Hi. I am the enemy. A former racer, I now coach trackdays. I am the reason that grids are small and racing organizations are losing money. It's all my fault.
Now that you know better than to give credibility to anything I say, let me tell you some lies. Racing is too damned expensive. That's why more people don't do it. That's why ex-racers don't do it any more. If you're not running a new bike, you lose. Worse, that new bike must have all the goodies to be competitive. Let's say 15K just to get to the starting line these days. Of course you can tumble that to bits in the first practice session of the year and then have to spend another 15K to race the next round... As a result, you end up with just a few racers who can or will spend the money going for all the class wins. I'm not discounting talent here but talent with new everything always beats talent with uncompetitive machinery. Remember when Lightweight was an entry level class, run on the machines which dealers sold cheap as entry level bikes? Really poor racers could buy the most recently obsolete machines, developed by expert champions, for even less money and still have a shot. What does it cost to be competitive in Lightweight now?
Every season, somebody's machine becomes obsolete. It would be interesting to take a pole of how many racers have been alienated right out of the sport when they were told by the guy in charge, "Stop whining and buy a new bike." Where do those racers go if they can't afford to upgrade? Their bikes are too new for Vintage so they go to trackdays. It's those damn trackdays that have ruined racing. Believe it...
CCS has completely lost sight of the concept that there needs to be an affordable level of racing if they intend to attract new racers and keep older ones coming back. Rather than bitch about trackdays stealing their clientelle, they should attend a few and see what attracts so many riders to them instead of racing. Or they could just let me explain it. You pay a hundred bucks or so for each day, you buy a set of tires and you run whatchya brung. A weekend equals 16 session of fun on whatever bike you own. Add in a set of tires and you're out five, six hundred bucks. Yep. It's CHEAP!
Enough ranting.
I said all that to say this: CCS needs affordable classes. Tires, maintenance, travel and entry fees can't be made cheaper. Trackday guys pay all that too. It's the machines themselves that must be made cheaper. How? That's pretty obvious. Classes for obsolete machines. If you can buy an old racebike all set up for a couple grand, at least your foot is in the door on a bike that has a chance. Now, each race event isn't really more expensive than a trackday weekend, so if racing is what you want to do, it can be affordable.
My proposal is this. Ten. As in ten years old or older. Have L10, M10 and UL10. Superbike rules to make tech easy. Draw a line in the sand with the date stamped in the frame so no one can bicker. Now, how to incorporate this into the existing framework? Give the 10 bikes different colored number plates and run them as an extra wave off the classes they match with. Each 10 class would have four races a weekend. For example, if the current MW machines have SS, SB, GP and GT, the 10 machines could run as an extra wave in all four races. Since trophies cost like five bucks each, you could save money there by only giving them out to the three riders who did the best overall in their four races of the weekend. There could be region champs and even national champs. Hey, look! More entry fees!
Here's the argument that's bound to come up: "An Ed Key could take an XYZ495, make it weigh 80 pounds and produce 300 hp and dominate." So what? If the class is running simultaniously with the more modern machines, a rider can't run two bikes at once. Each rider would have to choose new or old and invest himself or herself there, so if they want to hotrod the heck out of an old crock, let them! The parts are obsolete and cheap, while garage time is free to that kind of racer. EBay will be their main source of performance parts! What no longer exists can be fabricated or swapped. It's amazing what racers can create if they have more time and talent than money, especially when superbike rules are in play.
The bottom line is that there simply must be inexpensive opportunities for people to race. This concept is not new. SCCA has Formula Ford for new machines and Club Ford for old, obsolete ones. Stock Cars feature classes that literally mandate junk cars with sawed off mufflers and rollbars. Adding the "10" classes would cost CCS nothing, would increase grid size, attract new racers and entice older racers to stay. These are all good things and might very well contribute to the sport's survival.
Flame away!
