Question about race groupings

[RSTPerformance]

wow, this is an imature thread that keeps going in circles by everyone... personaly I have a problem with every driver other than AS drivers and ITB drivers

To keep on original topic....

First, I have absolutely nothing against miatas, but I do think that SM and SSM should be classed together. The group will be oversubscribed but that is ok. Those in the top 5 points should get an "auto entry" and those who do not qualify should run a constilation race with the ITA/ITC group.

some problems solved (such as similar cars running with each other) but not all. Honestly though to me it makes the most sence, and it pisses everyone off not just some off !!!

1) The SM's and SSM's who "need the most improvement" will still be with ITC
2) No double dipping (how does that term work?) in SM and SSM

Raymond "lets stop the , its old and the points have been made" Blethen

[Dave Zaslow]

All,

This really is an important discussion as it directly affects the enjoyment of our hobby and the satisfaction we get from it.

As always there are a number of points from all sides:

Slicks with Slicks, DOT with DOT;

Lap time & speed from cornering or horsepower;

Classes with a few cars in a group with a much larger count.

SRF doesn't like prod.

No one likes racing with SM/SSM

It will never be perfect unless there is extreme consolidation or restricted regionals.

As for increasing the entry fee to national levels if we kick someone out of the sandbox, that would be an extra $25-$70 based on this year's fees. The question, to some extent, is how much income does a region need as a non-profit service organization? If the quality of the experience diminishes, so will the car counts.

Another issue is the car counts for the NARRC-offs. It is just a different animal than the rest of the year.

I've looked at the fields from this year's races and the various groupings and have this to suggest. The bold type are changes from Andy's second grouping.

G1: FA, FF, FC, CFC, FSCCA, SRSCCA, DSR, CSR, FM, S2000, F1000

G2: FV, F500, CF, NCF

G3: ITR, ITA, EP, FP, GP, HP

G4: SM, SSB, SSC

G5: GT1, GT2, GT3, T1, T2, AS, SPO, ITE, BP, DP (CGT1, CGT2, CGT3)

G6: SRF, GTL, SPU, Legends

G7: SSM, T3, T4

G8: ITS, ITB, ITC

Remember this just our IT-centric view of the world.

Dave Z

[Andy Bettencourt]

All,

G1: FA, FF, FC, CFC, FSCCA, SRSCCA, DSR, CSR, FM, S2000, F1000
G2: FV, F500, CF, NCF
G3: ITR, ITA, EP, FP, GP, HP
G4: SM, SSB, SSC
G5: GT1, GT2, GT3, T1, T2, AS, SPO, ITE, BP, DP (CGT1, CGT2, CGT3)
G6: SRF, GTL, SPU, Legends
G7: SSM, T3, T4
G8: ITS, ITB, ITC

Remember this just our IT-centric view of the world.

Dave Z [/b]

Amazingly, many people from other classes follow this Board. I have been contacted by a few with tweaks to my suggestion. Bottom line? Nobody is going to be 100% happy. I will submit my ideas to the NARRC committee via e-mail.

Dave - your G3 looks fine in concept except that you added a class to an already oversubscribed group.

[Dave Zaslow]

Andy,

Besides the NARRC-offs, and with #'s taken from the NESCCA online registration site for all NHIS and LRP regionals, the highest I come up with is 37 cars if GTL runs with SRF.

I also realize that we have no provision for the Historic Race Group.

Dave Z

[Andy Bettencourt]

Andy,

Besides the NARRC-offs, and with #'s taken from the NESCCA online registration site for all NHIS and LRP regionals, the highest I come up with is 37 cars if GTL runs with SRF.

I also realize that we have no provision for the Historic Race Group.

Dave Z [/b]

I was talking about G3...ITR, ITA, and Prod...

[Andy Bettencourt]

In talking with other people in other classes, I think I will pull my suggestion. There seems to be more value to keeping some of these groups together so the drivers can get comfortable with each other than there is in swapping them around all the time resulting in new learning curves etc. It will never be perfect so we must adapt - and the current situation could be as good as it gets for the majority...and that I think is the goal.

[StephF]

In talking with other people in other classes, I think I will pull my suggestion. There seems to be more value to keeping some of these groups together so the drivers can get comfortable with each other than there is in swapping them around all the time resulting in new learning curves etc. It will never be perfect so we must adapt - and the current situation could be as good as it gets for the majority...and that I think is the goal.
[/b]

So what happened in the hour between posts to change your thought on this Andy?
You mentioned input from other classes. What are you hearing from them?
And I disagree with the last 3 sentences. We got to where we are in groupings because we keep evolving. That doesn't mean we stop dead and say, "OK, that's it." and stop changing for the better. (That also doesn't mean that I am advocating a wholesale changing of the groupings either.)
Seriously (and all of this has been typed in a conversational tone) what did you hear from the others to make you say this?

[Doc Bro]

Just out of curiosity. Have we ever run SM with SSM? Not way back in days of yore when there were few, but more recently with higher car counts. How did it go? Did the sky fall?

