Originally sent to all MARRS ITA Drivers @ 11pm 10/23/08
Rather than attack run groupings in January as we normally do, we decided to get things done now. Each representative on the Committee was asked to bring their proposed run groups, printed, and would be given
three minutes to present their reasoning. Come next season, you all are either going to love me or
really hate me. The Committee accepted my plan.
Here's the good news....we're not running with ITS next year.
We're going to have a radical change in the format of the series next year. We've been talking off and on over the past few years about changing the format of the MARRS weekends. We've all discussed qualifying races and many of you heard a proposal at the Open Comp meeting (and here) to make each weekend a Double (w/ qualifying and race each day). Well, in order to do that there's no way we could continue to have 10 run groups, and nine run groups wasn't going to cut it either. My plan was to go to eight run groups. A move to
eight run groups allows us to recover a minimum of an hour each day and reallocate that time to the remaining groups, giving us longer on-track sessions. If we go to a qualifying race on Saturday we can make it long enough (approx. 10 laps) to alleviate the fears of carnage as people bash and bang to get a better starting position for the Sunday feature. We can also go to a longer feature race on Sunday (18-20 laps). If we go to double weekends, The same applies--more track time each day.
So what's the downsides? More cars on track across the board. Whereas this year we had some groups (like ours) that averaged about 40 cars, there were closed-wheel groups that barely managed 20 cars. No need to rehash that and our attempts to realign groups mid-season. If we use 2008's participation numbers, most of the run groups would average 35 cars with my plan. Of course, this year we saw a falloff in registrations as the year went on (probably gas price-related) and a lot of us are betting we'll see a 10-20% dropoff due to our economic troubles so we'll probably really be seeing 30-32 car densities at best.
So how'd this play out? I proposed going to eight run groups to facilitate modifying the MARRS weekend format. This was approved 13-7. Once that was done, I presented my proposed run groups. Believe me when I say that contracting to eight run groups gives you a very limited number of options. Some of the combinations aren't exactly optimal, but this time around the pain will be spread across more groups instead of just ITA taking the brunt of it once again. The CRC will be working this winter with our stewards and the N.E. Division Chief Steward to add language to our Supps, calling for either "split starts" or "split grids" for many of our run groups to make some combos more palatable.
There was one other 8-group combination presented on the fly but the framers couldn't make the numbers work. The committee approved my groupings 13-4 with three abstentions. So here's the rundown. 2008 Averages are in parenthesis with the MR2 move to ITB taken into account.
FV / F500 (19)
Big Wings & Things (18)
SM (35)
SSM (41)
Big Bore / ITS / ITR (34)
Small Bore / SRF (38)
ITA / SpecRX7 / T3 (35)
IT7 / ITB / ITC / SSB / SSC (35)
There are some classes that aren't very happy, but I know that since Yip likes using RX7's for brake pads that ITA will do just fine. I think we had one T3 car show up all year, so if we do a split start w/ the Spec7's we'll probably be able to coexist quite well.
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