Track Night in America Driven by Tire Rack

COVID-19 Guidelines

Updated: 7/16/2020

Table of Contents:

• Our Approach
• Pre-Event Messaging
• Setup
• Check-in
• Drivers Meetings
• Enforcement
• Atmosphere

Our Approach

Our primary goal is to do everything we can to minimize the risk to our drivers and to our staff during the global COVID-19 pandemic. We believe in taking a proactive, comprehensive approach that includes pre-event communications with drivers and on-site guidance and enforcement.

Track Night has always asked its drivers to work together on-track, to make smart choices, and take care of one another. Now we are asking the same of them in the paddock when it comes to COVID-19.

Track Night in America Driven by Tire Rack and SCCA as a whole has the opportunity to set the industry standard for how to provide a great and safe event experience in a COVID-19 world.

To that end, all staff and participants should wear a face covering when not in their own vehicle or in their own personal parking space and are encouraged to wash hands and/or use hand sanitizer frequently. We will take stringent measures to limit the spread of germs by minimizing contact points during check-in and hold drivers meetings in large, preferably outdoor spaces, as well as increase the number of meetings to lower meeting size.

Pre-Event Messaging to Participants

All drivers are receiving additional information about COVID-19 procedures included in their usual pre-event communications from Jack Track. Below is a copy of what has been sent as of 7/16/2020. This will most likely be edited over time to adapt to program and environmental changes.

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Hello Everyone!

We are super excited to be getting Track Night in America Driven by Tire Rack back on track with you at Atlanta Motorsports Park. We will be doing everything we can to ensure we are being as safe and as socially distanced as possible.

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Ultimately, it is your responsibility to assess the risk to you, both on-track and off, and to make the decision on whether to participate, but it is all of our responsibility to ensure that we hold this event in a manner that allows everyone who attends to feel comfortable on and off the track.

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With that, here are some things you can do to ensure we have a successful event:

1. Take the “same team” approach -if you have been to a Track Night in the past, you have likely heard us talk about Track Night participants being on the “same team,” – which means we are all here to enjoy motorsports. We will be most successful if we work together to make sure everyone has a chance to do so. COVID-19 does not change this mentality. It is now more important than ever. We understand that not everyone may be concerned about the risk; we understand that some may not feel they need to wear a mask, however, we ask that you be mindful that your fellow track mates may have differing opinions. Please help us to maximize everyone’s comfort by wearing a mask any time you are out of your car or personal parking spot (more on this in point 5).

2. Bring what you need -typically, we bring things like water and pens, and we often see folks borrowing tools and such in the paddock. Please do not count on this at this event. Bring your own pen to sign the waiver and your own water as we will not be providing water or have a cooler on hand for everyone's use.

3. Help us to reduce contact -under normal circumstances, Track Night is a great time to bring friends and family to the track. For this one, however, we would ask that you do what you can to help us reduce the headcount on the property during the event. No spectators, please.

4. Assess yourself -if you are not feeling well or are experiencing any symptoms such as fever, cough, or shortness of breath, please stay home. If you have been in contact with someone who has been experiencing these symptoms in the last two weeks, please stay home. Our typical cancellation policy will not apply to this event if this applies to you. If you or anyone you have been in contact with are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, please contact Jack Track (jack@tracknightinamerica.com).

5. Take this seriously (for everyone else) -while on-site please take the health and safety of your fellow participants, volunteers, and staff into consideration and practice social distancing, wear a mask, and wash your hands, and/or use hand sanitizer frequently. All attendees and staff will be required to wear a face-covering (mask, bandana, balaclava, etc.) any time they are outside of their own vehicle or personal parking spot. To maximize your comfort during the event, we request that you please bring your own face covering. If you have your own hand sanitizer, please bring it as well and use it frequently.

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Setup

Staff Sanitization

Upon arrival, staff should first sanitize their hands before touching any of the Track Night supplies. They should avoid touching their faces and frequently re-sanitize their hands, especially before giving participants a mask, pen, packet, etc.

Setup areas with Social Distancing in Mind

Plan to have drivers meetings outdoors in a large, open space. If indoors, make sure that it’s a large enough space to accommodate social distancing space between participants. Avoid creating any congregation areas indoors or in tight spaces.

Open Early

Plan to open gates and check-in early, especially with larger events. Talk with Jenny about when the track will allow us to open. This info will be included in pre-event communications to drivers.

Check-in Setup

Staff

Having two people man check-in, especially for larger events, is highly recommended. One person can manage the check-in system, and the other can be a traffic manager and hand sanitizer dispenser. People tend to want to clump up at the check-in area, so having someone who can help spread everyone out and ensure that everyone is using hand sanitizer is extremely effective.

