Now that the Gryphon has re-opened to the public, we can consider restarting racing on a Friday evening. For this to happen we would need to make some changes as well as trying to abide by as many safety rules as we can. This obviously poses issues which some of you may have reservations about, so we need to discuss it, find solutions and then decide.
The Gryphon has a restriction on the number of people in an area of 6-8 people which would apply to the half of the sports hall we use and we have to be aware that there will also be either the Taekwondo or Badminton in the other half. Because of this we will have to restrict our numbers to 8 on a race night.
To facilitate only having 8 drivers we also propose to limit the classes we run on a race night to 2, therefore we run different classes on alternate weeks, e.g. GT12/GT on one night and Hot Hatch/Cool Hatch on the next. This means that drivers may only be able to race once a fortnight.
To ensure we have more space available to try to maintain some form of social distance we can re-arrange the track layout so that that the carpet runs in the opposite direction and not cover the area from wall to wall. This would give a maximum track size of 12m by 12m, but allow a 2 metre gap all the way around the track. 2 sides will be the pit areas for 4 drivers each and 1 side (where the old pits were) will exclusively be the driver area during qualifying and finals.
With this number of drivers each week there can only be 4 drivers in each heat to allow for marshalls to be available. Because of these restrictions it is our intention to limit the number of heats to 2 qualifying and 1 final providing more time between heats and less rushing around. By starting round 1 at 8pm and the finals at 9pm more time will be available to build a track and clear up at the end. With limited numbers everyone will therefore have to contribute with set up and clear up.
If these proposals are acceptable and we can get 8 drivers each week we can go back to racing on a Friday, but otherwise we won’t have the numbers to make it worthwhile and we will struggle to pay rent on the venue.
Let me have your feedback and whether you are prepared to go back to racing on this basis and we can then see if we have sufficient number to make this work each week. Please email some thoughts to derek@yeovilrc.org
Thanks
