New Runoffs location poll

[andyllc]

That all sounds good. Only negative is sending people home, not good, but other than that

[M.Sauce]

Stan I am good with the "A main" idea. But I do understand about sending anyone home before the final race. Let's do 2 heat races and get the qualifying order and then "all skate" for the "A Main".What a show that would be.The Runoffs should be what the competitors want it to be not necessarily what the officials think it should be.

[M.Sauce]

Whoops I did it again!

[Scotty Segers]

You don't look like Brittney!!!

[John Robinson II]

If you made only the top 3 from each division with an alternate or two, but only 3 from each division racing period, then no one would have to go home. Make an invitation to the runoffs some thing you have to work for in every class, not just run 4 races and show up.

Mike S., are you still on the site selection committee? Will the location fo rthe next 3 years be announced at this years runoffs?

See ya next week,
John

[Stan Clayton]

John, the Club abandoned the "Top 4" criteria years ago because it threatened to torpedo the Runoffs then. Just as the original plan of holding 1 National in each division and making folks travel around the country was abandoned. What makes you think that lowering the number to 3 would somehow "strengthen" the Runoffs now?

Besides, only the top 9 classes at the Runoffs would lose any entries if we lowered the max invited to 27 (top 3 times 9 divisions). How does turning away members of the classes which most strongly support the Runoffs help strengthen the Runoffs? Come on, all the FV guys who were turned away aren't going to suddenly go buy a G-Prod car just so they can get an invite.

Stan

[John LaRue]

I had previously proposed a heat race program utilizing what I believe they refer to as moto cross scoring.

Monday: Q1
Tuesday: Q2
Wednesday: Heat 1 - grid per best qualifying
Thursday: Heat 2 - grid per finish in Heat 1 (or for the brave of heart invert grid from Heat 1)
Friday, Saturday or Sunday: Heat 3 - grid by combined points from Heat 1 & 2.

National Championship is decided by point total from all three heats. This would increase the importance of each on track session, help to avoid the championship race being won or loss on one instance of bad luck or bad weather and place more importance on racing than qualifying.

While it arguably could create more of an issue for TV, proper planning by the producer should allow them to sort out the race and the ultimate finish order. They do this on a running basis when calculating the "Race to the Chase" and other point championships. Besides, while the TV is fine, the Runoffs should be more about the racing and the membership than a tv program.

[bryancohnracing]

Having Qual Race 1 set the grid for Qual race 2 is not a good system. Here's why:

It changes the importance of the races to such that any mistake, failure, error in race one pretty much will ruin your race/event. With the process I came up with, both have equal value thus making more of the event of value (as a whole)

We use the standard NASA points system which pays points to last place plus pays points to starters and DNF's (1/2 the points of the last finisher). The only way to get "0" points it too not start or get DQ'd.

So, if you have a bad first race (say you get punted and finish poorly) you still get some points and then have a whole new shot the next day to qualify and race your way to a good starting spot. It has proven to work over the last two years extremely well. No, I won;t sell you the program we built to crunch the points and build the grid! Oh, we use fast lap from either races as the tie breaker.

I explored John's idea, even going so far as to publish Event Regs in May of 2007 that way. The drivers hated it, found all the flaws and demanded I go back to the orignal process. So we did! Its so nice to be able to make a change that the customer wants and the only check or balance is me and the boss!!! Then after making the change we got loads of email thanking us for listening and responding. When was the last time that happened to you Stan???

There are lots of things to think about when making such a bold change as this. I was fortunate to be starting with a clean slate.

[JerryH]

NOW WE'RE TALKING!!!

E3 gave lots of great reasons for moving the runoffs to the summer.

Combine that with the excellant suggestions about using heat races and we could make the runoffs even more fun - and, as E3 said - open up lots of possibilities for exposure to the rest of the world.

Let's do it!

Jerry


ps: Bre86 laid out the best arguement I have heard for moving the event around more - I can now say I support that.