To minimize transmission, have one person assigned to the task of checking people into the system. It will lower the number of hands on the laptop or iPad.

Setup

Have hand sanitizer easily accessible on either end of the check-in area. It is also helpful to have another bottle in pit lane where staff congregates, and in any other high traffic areas. Have masks readily available for anyone who walks up without one. Hand sanitizer in a spray bottle is particularly useful as it's easy to have someone spray participants' hands as they walk up.

Pre-stuff the packets with wristbands based on group sizes and have them set up to either be handed out by a recently sanitized staff member, or available for drivers to pick up after they have used hand sanitizer.

Use tables to create an area of distance between the participant and the person working the system. Two tables set side by side lengthwise works well as does the layout pictured above. If you leave a gap between tables, be prepared for participants who may try to enter the gap.

Minimize Contact

At no point should we manually take things from drivers. If we must hand something to a driver, sanitize your hands first.

Driver’s Licenses

To check a participant's driver’s license, have them hold it up for a visual inspection.

Tech Sheets

Use a box or bin to collect tech sheets without having to physically handle them. Make sure the driver presents it to be visually checked first so that we can confirm that everything is correctly filled out and that it is signed. They can then pull a sticker for themselves. You can either lay them out on the table using upside-down painters tape or use the back of a paddock sign, as demonstrated here, for people to pull their own.

Helmet Checks & Stickers

If a driver does not already have a 2016-2020 Track Night helmet sticker on their helmet, have them search within the helmet’s padding to find the certification sticker then show you, so that you can do a visual check. You may need a flashlight to get a good look at it. Stickers can be given out in the same manner as tech stickers.

Pens

Once it’s used, sanitize it before putting it back out. Use two small boxes or cups to organize and separate sanitized pens from clean ones. If you have enough, you can let them keep them after they use them.

Check-in Process

• Start and End with Hand Sanitizer
  • It is extremely helpful to have someone spray/pour/squirt hand sanitizer directly into their hands before they get up to the waiver
• Sign Waiver
• System check-in and visual driver’s license check
• Packet (Remind them to put on their wristband)
• Helmet Check if needed
• Tech Sheet in the collection area

Drivers Meetings

Hold multiple meetings earlier in the afternoon to allow for smaller groups to attend them. We have used various schedules: 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00; 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, etc. The larger the event, the more meeting options should be available. Ideally, there should be no more than 25 per meeting.

Advanced and Intermediate drivers only need to attend one of these meetings. Novices should attend their usual Novice Meetings. If you have a particularly large Novice group, it may be helpful to split the group in two and have two Novice Coaches. The larger the event, the more meeting options there should be.

Coordinate with Jenny and Courtney about your desired meeting times so that we can appropriately communicate that to our drivers and update the event page with the schedule.

Allow for people to spread out more by having a booming voice, using a PA, or voice amplifier. Let us know if you need one of these things. Prepare to get no feedback from drivers from smiles. Ask them to let you know with a thumb’s up when they are in agreement with you.

Add to usual Drivers Meetings notes for all drivers a request for them to wear their masks and wash hands/use hand sanitizer frequently. You can use a few different tacks to encourage mask-wearing. Use the one(s) that you think works best with your audience.

• Take care of/respect each other in the paddock just like you do on the track - wear masks.
• We get to be leaders in the motorsports space. Set the leading example.
• Helmets - We wear them even though we don’t expect to crash. It is a normal thing that we do. We don’t expect to get sick or spread germs to others, but we’ll wear a mask anyway just in case.

You’ll also want to normalize that sometimes people forget to put their masks on to help destress enforcement of mask-wearing later.

Enforcement

No matter how great the pre-event messaging and drivers meeting messaging is about wearing masks, as people get comfortable in the paddock, they will naturally and usually accidentally revert to not wearing masks. It is EXTREMELY important that we keep an eye on this. During the event stay aware of how well people are doing with mask-wearing. If you start to notice slipping, make a friendly PA announcement about wearing masks.

The key element to getting drivers to buy-in to mask-wearing is for the staff to be unreproachable about wearing masks. If the staff sets a good example and a high standard, the drivers will follow along.

Atmosphere

Maintaining a welcoming, fun, and “normal” Track Night vibe is a bit different in the COVID-19 world. With hats, masks, and sunglasses on, we suddenly look like emotionless stormtroopers, so it is really important to pay attention to how you and your staff are interacting with participants. Here are some tips to make things easy on you and fun for participants.

• Take off your sunglasses when chatting with drivers, giving meetings, or talking to anyone on pit lane.
• Use lots of positive gestures and body language. Thumbs up, waves, etc.
• Speak with a positive and upbeat tone of voice.