ESU = Qualifying

[Mongo]

The people already hired already have jobs.  When you add more jobs you need more people.  To police it and make sure you can give the customers accuracy you'd need a LOT more people.  It's just not a viable option for club racing with as many classes as we all run.

[The Arsenal]

Where are you racing where you have an afternoon session of practice?

Im in FL. region so we practice All Day on Sat. then 1 practice Sun Morn then do all the races.
Sorry I never specified that I was referring to Sat. practice.
Talking about designating 1 session of each groups practice on Sat. to be a qualifyer.

I just found out that other regions dont have the same format Practice all day Sat then Race Sun.

[jryer]

And once more we are oh so privileged to hear all the forum dinosours puff up there chests and proudly proclaim "IT CAN'T BE DONE!" Just 2 weeks ago CCS at Moroso posted the times of every transponder after a given practice session. Clearly people are already using the posted lap times to gauge where they stand against others in the same class.  I know that's what I do in addition to my own lap timer. You guys are all worried about enough workers, wrong (fast) bike cheating, switching transponders (which takes me all of 5 seconds to do) and whatever else. So the worse that happens is a cheater grids further up (oh no stop the presses!). But somehow that's worse than what we have now? Which is pay first, grid first? Sorry, but I'd rather have the potential for a few cheaters grid higher than what we have now, any day!! In essence the current system let's me cheat in legal sort of way.
Don't hire more people, let the lap times fall where they may. I stand a much better chance of being properly gridded than what we have now.

[tzracer]

You seemed to have missed the potential safety issue. Is practice/warmup the place to have riders trying to turn their fastest laps? How will faster riders treat slower riders when a qualifying position is at stake? The track can be much more crowded during practice than during a race.

[jryer]

You seemed to have missed the potential safety issue. Is practice/warmup the place to have riders trying to turn their fastest laps? How will faster riders treat slower riders when a qualifying position is at stake? The track can be much more crowded during practice than during a race.

How do you treat a slower rider right now? I go around them and do the best I can. Haven't you ever watched a qualifing round at AMA or MotoGP. They have to deal with slower riders all the time. And they adjust their qualifing laps accordingly (ie: wait for a section of track to clear a little before puttin' the hammer down)

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

Haven't you ever watched a qualifing round at AMA or MotoGP.

CCS is club racing, not professional.

[Sobottka]

i dont get this argument. practice is not qualifing and qualifing is not practice. i dont want to qualify during practice and most guys dont push 100% in practice.... because its practice. the two are treated differently, besides my best practice times are 2-3 seconds off race pace, how is that a proper gauge for grid order?   

[Super Dave]

The flip side is that some try to race at a pace faster than their practice times on untested suspension set ups.  That's usually where problems happen.


I will say that the ridiculousness of pre entries being accepted so many months for in advance for grid position is way above my spending level, and, as a result, I have curbed back my race entries over the past few years. 

[jryer]

CCS is club racing, not professional.

I didn't insinuate professionalism, but rather the borrowing of an existing successful element in another organization.

[jryer]

i dont get this argument. practice is not qualifing and qualifing is not practice. i dont want to qualify during practice and most guys dont push 100% in practice.... because its practice. the two are treated differently, besides my best practice times are 2-3 seconds off race pace, how is that a proper gauge for grid order?   

How is you gridding in front of me because you paid first a proper gauge either? It's a suggested systemic change. It MIGHT make for better grid order.

[jryer]

The flip side is that some try to race at a pace faster than their practice times on untested suspension set ups.  That's usually where problems happen.


I will say that the ridiculousness of pre entries being accepted so many months for in advance for grid position is way above my spending level, and, as a result, I have curbed back my race entries over the past few years. 

Super Dave you do surprise from time to time! I know you're not necessarily advocating but it nice to read a little hint of support (though I know you wouldn't admit that!)

[Super Dave]

I liked ULGP qualifying.  I have nothing against it.  I like ASRA and the AMA for having qualifying.

I also think there are too many classes.  Might just be that there are too many expert classes, but I can't give a complete answer because I haven't had to run a race day program. 

I will agree that having qualifying will potentially have a cost in people and, as a result, money.  When the timing system goes down, you need to have an alternative.

I can say that I have been on the racer end of these experiences though.

In 1994, we raced the AMA event in Pomona, which was basically a giant parking lot.  There was a rider protest on some serious safety issues.  Most of them were solved for us to have a race, but there was no qualifying.  We gridded by points.

Similarly, businesses generally run very well when there is focus on their current customers.  Well, if you have points in your region, you're probably a pretty good customer that year.  Or it might be a decent guide to your speed because you have more points than someone else.  So, why not reward those loyal business customers with grids based on points for pre entries, then the rest of the grid based on post entry?

It is club racing.  But I've been to enought "club" races where guys that I know that chase contingency money were going to get more money from a manufacturer than Mladin or Spies would get winning an AMA Superbike race.  Racing is still racing.  Track days are track days.  I have yet to see something that says that one can't be too fast at a "club" event. 

While I understand the reasons for grids based on qualifying times, I do struggle with the idea of trying to find a reasonable way to do it for an event weekend that has so many classes.

If you had to choose...

- Grids based on date of entry

- Grids based on points


As a side bar, I did have some money late in 2006 because I sold a race bike.  In December, I was able to enter some races for the 2007 season.  I think it was dumb that I could do that, but over the past four years, the new experts have become more and more willing to pre enter earlier and earlier for events if not the whole season.  Personally, I can't do that, especially if I wanted to try to run the whole season which I haven't been able to do since 2003. 

On another note, CRA won't take any pre entries until April 1.  I don't know how all the other organizations do it.