'07 MARRS IT Run Groups

Having run a lot of enduros both in cars that were near the front & ones at the back, I find this kind of discussion odd. Traffic is a huge part of racing, always will be.

Bitching that traffic caused a problem for you is like blaming it on the fact that your tire pressures changed when the they warmed up. Its part of what goes on out there, another factor that you can count on happening, but have very little control over.

There are lots of clubs that offer time trial events.
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What is your definition of 'traffic' Matt? I agree with you when you are talking about lapped traffic. Setting up run groups that provide the best racing is what this is all about.

Wasn't there a slow/fast group pairing about 3 or 4 years back?
ITS/ITB I want to say. Before that I seem to recall ITB/GTPinto

With as many classes as there are, we are allways going to have grouping problems. I do think 10
is insane.

What's the big issue with one class lapping another? I don't think, except for the Runoffs, that I've ever been in a race where the fastest class didn't lap the slowest class in the group. And I've been both the fastest class and the slowest class.

Getting lapped and loosing 1 lap is NOT a good argument, although I may use it some day :snow_cool: ... Problem is that it is impossible to get all the classes to fit without some getting lapped. Unfortunatly its part of the game.

If leaders (top notch effort cars, not just 1 car classes with midpack development) are getting lapped 2 times, then I think you have issues in classing.

Split starts are a great way to help with the issue of running with cars that run equal lap times, but get the speed in different areas... Hopefully you wouldn't ever have to race with those people, and those are the ones that are the most "fustrating" shall we say. Only issue, is we/you will get lapped a lot sooner.

Raymond

Just for the sake of argument (not bitching) I take the credit and/or blame for some years ago suggesting that we run 16 instead of 15 laps. At the time ITA was running with ITS and there were some folks who thought it wasn't fair to pay for 15 laps and get lapped at 14. No big deal to me personally, but I floated the idea, which was eventually adopted. When the (heated) discussion began a few years ago about how to accomodate the influx of Miatas, one of the ideas was to add another group but sacrifice a lap in each group to save some wear and tear on the flaggers, corner workers, EMTs and other volunteers. That was not implemented, but we've still been racing, right?
I've been in the SCCA for a long time and I'm willing to wait and see when it comes to these kinds of decisions. Frankly, we're in one of the best regions in the entire country. Furthermore, I'm a strong believer that the SCCA should be able to accomodate all kinds of cars for as long as possible, and I think that has been the goal in next year's groupings. I know if it doesn't work well and we make some noise, our reps and BOD will make whatever changes are necessary, keeping in mind our regional membership as a whole. Running 10 groups is hard on all the volunteers, especially if we consider extra down time for track clean up when there are incidents. That doesn't even take into account time taken up when it's monsoon season. We need to keep their welfare in mind. My main concern is having fun as safely as possible, considering our chosen sport...

AJ

Some one mentioned a fast and slow group running together at one time . ITS and ITC ran together for two seasons if I remember correctly . Fortunatly the ITS guys played nice with us lowly C cars. Mr. York was turning times ten seconds faster than the average ITC car. The flaggers did a very good job with blue flags for our group.


Roger Troxell
Marrs ITC Civic #90

Having run a lot of enduros both in cars that were near the front & ones at the back, I find this kind of discussion odd. Traffic is a huge part of racing, always will be.

Bitching that traffic caused a problem for you is like blaming it on the fact that your tire pressures changed when the they warmed up. Its part of what goes on out there, another factor that you can count on happening, but have very little control over.

There are lots of clubs that offer time trial events.

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No, having issues with cars out of your class and having to be held up by them is NOT the same as bitching about changing tire pressure. (i DO have control over my pressures, as well...)

And enduros are, obviously different than sprint races.

I agree that we can't always run all classes at full race distances, but having your race F-ed up from the first lap to the last by another guy in another class is kinda frustrating, esp when blocking is the issue. (I know, I know, go talk to the stewards...liek THAt will do any good...better planning avoids HAVING to talk to Stewards..)

