this card someone (judge or rider) might “get confused” if they had done a section before. What about instead of doing a 1st try clean, you do a 1st try failure. Then there will be no question if a rider has cleaned a section on the first try or not.

card.jpg

Mike - Good idea to mark the card for a 1st try failure. I think you’re right - it would greatly eliminate confusion.

Don’t forget that with the u-system, we could have up to 30 sections and we will be self-judging. Because of this I think hole punches would present problems:

  1. We would need a boatload of hole punchers, preferably the kind that makes a tiny hole and isn’t easily duplicated. Somebody would need to find these buy, them etc…

  2. Hole punches tend to mangle the card. With the current scoring system, the proposed card could have up to 106 marks or punches. If hole punches are used, the score card will be decimated by the end of the competition.

  3. The u-system requires two observers to initial the card in the case of self judging - which we will definitely be doing. As and additional improvement, I’m thinking each judge could mark the card clearly with his name and rider number - this might be less ambiguous than an initial. Hole punches would open a very inviting opportunity for fraud - not that any of us would do that :slight_smile:

What do you think?

Here’s the updated card based on your suggestion. What do you think?

I think it seems like a big scorecard either way.

I think the whole punch problem is going to be too harsh on the cards now that you point it out. For self judging anyway. At Toque things got mangled by everyone trying to initial cards on their leg over and over. But it is the best method I can tell for cost effectivness.

We dont need 2 observers to say you fialed a section though so you can probably eleminate a column on that. And I dont know about you but I’ll trust anyone that say’s they failed the section on their own.

Yup.

Yeah, it’s big. Try this one. We can skip the bike part and just tabulate the bike results separately.

I’ll see if I can print the cards on some decent paper so they don’t get mangled.

Thanks. Let me know how this looks.

What if instead of #'s for the bike sections we use letters. like section A-F. This way they can be on the same card without having to destinguish between if the section is Bike Section 1 or uni section 1 it is simply section A.

The other thing is layout. How are we planning to have these printed. Big long strips ? or a few columns.

a 2 sides strip is the other thing I was thinking of… 1 side has the points and stuff that is on the layout now. The back has the problem #'s and 2 spots for initials for clears…As I think about it I dont know how well this would work in action but its an idea.

I would run it by Kris see if he has any ideas on size or combining the bike and uni runs better.

Printing the scorecards on card stock would make them more durable. I think you can use card stock in most computer printers and probably in most copy machines.

Marking the card for first try failure is a great idea! Looks like you have a good brain under that colorful hair! :smiley:

As far as self marking a failed section: no one will question a self marked 1st try fail, but some might question the lack of a 1st try fail. If observers marked the 1st try fail , you remove the chance of it being an issue.

Bill

Will the point values be printed when we get the cards? That would eliminate confusion as well! :sunglasses:

The point values will be filled in by hand on Friday night after the points have been determined.

As a rule, nobody should start a section until they have given their card to a pair of willing observers. Obviously riding a section without doing this would be bad and would foul up the first try concept, but I think it’s pretty easy system to follow.

Mike, I’m suggesting that we just don’t include anything on the u-card for the bike sections. This will keep the u-card at a manageable size. The bike score card results will be unambiguous since they indicate the results for laps 1, 2, 3 etc… My last revision of the card removed the bike section altogether. I think it’s down to a workable size. What do you think?

In the end all we have to do is add up the bike a u-section scores for the final result. Pretty simple.

Let me know if this makes sense.
Joe

That score card looks good. The first try failure column will be interesting. We haven’t tried to implement that part of the scoring in the past.

I’m not sure if two observers is necessary. It’s a good idea in theory, but in practice it will be hard to get two people to watch you. Especially if it’s something you have to try lots of times. In the past, we’ve only required one observer, and there haven’t been any problems that I’m aware of. Would people be open to the idea of requiring only one observer?

Ben

I think one observer would be fine as long as it is not a rider, but a judge. Otherwise people will get in pairs and develop a private little group travelling from section to section that will become an object of distrust. Scratching each other’s back kind of thing.

It’s important that riders be required to wait until the section judge is ready. He/she will have to clear his mind from all the distractions to do a proper job. Riders are often impatient and want to get going, but they need to wait. The judge will have to ensure that the course is clear, safe to ride, and that he is ready to watch with a clear mind. The rider will have to submit to that process and wait patiently. Any scorecard confusions will have to be cleared up before a rider can ride a section. If there are problems with a scorecard, the judge should send the rider to a central judge so that the section’s line of riders isn’t held up. So it behooves a rider to ensure that his scorecard is in good shape before getting into line. The central judge should handle all rider requests right away.

There should be clearly printed instructions for section judges.

It seems as though section judges will have to cover more than one section, since I doubt there will be 30 judges. Perhaps there should be a line for a set of sections, so that the judge is not running around chaotically. The next rider clears his card with the section judge, picks one of, say, 5 sections, waits for the judge’s ok, then rides the section. When he gets his card back from the judge, then the focus shifts to the next rider. With 6 judges and 30 sections, each judge will handle 5 sections, and each line or riders will also handle 5 sections.

