Common Colors with Common Goals
Often the simplest goals can create the greatest challenges. After 18 years of attending DE events, I was becoming frustrated with the differences between events among PCA regions. Before each weekend I would pull up the guidelines for that club’s event, taking time to flush out the differences. As most regions run their events with 5 run groups, I found that they typically all have two expanded passing groups, an upper intermediate group, an intermediate group, and a novice group. Sometimes these groups were numbered (1-5) and sometimes they were lettered (A-D, and I). The other difference and the one that we focused on was the multitude of colors used to designate those run groups.
In a discussion with all the Zone 4 HPDE teams, we found that everyone used a different color palate for their groups and no two were the same. Some of the arguments for what colors were attached to run groups were quite comical. In the end, no one at this meeting was willing to accept any changes to their programs.
This seemed like such a simple step to create continuity among the PCA events and not wanting to let this seeming simple topic go I decided it was time to forge ahead. Among the HPDE programs the strongest three groups that frequent Mid-Ohio for their programs are Northern Ohio, Mid-Ohio, and our group, Ohio Valley. If we could get these three groups on the same page with color designations then anything is possible. During the NOR (Northern Ohio Region) event at Mid-Ohio in May I was able to get an impromptu meeting with the decision-makers in each of our three regions. All three agreed that it would be in our best interest to unify our regions with both run group descriptions and colors.
The next 5 months were filled with multiple emails and phone calls to close in on our goal. The final meeting happened at Autumn Thunder and the results were agreed on via email a couple of weeks after. A special thank you to Mike Keslosky who stepped up and made the final (and impromptu) call on the last color assignment.
If you are involved regularly with HPDE events we have no hope that we can convince other regions to adopt what we have accomplished so standards will become more universal. Our expanded passing advanced run groups will fall under the white and red colors. Our upper intermediate group will be blue, and our intermediate group will now be yellow. Finally, our novice group will remain green, representing their first introduction to HPDE.
It is important to insert a disclaimer at this point. Even though each of our three regions now shares a baseline for run group designations there will still be some discrepancies when it comes to registration. The registrar for each region typically accepts a driver’s history from another region, but they do review that driver’s history to confirm that they are in the correct run group for that event. This may require some communication with the driver and with the chief instructor from that driver’s region.
Serving as our Registrar, Dennis Okin has a difficult job. He works months ahead of each event to make sure that everyone makes it through the process and is assigned to the correct run group. As other regions have had issues with drivers falsifying their driving history, he is always vigilant to make sure that those registering are who they say they are.
We have opened registration for the Jerry Wolf Spring Classic at Mid-Ohio happening the weekend after Memorial Day, May 30-June 1st. This is always a popular event with registration typically closing a couple of months before the event. To make the event even more popular we will be adding around-the-clock access to the paddock from 5 p.m. on Thursday until 7 p.m. on Sunday evening. This includes camping with a $20 fee for campers and motorhomes for the weekend. Our team is happy to answer any questions that you may have about our events, and we hope to see you at Mid-Ohio at the end of May!
Jeff Woodard
HPDE Event Chairman
