alternate solution

[Greg Watters]

Watching with interest guys ,
If only booked for one day what happens if its windy or wet ?? can it be rolled over to the next ?
What nearby safety /medical facilitys are there and how near?
if you go bush what is there along side the runway ?

What were you planning for speed measurement, roadworks style radar used at Mangalore couldn't pick up the bike above 200kph and if faster on a longer track i wouldn't want something like that anywhere near the track.

[Reverend Hedgash]

One simple way to do speed testing is with a GPS.

Boats have been using them as speedos for a while and they can be just as useful for us reducing error of wheel spin etc.

VBox make some which do all sorts of data logging, etc and update accurately for whatever you are doing.

Otherwise the yanks have been mucking around with domestic GPS to what seems some success. Check out this thread for some ideas and examples:

http://www.landracing.com/forum/index.p ... 513.0.html

We don't all need to buy one, they can be dropped in and out of cars as required. Maybe we drop in a few bucks each and get a couple of club GPS?

reverend hedgash
As for speedweek cancellation:
"Fall seven times, stand up eight." Japanese Proverb

[PJQ2]

The trailer mounted thing at Mangalore only worked when the vehicle was within a metre or two. Bit of a worry, doing a run aiming for a box trailer on the track.

Damn, my head was getting used to the idea of staying home working on stuff, since I've got the time off work. Now Mal says he'll take the Vincent out for a putt. Nothing quite like the sight of a Vincent in full flight. A true thing of beauty to watch. Plan C is brewing, I'm tempted.

[off tap racing]

plucka, can you still borrow a radar gun from your place of employment, as that would be the most accurate way of getting a maximum speed over the distance,

[nevco1112]

fellas i have already tried to get a test at woomera also edinbourgh airforce base for a run on the airstrip and a salt lake called lochiel 200 ks from adelaide. on each case insurance was the major issue and worksafe practices wont allow it either. trying to test my sr500 yam it seems bloody impossible to test any thing. i live in kadina on yorke peninsular and i have had to test on public roads on deserted roads. it has taken me a year just to perfect the engine let alone high speed tests. i know everyone is in the same boat but as isee it this is an international event and i think it has to have plans b and c as back up. i wonder what the internationals think? nev

[REAL Stan]

Nev the internationals Keith turk & tonya were here for the wash out last
year, Hauled their from the states.And i think their words were ,Thats raceing, it happens at home (USA) too.
They were also disapointed.
Maybe we can get a gypsie for plan B & a crystal ball for plan C & put them before plan A

[Cookey]

'On Ya Stan,
And in addition to your comments!!
The founding members of the DLRA spent several years searching and researching venues for speed trials and worked extremely hard to achieve what we now have at Lake Gairdner.
The club has put in place all of the necessary protocols etc in order to conduct legitimate speed trials at this venue and have since 1990 held meetings at various times of the year with early March being found to be most suitable time of the year to race.
Unless I am mistaken no one can predict or control Mother Nature.
I for one would like all of those who post negative comments about the DLRA's organizing of and the timing of, and the cancellation of the scheduled meet in March please have the common decency to advise if:
1. You have raced at the lake before.
2. You have seen the amount of work that goes into setting up and packing up the race track.
3. You have in fact helped with this work and attended the DLRA working bees.
4. Do you run or plan to run a bike or purpose built race bike or car.

Its so easy to sit at your keyboard and punch out comments about what you think should be done in order to satisfy your own personal goals and egos, but not so easy to pitch in and help with the back ground work that is necessary in order to run Speedweek each year.

[jrbcastle]

your right Cookey they love to sling shit last year they complained that they were told to late it was cancelled now there ( members? ) saying why cancel it so soon proberly the same people that have 10 min showers ,leave there rubbish behind and won't get of there ass and help at the lake.Last year some idiot was calling for Rod's head on the forum can't rember who he was Rod's good but his not God though! he can't control the weather yet.This is the problem with forum's big words but there got there chance to speak up at 1/4 year meetings or speedweek general meeting but there balls seem to shirnk!