ITS/ITB is OK, and even ITC would be fine, as passes would be easy...ITC cars corner as well as ITS cars, but the ITS cars can put lots of distance on an ITC car between corners. Same with ITA and ITR.

I would MUCH rather deal with that kind of traffic.

What is your definition of 'traffic' Matt? I agree with you when you are talking about lapped traffic. Setting up run groups that provide the best racing is what this is all about.
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yes, setting up the run groups is key. you don't want what we had with its/as where the top of each class had to not only battle each other, but had to battle the cars in the other class at the same time. all the while ducking when the gt1 cars blew through. it became more of an exercise in survival and frustration than good racing.

Some one mentioned a fast and slow group running together at one time . ITS and ITC ran together for two seasons if I remember correctly . Fortunatly the ITS guys played nice with us lowly C cars. Mr. York was turning times ten seconds faster than the average ITC car. The flaggers did a very good job with blue flags for our group.
Roger Troxell
Marrs ITC Civic #90
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i will toss a lot of credit to the itc drivers during that period! outstanding mirror watching by all. made it easy for us its cars to minimize negative interaction and keep out of your race!

running with a slower class like that does add an additional "game" to the race though....on the last lap needed to calculate how far ahead of the nearest competitor you were so you knew how much you could lift in order to NOT lap any itc cars near the end....

marshall
marrs ITS/R BMW #64

In 2005, ITS ran with SSM in MARRS and I thought that actually worked well. As one of the faster ITS cars, I had very few issues lapping SSM cars. In general, they watched their mirrors, and we didn't try stupid moves. Sometimes the traffic hurt me, and sometimes it helped, but that's part of racing. I do know that some of the faster Miata drivers had a problem with some of the slower ITS cars, but I believe that was simply a lack of courtesy by one or two people. Mixed groups can run well together if people are aware of what's going on around them and are willing to play nice.

This is an interesting thread and very region specific. I would say that all or almost all of us in ITS/ITA/IT7 here in the SEDiv think it is the perfect run group at CMP (a slower technical track), Roebling (a longer flowing high speed track), VIR and RA.

I have to agree with AJ. I enjoyed running with the B group. I also run an MR2 and they are not the fastest ITA car. They would have to be built very illegel to be a full front running car. As far as running with B, the car was near the front of their pack. Which in return gave me someone to race with. The friends I have made from the B group said they enjoyed running with A. So why take away the racing from overall postion and put it to, "well let me drive the track, not duke it out, move over for the leaders, and now there's the checker." Boy sounds like fun to me next year. I'll move my car to another class so I can race with another driver. That is why I spent the money for the driver's schools. So I can race with other competitors, and most of all to HAVE FUN. It a trophy for the winners ( NOT MONEY ) and a thank you from the spectators for putting on a good race. The spectators don't want to see 25 car with 3 to 4 lengths between them just driving around. This will be my 2nd year of driving and I was looking forward to racing with B group again. Not to worried about what is coming in my mirrors.

I have to agree with AJ. I enjoyed running with the B group. I also run an MR2 and they are not the fastest ITA car. They would have to be built very illegel to be a full front running car. As far as running with B, the car was near the front of their pack. Which in return gave me someone to race with. The friends I have made from the B group said they enjoyed running with A. So why take away the racing from overall postion and put it to, "well let me drive the track, not duke it out, move over for the leaders, and now there's the checker." Boy sounds like fun to me next year. I'll move my car to another class so I can race with another driver. That is why I spent the money for the driver's schools. So I can race with other competitors, and most of all to HAVE FUN. It a trophy for the winners ( NOT MONEY ) and a thank you from the spectators for putting on a good race. The spectators don't want to see 25 car with 3 to 4 lengths between them just driving around. This will be my 2nd year of driving and I was looking forward to racing with B group again. Not to worried about what is coming in my mirrors. [/b]

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On the other side of the coin, racing is a high speed chess game and when I'm not with the fastest group of cars I'm always thinking of how I can get a edge. Meaning if you see a faster car coming, don't think of this a a pain in the ass, think of this as a possible advantage and how you might be able to use the lapping car. Might be used for a draft some where, how about a block on your opponent or making a hole for you to shoot through? And at least for me, I try and remember who might help me or who is being an asswipe and blocking me because he never looks in their mirrors. Let me just say, you stroke me and what goes around comes around. You stay alert, hold your line and let me pass you cleanly and possibly point me by and sometime you just might get some help when you least expect it. There is absolutly no reason why different classes can have a great time racing together, all it takes is a little understanding and being aware.

