ORIGINAL: Tbatt

Just to be clear about our starts. We allow a MAXIMUM of three minutes before the 30 second countdown starts. Typically we start the countdown clock in less than a minute.

Here is how it goes:
We ask if everyone is ready.
We start the 3 minute timer.
Everyone starts their engines, tweeks the needles and take off in an relaxed manner.
When each pilot is ready they tell their caller and he raises his hand.
When we see four hands up we start the 30 second clock.

Typical time from start of the three minute timer to race start is around 90 seconds. The MAXIMUM time would be 3:30. This rarely ever happens. Blown glow plugs and flooded engines are the problems most of the time.

As Ken said, we will have a ready line setup so the next set of planes, pilots and callers will be in place. I would like to have two sets of ready lines so that we do not have any delays. I'm thinking a Ready Line and a Staging line.. If we can keep the racing going smoothly we should be able to keep with the ten lap heats and five rounds at least.

We need to plan for crash cleanup (not that that would ever happen), pylon repair, and landing retrieval. All of these things delay the racing.