[Dr Goggles]

Its so easy to sit at your keyboard and punch out comments about what you think should be done in order to satisfy your own personal goals and egos, but not so easy to pitch in and help with the back ground work that is necessary in order to run Speedweek each year.

your right Cookey they love to sling shit last year they complained that they were told to late it was cancelled now there ( members? ) saying why cancel it so soon proberly the same people that have 10 min showers ,leave there rubbish behind and won't get of there ass and help at the lake.Last year some idiot was calling for Rod's head on the forum can't rember who he was Rod's good but his not God though! he can't control the weather yet.This is the problem with forum's big words but there got there chance to speak up at 1/4 year meetings or speedweek general meeting but there balls seem to shirnk!

Guys, I'm not quite sure who you are talking about . A useful piece of advice would be the adage that when the going gets tough the tough get going. After this our second cancellation in a row there is no place for back-biting . We as a club need to ensure the long term viability of the race meet. At the moment little is understood about the natural mechanisms that affect the lake surface and there are many in the club who believe that we could increase the chances of successful meets by looking further into these factors.

There is a huge number of clever and resourceful people involved in this club , they should be allowed to contribute and this website is the best method of exchanging ideas in an open forum.Open discussion is the only way the club can progress , Speedweek has been great , maybe it can get better. This year for example there has been very little rain on the lake and at christmas time the surface was excellent by all accounts , if we had more experience in the lake's cycles we might even be confident that it would be hard again by early March, but , we don't know.Maybe we can improve that bank of knowledge.

There was criticism of the organisation of the meet in 2006 , most of it was on the landracing.com forum by people who are used to running at Bonneville . I can proudly put up my hand as one of the recipients of some of that slagging because i was the guy who came up with the slat board idea.Now you might think I'm a complete dickhead for that one , but at least it ended certain behaviour at the starting line that had created a bit of agro in 2005...we move on. Bonneville has in turn been the victim of exactly the same criticisms lately . That tells us that maybe we could run better but ultimately until people understand that the meets are organised and run by volunteers there will always be someone who doesn't think they have got their money's worth.

None of this diminishes the work done by those in the past to establish Speedweek in the first place. They did a tremendous amount and it is easy to imagine that this is forgotten by people who are just expecting to "get their money's worth" and aren't terribly interested in volunteering their time to assist in set-up or tear down.There are also others who have put an enormous amount into the history who are no longer involved and somehow feel bitter about their input or their own impact on the club and Speedweek. Above all it is a club , owned by the members and the more racing it does at better meets ....the better.

There has been no criticism of the volunteers on this forum , and I'm struggling to remember someone calling for Rod's head. I am under no illusions as to how much effort it takes to set-up the meet and the organising that it takes , Carol Hadfield in particular spends a huge amount of time just speaking to members and fielding enquiries, all year.

As i have already said elswhere I'm glad I didn't have to tell people about the cancellation like Rob Carroll did , or even have to relay the message about the condition of the lake to him as Cookey and co did.

If any of the comments I have posted have been deemed to be negative then ,
For the record :
No I haven't run down the track yet, I've been involved with others who have.
Yes I have helped with set-up.
Yes I have done other work outside the meet to help the club .
No I haven't been to a working bee , I live in Melbourne and it costs me the last part of my savings each year to get to the lake.
Reverend Hedgash and I have spent the last four and a half years and enough money to have bought each of us a new car building our bellytank that can be used for nothing else other than the salt , and that money I have spent is , seriously ,everything I had.

If you're unhappy with someone JRBcastle it might be better if you were a little more specific because I'd say there's a few people out there wondering who you're talking about ,but for now I gather I'm one of them.

