Updated 5/23/2000
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Permanent Numbers
This is sort of a deep dark secret in SFR, which maybe a lot of the
newcomers don't know about, so I thought I'd post about it. Here's the
deal: there is a "permanent number" book, which is usually but not always
somewhere near the registration table (it gets carried around in the box
with the other registration materials, or at least it used to).
Number reservations
expire at the end of the year and must be renewed each year.
If you want to reserve a number, you look it up in the book
(this can be confusing, because the last time I looked, there were two
lists in the book, one computer printed and one handwritten, and they're
not always in sync; the handwritten
numbers are official and the computer printout is an attempt
to record these) and see if anyone already
has it. If it's taken, then you figure out whether the person is still
using it; if it's someone who has switched classes, or is no longer
autocrossing, then it's yours. You may have to ask around to find out
who the person is and whether he is likely to want to keep the number.
It's all pretty informal, but it's not a bad idea to go ahead and
register a permanent number if you're going to make magnetics, if
only so that when the inevitable happens and someone shows up and
wants to run your number and the timing trailer starts complaining
about it (rightly so, duplicate numbers make things very difficult
for the card sorter), you get to keep the number, and make the other
person scramble for tape or magnetics to change to another number.
There are no restrictions on what number you may choose. However,
I recommend choosing a positive integer of three or fewer digits.
Numbers are reserved by class (so you can't have two #9 DSP, but
you can have #9 DS even if I already have 9 DSP).
As long as we're talking about choosing numbers, I'd like to repeat
something I've said before: if you want to be nice to the people in
the timing trailer and make the event run more smoothly, if you have
male and female codrivers in the same car, please consider running
different numbers. You're allowed to run 10DS and 10DSL, but in
practice, about 50% of the time the card sorter won't be able to see
the "L" and will end up guessing and often handing the wrong card to the
announcer, and sometimes the times get written on the wrong card, and
sometimes the event gets shut down for a while while everyone scrambles
to find the other card and figure out what happened. If male and female
codrivers would just run different numbers, this would never happen.
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