Finals rainout call

[mldarm]

Let me preface what I'm going to say with: It's a lot easier to criticize in hindsight than it is to make a decision in the heat of things.

I think the call to cancel day 2 was made too early. Much as truck weekend doesn't necessarily determine raceday results, the radar doesn't always determine the actual weather in Pittsburgh. I'm not sure what time it stopped raining Saturday morning, but it was long before races would have been. I was in the chute at 9 am and it was well on its way to drying naturally. If a drying process (I'm thinking something along the lines of one of those cart-type leaf blowers, not driving the course) had started at, say, 8, I think the chute would have been dry by 9:30, which would have been enough time to get in finals before it started raining again at 11. I didn't check the chute later, but other than some puddles, it looked like all the pavement on campus was dry at 10, which might have still been enough time without any drying effort.

I say this just as a fan. I have no particular rooting interest to wish for a different final ordering than prelims. Between the lack of sleep, lack of buggy, and crappy weather, I was very grumpy yesterday...

[ipmcc]

Gotta say, I agree with you. In the spirit of this year's carnival theme, I'll say that, 'When I was your age, we'd sit around having meetings in Posner every hour till at least 10:30 or 11 before we threw in the towel.'

Not that it would have helped my guys but calling it at 2am feels a bit premature. Anyone in the know care to share the thinking behind this decision?

[revo]

I always fall on the other end of the scale - towards waiting until the last minute. I passed through the chute around 10am though and at that point it was what I would call "1999 dry" (http://www.cmubuggy.org/video/1999fringeaspin).

While I was surprised that the call was made so early (and I probably would have voted for making everyone stand out in the cold/rain until the last minute on the chance that things could dry), it ended up being the correct call since we have no good way of drying the course.

[TommyK]

If I recall "'99 dry" was only dry enough to run on Sunday after 2 days of washout and no desire to postpone til the following weekend.