R

[ner88]

Just a couple of thoughts:
1. Andy's numbers from last year, ITA has an average of 3-4 Miatas running regularly, remove them and it would be the 4th most populated class.
2. Combine SSM and SM, I think you will see more Miatas in ITS and ITA.
3. I for one like running with SM, sorry Dave!

[Andy Bettencourt]

Steph,

I am hearing from Prod guys, IT guys, SM guys, SSM guys...What makes sense to me the most is that the groupings are pretty much ok, it's that drivers want a chance to get to know other drivers, their cars stregths and weeknesses, and their driving tendancies. What has impressed on me the most is that I am hearing not from opinionated loud mouths like me, but by normally quiet people whom opinions I respect!

Nobody wants to run with SM/SSM or SRF...especially SRF...and these classes are big enough so they have to be the 'lead class' in a run group.

I think we 'evolve' due to car counts and we make our best groupings based on those in a 'best case' scenario. We are all for making things better - but my thought process is evolving - 'better' may actually be the evolution of the drivers, not the classes.

[Ed Funk]

Andy et al,

If as someone implied the reason for 8 groups was to fit into a one day event at LRP, and if my memmory is correct and there are 2 one day events at LRP, why don't we have two restricted regionals. After the school early in the season have a speacial one day for open wheel etc, and on 4 July have a speacial one day for closed wheel. Or vise versa. I know the regions running those events may not be happy because of decreased $, so increase registration fee for the increased track time.

The rest of the season we could run 9 groups which should be easier to schedule and should make more people happy.

If we need something to make those one days more speacial, I could dance naked at Start/Finish at lunch! I'll try to continue mixing my serious comments with a little humor to keep you all entertained, you'll just have to decide which are serious and which are not!

[StephenB]

I got some feedback about split starts and agree that at LRP and NH it's not a good idea since we simply have to many cars. HOWEVER someone also PM me on another awesome idea!

SPLITGRIDS! I would be in favor of starting all ITB cars at the back of the ITS grid. This would allow us to PASS the slower cars and never catch the cars we run equal times with. It would also allow us to all have a fair chance at being close to the lead car form the start not trying to make up 10+ seconds on the first lap.

How do we go about them? is it something that can be part of the supps or do we need to lobby for it every weekend?

[gran racing]

If we need something to make those one days more speacial, I could dance naked at Start/Finish at lunch! [/b]

Now would that be before or after your viagra dosage?



A split grid would be interesting, and I'd be in favor of giving it a try. The more traffic the better IMO!

[dpc]

After reading all five pages I think the dead horse is tired of getting up and down. dave

[StephF]

Steph,

I am hearing from Prod guys, IT guys, SM guys, SSM guys...What makes sense to me the most is that the groupings are pretty much ok, it's that drivers want a chance to get to know other drivers, their cars stregths and weeknesses, and their driving tendancies. What has impressed on me the most is that I am hearing not from opinionated loud mouths like me, but by normally quiet people whom opinions I respect!

Nobody wants to run with SM/SSM or SRF...especially SRF...and these classes are big enough so they have to be the 'lead class' in a run group.

I think we 'evolve' due to car counts and we make our best groupings based on those in a 'best case' scenario. We are all for making things better - but my thought process is evolving - 'better' may actually be the evolution of the drivers, not the classes.
[/b]

I agree on evolution of the drivers, but how do we accomplish that?

Threatening everyone at driver's meetings hasn't worked.
Training new drivers better would be admirable, but doesn't address the people out there with bad habits.
Protesting (at least from my experience it) doesn't always work very well.
Confronting another driver in the paddock is not the best thing to do.

So how do we address issues among our groups? I've heard so many different ideas on how it should be done, and nothing seems to work well. One person says take care of it yourself in the paddock. Another says write paper. Another says get back at him when you are on track again (which is a really BAD idea). There isn't one clear way to effectively deal with this.

Does each class have a 'class rep' who is the go-to man/woman for the group? Complaints are addressed to them and they talk directly to the offending party? While the peer pressure concept may provide results in cleaning up problem areas among us, it seems like an awful lot to ask of anyone. But not doing anything to stop it is leading to some hard feelings, and on track incidents. And that goes across the entire race group spectrum, not just us.

When you said "no one wants to run with SM/SSM" are you speaking generically, or is that something people are saying to you? If so why? Too large a group? Too competitive? Some other reason?

I&#39;d think you guys would be tickled pink to have your own run group. <_<

Which is why I still support being able to move classes into another race group if the majority of the class is having problems with the grouping. Because I don&#39;t see a magic solution to evolution among the drivers.

And a split grid? I guess that could be one potential solution. And I do like Ed&#39;s idea, the one about the retricted regionals (not the dancing naked one...I&#39;ve seen him dance before )

[Ed Funk]

I&#39;m glad it was the dancing part and not the naked part that disturbed you! For any who haven&#39;t seen me dance, I make Elaine (Seinfeld) look like Ginger Rogers! For any who haven&#39;t seen me naked, your God has blessed you!

