Enduro length question?

I am fine with the 90 minute races that are run in SEDiv. 3 Hours are my favorite. A 500 mile professional race is an endurance race. Make no mistake about it. Its also about the max that a solo amateur and a friend can do.

After that you get into needing a full crew and a bigger budget.
 
Bah! The ARRC 3-hour should be one driver, no stops. And it WOULD be for our Golf if it weren't for the silly rule requiring two long spells sitting still.

6 hours is the shortest duration that I think of as an enduro.

K
 
Having run them all, I'm with Kirk. Anything less than 6 hours doesn't really require a TEAM effort. Enduros aren't about one or two hero drivers but about a team working on car preparation, strategy and execution.
Chuck
 
Ah, the Enduro Elitists. Yea, I am sure the 6 hour / 13 hour /24 hour races are great.
This is not about whats fun. Its about what the minimum should be. Yes, there is more TEAM required to run all day long. There are also a lot guys that can't afford a TEAM. Can't afford all the tires and fuel. Can't afford to rebuild the car after one race.

It would be ridiculous to have no racing between a 30 minute IT spring race and a 6 hour race. Further, while I know Kirk loves the long runs I also see his posts regular trying to sell co-drivers so that he can come to the track and see his posts saying he didnt race because he couldnt get the co-drivers and the funding.

I can run a three hour race with one friend. That friend can be a driver or a none driver and I can have fun. I am fine with the option to race all day and all night if I want to, but I am not going to side up with you guys that think a race as long as the Indy 500 is not an enduro.

BTW...Kirk, if they let me refuel without getting out of the car and no minimum pit stop time, I'd race you with your 3 hour rules.
 
>> This is not about whats fun. Its about what the minimum should be.

It's about what the minimum should be for something to be called an "enduro." I love me a 3-hour race. We won the NASA 3-hour at VIR in '07 overall. I spent most of the entire thing giggling like an idiot - except for a short trip to the tire wall and subsequent wheel change. HUGE FUN.

But an enduro it ain't. I'd way prefer it if Regionals were one group of cars on the track for 3 hours, rather than 4 groups on the track for 20 minutes each, with standing around in between sessions.

Enduro Elitists UNITE...!

:)

K

PS - I still have room for one more for the VIR 13. LOL.

PPS - If someone were considering some kind of "enduro" series, it would be very cool to weight the points by distance. That would balance out the risk/reward, cost/benefit math.
 
The long races are struggling to survive. The Homestead race is dead. The Ledges race was cut in half hoping to survive. The 6 hour Road Atlanta race had 25 cars in it.

There is a 9 hour at Road Atlanta in December. How many of you guys are going to be there? I am the series director and would love to see you.

Conversely we can make 3 hour races work all year long.

We run an enduro at each NASA SE event. Would love to see you out there. Its a lot easier to get car count when the race is a reasonable lenth.
 
Cobrar05 said:
...There is a 9 hour at Road Atlanta in December. How many of you guys are going to be there? I am the series director and would love to see you.
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Sure going to try.

We run an enduro at each NASA SE event. Would love to see you out there. Its a lot easier to get car count when the race is a reasonable lenth.
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...and a lot easier to enter if they had an equitable, fair head and neck restraint rule, rather than a restraint-of-trade H&N system rule.

Point is that everything potentially matters when it comes to picking - so defining - races. Think what you want but I can make the math for a 12 hour enduro work out better than for a 3-hour simply because people - some people, not everyone - are willing to pay for a seat in a long race, where they aren't willing to pay what it costs to run 1/2 of a 3-hour.

K
 
Ah...the SCCA protest against SFI. I have to wear a HANS if I want to race my Koni Challenge Mustang next season. No ISAAC allowed. Should I restrict myself to just SCCA because every body except SCCA requires an SFI approve device?

Oh, well. I tried, boys. There is a 9 hour race at Road Atlanta in December. We have 4 RA dates for next season with 3 hour races and another 9 hr race. CMP, Charlotte Motorspeedway as well.
 
Anything over an hour in my mind is an endurance race... But I am not racing a VW or Miata that will run all day long!!! I like three hours but would love to and would probably prefer to run 6,12, or 24hrs instead... The longer the race the more of a test for endurance is challenged!

Raymond "wow it's been a while since H&N took us off topic... Well done!" Blethen

PS: I also prefer to boycot any SFI snob series...
 
So the longer the better but really anything under 3 hours isn't worth calling it an endurance race.

I ask because now that I'm chairing the Club Race program in the Indy Region I'm brainstorming with the rest of our Club Race board to come up new/better ideas for races. We had been offering a one hour "enduro" the last few seasons and participation in them has run off a cliff. I've also noticed other regions offering the same thing have been seeing similar results. My initial thought has been a 3 hour enduro as we could run it as part of a regional weekend program.

Any thoughts?
 
Well if you prospective is that of a race organizer Dave, you have to ask yourself who you are trying to attract. A one to 3 hour can entice sprint racers to try something different. A guy can iron man a race that length or can do it with one buddy and they can use a pick up crew without a lot of prep.
With the proliferation of Miati that are easy on parts it really does not take much work to run a short endure.
There is a much smaller pool of hard core guys who like the long races but if you have the right track and the right date they will travel to participate.
We run a 3 hour at NHMS. We went to 4 hour and then to 6 but it hurt entries. NH is not a track well suited to enduros. Tough on brakes and not a good rhythm so we could not seem to make a longer race work.
 
I'm brainstorming with the rest of our Club Race board to come up new/better ideas for races
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What ever you do, don't have mandatory pit stops. There is/was a 4+/- hour race at WGI that I used think would be fun, but didn't go simply because they required 2 stops, 5 minutes each. That's not an enduro, that's a couple of sprints shared by a couple of drivers. If I understand it correctly them roundy round guys from down south on TV every sunday often do mandatory stops, you wanna be associated w/ them?

Enduro's have pit stops that require strategy (ie, long enough to force every car into the pits at least once and force the re-fuel/driver change to have some pre-race planning). Anything else is a sprint race w/ some interruptions.
 
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