[John LaRue]

Bryan,

Then lets invert the grid from heat 1! That will sort out who can race and work traffic! Look at how exciting the FC race was last year at HPT....sort of an accidentl inversion of the grid.

Actually though, so long as you are counting points from all 3 heats for the win, the points balance out. We ran that system in karting for many years and it is much more forgiving than a feature race format.

Does the NASA system count points from all heats for the overall win or is it a feature event?

John

[Cole Morgan]

Have fun working traffic at HPT John, want me to weld the bumber on your car?

[bryancohnracing]

The NASA process takes a drivers finish from Qual race 1 and finish from Qual race 2, assigning a point total to each finish (NASA standard points are 100 for 1st, 90 for second, etc) Points are then totaled from the two Qual races (ie, a 1st and a 2nd total 190 points) and the grid is set highest point holder to lowest point holder. Ties broken by the driver that turned fast lap in either Qual race.

We use a program that takes all the data and in a matter of minutes "crunches" the two Qual race finishing orders into a final grid for the Championship races.

Penalties (for things such as a PUY, a Punt or being found under weight for example) must still be handled manually, thus in a race group such as SM where the guys hit everything but the pace car it takes a while to get a final grid. Thats no different than the standard deal we all have to work through at events of this nature.

It creates a "mini series" at the event. Each of the two days of qualifying races is a brand new chance to do well. Our drivers LOVE it!

The other thing it gets us is racing on three days which allows us to better serve spectators.

Oh, and we also get three times as many standing starts! Gotta love those!

At our regional events we do all kinds of "fun" things like inversions, grids by class (to explain this imagine all the FF cars gridded together by time, follwed by all the F500 cars gridded by time and so forth). This gives the best racing by far since, at least for a while there is no mixed class racing going on. We did this at the Championships in the PT, ST, and a few other classes/races. Works great! This is not a split start format, but we do those as well.

You gotta see how we do a split start with a rolling start on the back straight and a standing on the pit straight at M-O. Oh, and we can sync them to go off within about 5 seconds of each other too boot!

Here is the best part: We (NASA) don't tell the drivers what WE are going to do, they tell us what they want to do at race group drivers meetings. Thus, if the CMC(Camaro Mustang Challenge) guys want an inverted standing start, they get it!!! No paperwork, no hoops to jump through, no politics.

Did I mention that I really love my job???

[Rick Iverson]

Someone posted a good question about weighting the responses to the poll about moving the Runoffs. And while this forum's polling feature doesn't appear to permit that, we can do it manually, so I am starting this new thread to do just that.

Here's how it works: post a thread with (up to) your top five choices in order of preference. I will give your first choice 5 points, with 4 points for your second choice and 3 for your third choice, and so on. We can edit the post any number of times to keep a running tally, with no limit to the number of tracks folks prefer.

1. Indy MotoGP circuit - 59 points
2. Mid Ohio - 54
3. Road Atlanta - 44
4. Road America - 36
5. VIR - 18
6. Watkins Glen long course - 16.5
7. Laguna Seca - 12
8. Mosport - 9.5
9. Sears Point - 8
10. California Speedway roval - 5
11. Las Vegas Motor Speedway - 4
11. St Jovite - 4
13. Summit Point - 2
13. Barber - 2
15. Heartland Park Topeka - 2

Stan

The numbers are staggering. So, what's next, petition or anarchy?

[M.Sauce]

Bryan- I think some of the concepts with NASA are good especially ones that allow the drivers to have formats that they want and to be a working part of solutions to issues.I will admit that the worse aspect of the SCCA Club Racing program is the entitlements given to officials to officiate.I also believe that SCCA could run races with less Stewards than they feel necessary.But in the end SCCA does have a rules structure and process that is safer and allows competitors to compete as equally as possible.With that comes this huge bureaucracy that is where almost all of our problems eminate from.I say cut down the bureaucracy and you will have a friendlier and more efficient club.Just my opinion.