[Andy Bettencourt]

Evolution of the drivers comes with time. Time to learn the following (and more):

Who knows you are there
Who has no clue you are there
Who doesn&#39;t care you are there
Who will err on the side of caution
Who will make you earn every inch

We need the drivers meeting talks, we need the face to faces, and we need the protests. We need it all in moderation when it is the right thing to do. Each and every one of us has different levels of toleration before they &#39;do&#39; one of the above actions in response to poor driving.

WRT SSM, it is a theme throughout the spec classes. SRF, SM, SSM...anywhere there is close racing because of equal cars, passing and traffic are tough. If you put 20 ITC Honda&#39;s out there all prepared the same, you would see the same thing...nobody would want to be &#39;inside&#39; that hornets nest.

I am going to see how the 2006 run groups work out in 2007 and then look at it again. Maybe there will be enough stink from other groups to make a change - I doubt it.

[dickita15]

Classes over 10 cars, average cars per class, starters only Narrc races LRP and NHIS

SM 24.8
ITA 20.75
SRF 20
SSM 19.8
ITS 17.65
ITB 14.4
FV 11.4

[Eric Parham]

I may choose my class for next year based on the groupings, so I don&#39;t feel like I have as much at stake here as others. I like Andy, but I don&#39;t believe that he has the requisite impartiality (Miata rentals, etc., please correct me if I&#39;m wrong) to make the decision for IT drivers as a group to "do nothing" about the current NARRC groupings for another year.

I do agree that the particular problems that happened to crop up at the NARRC-offs were partially caused by some SSM drivers who either didn&#39;t know or didn&#39;t care about the ITC race going on around them, while most of the SSM drivers were courteous track companions (to their own benefit too, since they probably made better time by letting us pass than they would have by holding us back).

I can&#39;t imagine asking anyone (even an SSM straggler) not to run their own race. I have to wonder what 76 SSM thought when there were three (3) ITC cars breathing on her bumper. Unlike the usual situation, she didn&#39;t even have a battle of her own (I believe that the rest of her field was either much faster or well behind her). I think she would have been a big factor in the outcome of our race even if 01 SSM hadn&#39;t been in over his head and taken out 2 of the top 3 cars in our class, but isn&#39;t that okay? She must have lost some time trying to hold us back, but maybe she thought she&#39;d lose more if she let us get by too easily. Although I don&#39;t quite understand why she didn&#39;t let the others by once one got through, I really can&#39;t blame her for that. Perhaps Ed made a mistake when he let her pass too easily with faster traffic earlier in the race. The only really culpable driver seems to have been 01 SSM. Was paper filed?

What to do? As I&#39;ve implied before, if I were the NARRC god I&#39;d put SM with SSM but limit the entries to one run group. Once the double-dippers were subtracted, I think they&#39;d all fit anyway. My apologies in advance to Andy who might lose rental revenues in that scenario. I have nothing against anyone trying to make a living doing something that they love. Since I&#39;m not in a position to make the grouping decision, I&#39;ll just wait to see what happens. No promises, but I may simply choose another class that basically occupies its own run group. Running with the SSMs was fine for me (recognizing their advantages and making use of their shortcomings was actually fun), but it&#39;s gotten old and I think I&#39;d enjoy it a lot more if I ran with cars having track characteristics similar to my car&#39;s. I&#39;ll put my entry dollars where my mouth is. I&#39;ll refuse to run a first class that gets grouped with a second class, where the second class is faster in the straights but slower in the corners, and especially where novices in the second class would be running close to the same lap times as the pointy end of the first class.

Those who advocate a designed-in speed differential may be missing the forest for the trees. ITB and ITC ran together at the Watkins Glen NERRC/NARRC race this year, and it worked out very well! The pointy end of ITC was solidly in the mid-pack of ITB rather than at the novice end. When I pay my entry fee to RACE, there&#39;s nothing in that contract that requires me to INSTRUCT. The neophytes can learn gradually from the cars just in front of them in their own class much better than from cars in a different class.

On another sub-topic, I think that a split start is a bad idea if the slower class is to start last, but an interesting idea if the slower class is to start first. A split start would not have prevented the types of problems that ITC encountered at the NARRC-offs, and probably would have made them worse (if that&#39;s even possible).

[Andy Bettencourt]

Eric,

I can assure you 100% I am trying not to look at this from any one drivers perspective. I do have an ITA-centric view and do not look at things from a rental perspective. Our rentals are all SM&#39;s and are not legal for SSM...we also do not rent to more than one person per day.

We have to ask ourselves why we want change. I submit that another year with the same drivers will help the problems exponentially. A change may look good on paper but new cars and drivers may result in a whole new years worth of learning curve. I would rather race against a pain in the ass &#39;car&#39; and know what the driver is going to do than race against a unpredictable driver.

IF - and only IF, SM and SSM can fit into one group - it would be great...but I doubt it.

And make no mistake, I am in no position to make a decision...I just make proposals when I feel one is neccessary - and at this moment, I think the club is better served having another year to &#39;grow&#39;. If you feel like something needs to be done and you don&#39;t make a proposal, you (anyone) have no right to complain...