James Stewart
DLRA #374

[hawkwind racing]

Dr G I believe the angst is against a newby post by nevco 1112 for suggesting the DLRA should have alternate backup plans for cancelations
I personaly read no bitching or malice in that post and for the record I agree with his statements 100% thats why I started this thread ,that said lets move on .

the situation in the USA is totally different than here in Australia ,the USA has one salt lake , on that lake they have 4 weekly meets sceduled per year , speed week , Bubs , world of speed & world finals , if any are canceled there are alternate meets available ,but not only alternate dates ,alternate venues as well ,el mirage at least 6 meets per year , maxton another 6 , Texas mile another 4 and for the wealthy the choice of private meets , what do we have , at least 12 possible salt lakes to race on ,has anyone checked out all the alternatives ??? ,if it turns out that Gairdner is the only suitabl e one ,then we need to invistigate alternate dates throughout the year so if the lake is not raceable in march we move to the next date and we need to look for alternate venues ,wether they be in other states on natral or man made surfaces , the yanks have their LSR sorted and no one misses out on a chance to race at least one time per year , should we expect any less , also as the doc stated we need to look at how Gairdner lives and breaths and work in with its cycles .
no one that im aware of is putting shit on the founding fathers or their decisions or for that matter all the hard working volunteers ,we all want to race at least yearly ,so there is no shame in working smart and exploring alternatives .
for the record I volunteer a lot of my time to the DLRA , Im a racer and have spent my life savings in building 2 special construction motorcycles ,that sadly are only raceable at lake G , I dont have other toys to play elsewhere , Im a patient person ,but its time to take further steps to ensure at least one race per year ,regardless of what mother nature throws at us
cheers
Gary

[Greg Watters]

Don't forget that many of those involved in the decision making are missing out on racing too and would be feeling as dissapointed as anyone else , probably more so considering the amount of work that goes into organising this sort of event.


Back on the original topic, what are the chances the water problem is localised and another part of the lake may be ok ?
Is ours the only acess point to the lake ?
is there any other area ok with parks and wildlife ?

[David Leikvold]

Every post I've ever made on this forum has been well intended, either to get answers to my own questions or to perhaps provide some technical assistance to other members or sometimes just for a bit of a laugh (and with the exception of Gordon D, never at anyone's expense). I've been on committees and I've managed junior soccer teams for many years, I know how hard and thankless these things can be, I will never denigrate anyone's voluntary efforts for this club. If I lived in Melbourne or Castlemaine I'd be able to be more involved in helping to run the club but I don't. The best I can do is what I do now.
My keen interest in the "Salt Question" thread is so that hopefully we can, as a group, learn how underground water movement changes the moisture content of the salt and if it can be predicted. If this is possible we might eventually be able to accurately predict when the lake will be hard. That would give us the option of having back up dates in place so that we could race every year, plus or minus a few weeks. This would give our US visitors confidence that they weren't wasting their money and eventually it might even mean being able to use the lake more often, even if it was only for test and tune long weekends perhaps. With pay on the day entry fees, only a short course scraped and witches hats placed by GPS to mark the track and no timing gear (just onboard GPS) and no running for records and no canteen it wouldn't be too hard surely.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to use a fast race car more than once a year. When I was kart racing I could race at 48 meetings a year without travelling more than an hour from home. That was too many for most people but at least we had the opportunity and it wasn't the end of the world if we missed one.
Now Rev H, does my title mean "knowledge is power" or have I just proved once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?

[DON NOBLE]

WE in Queensland have been searching around for a a few months now , for alternative venues . Have a list of all runways in Australia , even those on private properties . We have one promising prospect about 4 hrs from Brisbane , but its still early days on that . But its only 1 mile long , well at least good enough for a short blast . Theres another abandoned world war 2 airstrip 1 1/2 miles long that i still have to check out ( 200 km from Brissy ). At least with the google earth you can locate all these places and measure how long they are .

I have been GOOGLING ( think its a legal word ) Earth . Seems to be some more prospective short courses out there in northern NSW and Sth Western Qld . So instead of driving to Lake Gairdner this year , I intend visiting some of the prospective sites .
Most country runways seem to be around a mile long with the odd one or so being a bit longer . Also theres some big long straight sections of public road out there , some up to 50 km . I know 1 mile is not long enough for most vehicles to get up to max speed and then slow down , but they dont have that in the USA , apart from Bonneville ( and it gets a bit wet too , I went to an abandoned wet event there , that was a real big BUGGA).