<strike>THINK </strike> SCHEME

OK I was shooting my mouth off on this one I know, but come on guys - there are more people that want to race than there are hours in the day for everyone to have their own run group. Even at the runoffs they're talking about limiting the number of groups that get to race. We (Improved Touring) happen to be the 400 pound gorrilla when it comes to regional racing. We have a lot of say. Put yourself in the shoes of the FV guy who loves to race and puts up w/ running w/ whom ever he's stuck w/ simply so he can go racing against the other 6 guys in Vee's that showed up.

Traffic is part of it, always will be. You can only control it by using your head, just like anticipating tire pressure changes, but sometimes you will get it wrong & your race won't be so good. If that car isn't faster than you, how did it get in front of you? If you are really going to pull away from it, passing it should be easy.

Lots of traffic - 54 cars on a 2 mile track (waiver to run that many). Lap time differential across the field - 12 seconds a lap. If you get in the car as a second or third stint driver, you will rarely go a lap w/o being involved in a pass or getting set up on one.

First race I ever ran was ITS/ITE/AS. Rain for the qualifier, dry & sunny for the race which made for an inverted grid. It never seemed to be a problem.

Boy sounds like fun to me next year.[/b]

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Doug, I wouldn't write off next season just yet. Yes, it was a blast racing with the ITB/IT7 guys last year, but I also think we had a pretty close group of ITA cars running back from around 5th place on. In fact, I seem to recall one race where there were like 8 - 10 cars that qualified within a second or so of each other (but I can't remember if that was just A cars?). Still, I think if we can get everyone back with healthy rides next season we should still be able to find some decent racing. Maybe not quite as awesome as last year, but still pretty good. And from what I think I'm hearing from a lot of the guys outside our region, we should probably count ourselves fortunate to have been able to race with such a great group.

Actually, I'm also wondering why they needed to move IT7 out of our group at all, even with ITS/ITR coming in... ITS typically puts 8 - 12 cars on track, ITA usually has maybe 20 or so, and IT7 never had more than about a half dozen; that's less than 40 cars for those groups. Does anyone really expect to see 10 ITR cars at any event in its first year? Maybe Gregg will chime in and help out with this.

Actually, I'm also wondering why they needed to move IT7 out of our group at all, even with ITS/ITR coming in... ITS typically puts 8 - 12 cars on track, ITA usually has maybe 20 or so, and IT7 never had more than about a half dozen; that's less than 40 cars for those groups. Does anyone really expect to see 10 ITR cars at any event in its first year? Maybe Greg will chime in and help out with this.
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it is a numbers game. we wanted to get all the run groups down to low 30's. ita+its+itr= low 30's. IT7+srx7+ssc/b=low 30's
there are actually over 30 its cars in the region. lots of them stayed home last season for a variety of reasons. i expect bigger its fields again next year. it wasn't long ago that there were 25 car its fields. yes, i agree itr fields may be light next year, which is one of the reasons to put them in with ita/its.

plus, gotta keep all them dang mazda's in run groups by themselves so they won't hurt anyone else....

j/k...i drive an srx7 sometimes....

OK...I'll chime in briefly (and Doug will get a more lengthy private reply to the email he sent me). The goal was to get each closed wheel group to within 33-37 cars. Last year ITA averaged approx. 20 cars, ITS about 10, and we expect 3-5 ITR cars this year. That puts this run group into that sweet spot.