[Bill Johnson 42]

I tried to get the heat race and inverted starts for the top 4 in each class at our double regional this summer. It was a horrible date on our calendar and I wanted something different and fun to stir up a little interest. You can't believe the number of excuses/reasons I got for not doing this from the stewards, timing and scoring and even some of the drivers. A couple of the drivers actually told me this wouldn't work because if we inverted the start, they might run into each other in turn 1. In the end I gave up because it wasn't worth the crap I had to listen to.

4 days of qualifying has to be the biggest waste of time in racing. It's funny how we put all this emphasis on qualifying but if you watch most of our races - with some exceptions of course - most of them sort out in about 5 to 10 laps anyway.

It is pretty interesting talking to Bryan about the way they do things. I think he told me their championship takes 3 or 4 days total, and they have drivers that wonder why it takes that long.

More racing is better.

[TimW]

4 days of qualifying has to be the biggest waste of time in racing.

I cannot agree more. I've spent the 60 days of May in Indianapolis on 8 occasions now and frankly even that is more productive than the runoffs, IMO. At least there there is enough running time to get work done, experiment, etc in May. The runnoffs qualifying sessions are just track chasing and limiting the amount to change so as to not risk losing the session by going too far awry.

Being a driver with no chance to win it, the time to benefit ratio is really low. With it being on a track like Topeka even the value of saying you competed at a big event on a great track is gone.

I had wavered about coming this year, but the only way I could justify the time being mid to back of the pack was to do the weekend test days, qualify on Monday then fly Southwest for $60 home to work, fly back on Thursday and save vacation days for events where perhaps I can actually spend time in the car...

Tim

[Stan Clayton]

Tim, do any of the alternative qualifying scenarios outlined above appear more attractive to you than the present paradigm? Stan

[Stan Clayton]

While watching F1 qualifying last night I got to playing around with a spreadsheet and Google Maps to try to more closely identify which track is closest to the greatest number of National drivers. I have the total number of individual drivers from each Division who entered at least one National race in 2007, so picked a representative city for each Division to calculate the mileage from. I then used google to get the mileage between that city and each track, then multiplied the distance times the number of National drivers from each Division. Drivers from within the same Division as the track in question get zero mileage credit on the presumption that distance is not a factor in their decision to attend the Runoffs if it were held at that track. I left off a number of the tracks with the lowest vote totals, as it was getting late. Enjoy!

Here are the cities and # of drivers:

Division City Nat'l Drvrs
Norpac SanF 289
SoPac LA 201
RMDiv Denver 165
SWDiv Dallas 283
MidDiv KC 248
CenDiv Chicago 324
GtLakesD Columbus 266
SEDiv Atlanta 522
NEDiv NYC 511

And here are the driver miles totals for the tracks:

IMS 2327148
HPT 2533929
Mid Ohio 2575081
VIR 2686673
R. Atl 2689652
R. Am 2741003
WGI 3077797
Daytona 3408107

The sum totals can probably be somewhat improved by choosing more representative cities for each Division, but I doubt the end results will change a great deal. Interestingly, here is less than 10% difference between 2nd and 6th.

Moreover, Heartland Park Topeka, in spite of it appearing jarringly out of place on the Census map I used earlier, is well and truly a good choice from the perspective of minimum tow distance to National drivers.

Stan

[bryancohnracing]

Props from Mike? I gotta mark this day on my calender!

I do have one question on something you mention in your post Mike that is extremely troubling to me:

Where and or how do you quanitfy that the SCCA rule structure currently in place is "SAFER" and allows them to compete in an equal enviroment.

How are the events we put on less safe or less competitive or less equally competitive than SCCA? NASA rules don't allow the black cars a 50 pound weight break, nor do we allow the blue cars to race without roll bars. Our class rule structure for the most part is much simpler than SCCA class rules (simple HP/Wght or spec classes or base class with points for performance parts).

Still looking forward to seeing everyone at the Runoffs! Mike, I got a good story to tell you when I see ya!

[Steve Demeter]

Sounds like IMS is the place.

Stan, did you consider the individual drivers who qualified for the runoffs?

I bet that would change the total miles to each track a bit.

Might move the shortest tow a bit west.