[Reverend Hedgash]

I have just listened to Rudd's speech and so on this day of reconciliation between the originators of the journey to the lake and the newbies, I would like to write the following:

I aknowledge the founding fathers of the club, and say that their original investigations by the club and the efforts thence-since have been fantastic and to be congratulated.

It is a simple fact that with a growing membership base the method of running will have to become more efficient to maintain enjoyment and fairness for everyone and the club is definately making steps towards this which is great.

I agree with writings the above that there is nothing wrong with the idea of back up plans, be it alternate location or alternate dates for when Lake G isn't compliant. It is simply good management.

I was taught for a plan to be considered good it must be able to work in the first place (without reliance on luck or divine intervention) and it must be flexible.

Yes there is a great effort involved in setting up Speedweek but this does not mean we cannot spend that energy somewhere else if Lake G is unavailable and somewhere else is. Please note I am not advocating the search for a permanent relocation as of course doesn't solve the issue of mother nature's fickle nature, merely the investigation of a back up.

scientia est potentia
Now Rev H, does my title mean "knowledge is power" or have I just proved once again that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?

This can be translated as knowledge is power, but perhaps more relevantly knowledge is authority.

I agree David that this is exactly the vibe of this thread (and Mabo) and that we need better information for us as a group to make better informed decisions, ones that the membership can be better united by as their basis is better known.

If any of my previous threads have offended anybody I say sorry.

Now let's work together for a better landspeed nation.

The most reverend "H" gash
minister of salt racing

[DLRA]

It's getting hard to keep track of the all the treads going on at the moment, but I'm I'm here now. so this will do.
Firstly, some of you blokes need to just slow down a bit. Have a good think about what your going to put on here for the whole world to see. And Ben I think it's time to put your wizzer away (You made me laugh out loud in the office, everyone turned around and looked at me as if to say what the F$%k is he laughing at, if only they knew!)

This is where I put my Knowledge Managers hat on, bear with me.
What is knowledge?
Knowledge can be considered as the distillation of information that has been collected, classified, organized, integrated, abstracted and value added. Knowledge is at a level of abstraction higher than the data, and information on which it is based and can be used to deduce new information and new knowledge.
Knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, learning, communication, association, and reasoning. The term knowledge is also used to mean the confident understanding of a subject, potentially with the ability to use it for a specific purpose.
The classical definition, found in Plato, has it that in order for there to be knowledge at least three criteria must be fulfilled; that in order to count as knowledge, a statement must be justified, true, and believed.
Here endith the lesson

There's been a shit load of questions asked in the last couple of days but no one seems to be actively looking for the facts apart from Dr. Goggles and Scooter.

Why Lake Gairdner?
Why March?
Why do we only have one meeting a year?
When is it the driest?
When is it the wetest?
When is it the hotest?
When is it the windiest?
Where is the water coming from?
Why is the salt so soft?
How can the salt be hard and still have water on the surface?

There are answers to all these questions and we need to document them, especially for the new guys.

Hawk you mentioned in that there are 14 lakes in Australia that need to be investigated, well here's a start http://www.dlra.org.au/ref-salt-lakes.htm. This is only a desktop review, but it very quickly becomes apparent why Gairdner was chosen. (And you can be assured that all this information wasn't avaiable back in 1985 when the first parties set out to find a venue) I've only just started work on this page and fully intend providing more, if anyone has information they can provide I would be very interested in seeing it.

From the quick look I've had, for the WA guys Lake Froome really looks like it has potential. There was some Land Sailing titles held there in 2006. But someone needs to determine if the surface is thick enough, strong enough to support a car.

Lastly Trev has just sent over some more photos from last weekend, they give a very good indication of what the conditions were like.
http://www.dlra.org.au/2008.htm

Remember;
By finding out this information and sharing it we ALL become stronger.