IT-7 averaged about seven and I have been alerted to at least three cars on the way. That would be 30 if ITA continued to run w/ IT-7. You could then give us ITR to put us into that sweet spot, but then where does ITS go? With SRX7/SS? That puts them over the sweet spot and creates more performance inequities than in the proposed groupings.

I understand that Doug and others don't like the idea of splitting ITA and IT-7. The fact of the matter is that these are two separate and distinct classes. It was requested that IT-7 run w/ ITA for its maiden season but other than nostalgia there is really no other precedence for keeping them together ad infinitum. As I told one of IT-7's main proponents at least year's banquet, I had hoped that we held off a year before started up the class. It was my hope that the changes in min. weights and other steps taken by the ITAC to create more competition in ITA would remove the need for the class. In fact, I'm willing to bet that after 2007 you'll see that the front-running IT-7 cars are running similar lap times to the front-running ITA cars. We got close at the end of the season as some of the rust was removed. As I mentioned in an update to the ITA & IT7 drivers a few weeks ago, we would have a lot more "pull" if we had a class of 30+ cars. Now that we're 20 and 7, we don't have and influence.

And although I have enjoyed actually seeing the green flag fly at Summit the past two seasons, I actually enjoyed running with ITS my first season two seasons. They're a great, accomodating bunch with lots of on-track experience and excellent race-craft. I never saw an issue where they inserted themselves in our races or we in theirs. As was mentioned to the ITA/IT-7 drivers, there was a problem with our drivers inserting themselves into the ITB leaders' race at the last '06 MARRS event, in as much as those drivers searched me out post-race. Although it is nice to have cars around you on track, even if they're not in the same class, you must remember that you are racing the cars in your class.

It's OK to fear change and I give a lot of credence to the opinions of all of the ITA/IT-7 drivers. When someone like AJ has raced in this grouping previously and he's worried it does give me pause, but the WDCR competition committee was faced with coming up with groupings that did not disenfranchise entire classes--forcing those drivers to stay home, making sure that we had less on-track density to allow for growth in all classes (esp. new ones like IT-7 and ITR), ensuring as much safety as is possible for an inherently dangerous sport, and bettering what has been a poor situation for the majority of the 275-300 drivers we average at each MARRS event.

So, Greg. are you saying I'm old or experienced? Perhaps vintage. Just to be clear, I wasn't picking on ITS, I was just expressing my concerns about the speed differential between the slower cars in ITA and the front runners in ITS and the unknown ITR factor. I personally never had a problem getting lapped by any ITS driver (as opposed to a certain ITA car in turn 3 who will remain nameless). Like I said, let's wait and see.
BTW, this is a great forum for these discussions. We should all buy a T shirt or make a donation to help keep it going.
AJ

And Greg, if IT7 drivers are upset about being moved away from ITA, can't they just run ITA instead? They must fit ITA if they fit IT-7, right?

And Greg, if IT7 drivers are upset about being moved away from ITA, can't they just run ITA instead? They must fit ITA if they fit IT-7, right?
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Actually, most of the bellyaching I've heard about the split is from the ITA drivers, not the IT7 folks. We have no region-specific rules for IT7....they are simply ITA RX7's w/ different class markings. If these drivers now wanted to race twice per weekend, the scheduling would probably work for them (hint...hint).

Frankly, I'd love to see IT7 eliminated in the MARRS series, but there are too many people that worked too hard to bring it about, even if the ITAC cleaned up some of the inequities just as we were putting the class in place. I'd love to see the 30-car average ITA fields that we had just three years ago, but some of the reasons why the RX7 drivers wanted a separate class have not been fulfilled yet and the new class has done three things:

• Bring drivers out of retirement
• Bring cars out of mothballs
• Bring new cars and drivers to the region

And those a very good things!

yes, the total number of drives is up, and you can attribute some of it to IT7, then yes...a VERY good thing it is!

(As an aside, we on the ITAC went with the 100 pound break, but we also know that it's weird with RX-7s..not many will be able to hit it.)