This may seem like it is too slow, but there will be up to, say, 6 riders riding sections at one time, so this is pretty efficient and preserves the u-system’s spectator appeal. In fact, it probably improves the spectator appeal since the is a reasonable number of riders riding at one time. When judging is not taking place, i.e., during practice, then riders don’t have to wait for the mechanism and can ride whenever and whatever they choose.

The sections will have to be clearly numbered with large numbers and each section judge should have printed on his instructions which sections he is judging. There should be a place for the line to form for each set of sections and it should be marked with the sections that the line is intended to serve.

Some ideas to think about, anyway.

Dave,

Good input, but I don’t anticipate there being enough non-riders to serve as dedicated judges. If that’s the case, then we are limited to self judging.

I see your point, that a single observer could become sketchy, if riders are going around in pairs. The rules call for two observers in the case of self judging. Obviously requiring two observers will significantly slow things down - the question to the group is whether or not we should stick to two observers.

Having two observers will slow things down and make the comp less chaotic. Also keep in mind that there will be a whole bike course to cover as well so if both the u-course and the bike course are run at the same time, riders will be spread out.

We might want to run one, and then the other, but this will depend a lot on what the bike course looks like and the timing of the bike events. I think the bike course will run beginner/intermediate in the morning and expert/pro in the afternoon. Given that there may be sections we wish to ride on all 4 bike classes, we may end up running the event morning and afternoon. This would be cool because it would give everyone plenty of opportunity to ride and might permit the comp to proceed at a leisurly pace.

One thing I’m not sure about is the concept of “practice” that you mentioned. I checked the rule book and see nothing mentioning this scenario. According to the “first try fail” concept which we are developing here, nobody should be allowed to practice on the sections (meaning ride unobserverved). If riders are allowed to do this, then the first try concept will not work.

I guess we could start the event by having all unicycle competitors do a “first pass” on the u-section to see who cleans what on the first try. Once that is done, then everyone can go on there merry way, riding whatever they want on both bike and u-sections for the rest of the event.

Just some ideas.

Joe

What I meant by “practice” was simply riding sections during times when competition was not taking place. If riders are not allowed to do this before competition, which makes sense, then this would only take place after the competition is over.

It is hard to imagine not being able to find 6 non-riding judges. Perhaps this is an historical thing and should be something to integrate over time. But it is best to have judges that do not have an interest in who wins.

IMHO, there is no need for more than one judge, and that it is fine to have people who are riders to judge others(not designated judges). It is ridiculous to have that many people, and to not be able to trust people. c’mon, we’re unicylists here!

The reason i come to a comp, isn’t to win/lose or die trying, its to ride with other people, and get the most riding time in as possible. I think that this is the general feeling amongst most riders as well.

And obviously it would be apparent if someone cheated on certain sections, because if it was a U7 line, and a beginer had it marked as being completed, then you’d just watch that person, and see if they really could do what they said they were doing. But this is a very unlikely situation, and as long as our sport is as small as it is, we should take advantage of the community-like atmosphere, and trust the people who were riding with.

I think it was good at NAUCC where we had about 4 or 5 non-riders just walking around pretty much seeing how things are going, and pretty much serving as authority figures, so that if someone was wanting to cheat, they’d think again.

By the end of the comp, everyone had a good idea of the top 6 or 7 riders’ places, and it was pretty obvious that no one had cheated. It was also apparent that all the time that was allotted had been needed, because on the hardest section there was still 3 or 4 people who were still there trying to complete the line, right down to the bitter end.

well that’s just my thoughts, but i like the idea of the first try concept. It will eliminte most of the ties that are so frequent in this type of competition.

-Ryan

I don’t mean to say or imply that unicyclists can’t be trusted. Far from that. I’m just thinking technically, that’s all. As and if the sport grows, it will become more and more necessary to formalize and separate judging and riding.

I agree that if the sport gets bigger (hopefully) and more serious (hopefully not to serious) we’ll need to judge more strictly. But at the stage we’re at now, I think we won’t have a problem having the riders judge each other. It’s a lot easier that way, and it allows people to ride more things without waiting in line, and generally have more fun.

Ben

I agree. I’m realizing that with the u-system a lot of unobserved riding must naturally occur, and that’s part of the appeal to this system - it allows maximum riding time.

So I guess we would have to rely on the honor system on the “first try” question. I don’t have a problem with that. The “first try” idea is mostly informational for the majority of the riders and could potentially be used as a tie breaker for the top riders. We could always use the traditional tie-breaking method if there’s any question about the results.

Here’s the latest version of the score card - hopefully the final. This will be a two sided card with unicycle section results on one side and bike section/total score on the other.

LMK if this looks ok.

Here’s the first side of the card:

And here’s side 2. This will print in a fairly small size, roughly 2" x 7" or less.

Looks awesome.