Autumn Thunder… A Great Batch!
words Jeff Woodard
Ingredients:
130-150 Drivers
50-60 Instructors
10-15 Volunteers
Up to 200 cars
One of the top racecourses in the U.S.
A Friday night pizza party
The first step is to gather all of your drivers and instructors together through Registration
This starts months before the actual event and ends at the track. The heavy lifting is done by Susan and Dennis Okin. If you’ve been to one of our weekends, you’ll easily recognize Dennis’s name as he is your first contact. As we get close to the event Susan steps in, working to get all the spreadsheets and summaries completed. They do a very difficult job and we’re glad that we have them on the team.
At the track, everyone going through registration will meet Becky Oodard, Rose Nichols, and Anli McCoy. These ladies typically find themselves on the front line, not only getting every driver through registration but often answering questions about every aspect of the weekend.
The next step is to pair your drivers with your instructors.
One to two weeks prior to the event our Chief Driving Instructors will take all of our instructed drivers and pair them with the best possible instructor match. This is no small feat and was accomplished by our newest CDI’s John O’Brien and Bill Altvater. Bill and John are stepping in and taking over from Gary Nichols and Dale Timmister. Gary and Dale reviewed the pairings and gave a big thumbs up to the new CDI’s choices. Bill and John will be taking over full-time this coming June. We look forward to having them in that role for quite a while.
Time to mix it up
Leading up to our weekend we have several individuals who prepare to haul our gear up to the track. Everything is sorted and distributed to guys like Brian Butt, Richard Wartenburg, and Dale Timmister who all help bring the necessary items up to give us a smooth and successful weekend. Much like hiking, you need to bring everything with you and take everything home. We have some 25 loaner helmets, a tent, signage, cases of giveaway items, registration bins, party bins, coolers, and radios that all have to arrive at the appropriate time and be ready to return at the appropriate time. This crew is indispensable.
Let’s add some volunteers!
As with any event in the club, our HPDE program wouldn’t happen without a large crew of volunteers. I’ve already mentioned a few of them, but we do have several that arrive just to help with activities throughout the weekend. We can thank David Parks who comes up to help with our pit-out activities all weekend, making sure that everyone flows in and out of the hot pits without incident. A thank you to Ted Hunter who comes up and takes photos all weekend and his wife Kathie who jumps in to help with registration, our party, and providing just general information to the drivers. Also jumping in are Anli McCoy and Rose Nichols who also worked registration and spent time answering drivers’ questions.
Just in case you haven’t noticed we have yet to even get to the track, so let’s do that now. Thursday evening, we have registration and load-in, which includes some 70 Friday drivers/instructors. Friday morning is when everything comes together, and we start with a simmer of our initial ingredients.
We sprinkle in a Friday Drivers Meeting
I feel like this is what really kicks off our weekend. We have an incredible group of drivers on Friday, all of whom qualify for our expanded passing program. We all meet at garage 7 at about 7:30 to get things started. Everyone is in a great mood and eagerly anticipating the track going hot at 8 a.m. Except for a 1-hour lunch break, the track is open until 4:30 and all drivers are encouraged to spend as much time on the track as possible. It’s not unusual to have a driver run laps for 45 minutes to an hour.
Let’s add a party/tech/registration
The pizza starts arriving at our host hotel at about 5:30, but by then our tech guys are in full swing with Matt Griffin leading the way. Matt is our club’s safety chair and has the difficult position of infrequently informing drivers that their car does not meet the standards to attend the event. In most cases, new brake pads or tires typically solve the problem. We are grateful to Matt and his guys for keeping everyone safe. Once our Saturday and Sunday drivers have gone through the tech line it’s time to hit registration inside the hotel and then join the pizza party. It is a great time for our newer drivers to get to know the instructors or just meet some new friends. I also want to thank everyone who helped with the clean-up following the Autumn Thunder party! We can’t do this without you. Finally, the main ingredient is Saturday/Sunday with as much track time as possible.
Now turn up the temperature and really cook
On Saturday morning we have 3 drivers’ meetings going on at the same time. Bill Altvater and John O'Brien are handling the advanced drivers meeting and the instructors’ meeting. Meanwhile, our drivers in groups 2, 3, and 4 (Novice through upper intermediate) are in the Cooper Tire building for their drivers’ meeting. A lot of information is presented in a short time, so attendance is critical. Ohio Valley Region purchased an additional 90 minutes of track time this weekend. This meant that the drivers were on track from 8 a.m. until 6 p.m. except for our 1-hour lunch break. This is not a small thing as the track charges a substantial fee to keep their staff on the property for the additional time. Everyone is so grateful for the additional time that they keep coming back time and time again to spend their time with our group.
By 6 p.m. I can tell you that both the staff and the drivers were worn out. After a quick dinner, it’s time to get some rest before doing it again on Sunday.
Combine all drivers into one meeting and instructors into another
Sunday morning it’s great to see everyone so happy so early in the morning, excited that Saturday was so incredible and ready to do it again. On Sunday afternoon we combine our two expanded passing groups and give them a full hour on track. We also reduce the run groups from 4 shorter sessions on track to a total of 3 sessions. This lets us extend that last session a bit longer giving the drivers a full 30 minutes for their last time on track for the weekend. Due to this, we’re seeing a record number of drivers staying until the end of the day on Sunday.
As any cook will tell you, the quality of the final product is dependent on many things, but the most important thing is to start with quality ingredients. We have that in spades, from our HPDE committee to our support staff, to our instructors, and of course our drivers. Having attended events with other regions and other groups, I have to say that from every aspect, our group is awesome.
Planning has started for 2024 and we will have our 2024 dates confirmed and posted on our website as soon as we have signed the contracts. However, our tentative dates are May 31st through June 2nd and October 4th through the 6th. Please put these dates on your calendar as soon as they’re confirmed. We do hope to open registration for June the week before Christmas, so if you need a gift, please keep us in mind.
If you’ve never done an HPDE event or if you’re a seasoned veteran, then you’ll want to keep an eye out for our Pro/Am event at the end of February or the beginning of March. We will have a pro driver coming into Cincinnati on a Saturday to do the “Pro” part of the event. Our tentative schedule will be our instructors doing a morning session with our “Ams”, and lunch with several of our vendor partners, followed by the “Pro” session. Our new drivers are welcome to stay for the second session to get a more detailed look at what our advanced drivers discuss. It will be a registered event so please look for the email blast on the first of December with all the details.
A special thank you to my wife Becky who puts up with me throughout the year. Thank you to everyone who helps put on our program and thank you to everyone who attends. I hope each of you has a great holiday season and remember, if you’re having a bad day just go to the garage and peek under the cover. As always, keep those eyes up!
