New to CCS -- Amateur or Expert?

[timk]

Hello,

I'm on the verge of joining CCS, basically for a one-off race, and have a question.

I race in WMRRA (Washington state) and sometimes with AHRMA, and I'm going to be racing with AHRMA at Daytona this spring. Because this will be my first time at Daytona it has been suggested that I join CCS and enter the CCS Daytona round immediately preceding the AHRMA round so that I can have more time to get familiar with the banking, get my gearing dialed in, etc. (Plus, I'm notoriously slow at learning new tracks.)

WMRRA's licensing doesn't have the amateur/expert delineation that CCS uses -- everybody who makes it out of WMRRA's novice field is an expert by our licensing. If I understand the CCS rulebook correctly, my WMRRA expert license qualifies me for a CCS expert license, but frankly I'm not sure I'd be a CCS expert if I came up through the CCS program. 2007 will be my tenth season of racing, but I'm just not very fast. I race a liter twin at lap times ~5% slower than the class leaders. (That'd be me running 1:35's while the front twins guys are running 1:30's at a track where the lap record is a 1:26 on a liter four.)

So my question is this: Do the Amateurs and Experts grid/race together and just get scored separately, or are they on separate grids? If they're on separate grids, I think it might be better if I race as an amateur just so I'm not getting in the way of the experts. If we're all going to grid up together anyway I'd prefer to keep the yellow plates off my bike.

Discussions about cherry-picking podium finishes or points aren't really applicable, as I'm not likely to be a frontrunner even in amateur. I'm just trying to figure out how to get as much as I can out of this once in a lifetime cross-country Daytona excursion while pissing off as few people as possible.

Any clues greatly appreciated,
Tim Keane
WMRRA/AHRMA #420, CCS #???

[George_Linhart]

YOU ARE AN EXPERT!

You are experienced and have a long racing resume, there should be no reason to even ask the question.  To my mind, the important distinction between expert and amature is not speed, but, maturity in racing skills.  Just to be clear, even at the Expert level there is a fairly wide gap in on-track speed and a lot of the fast Amateurs are fast enough to run inside of the top 5 experts, that doesn't mean that any expert that gets passed by an amature gets to bump down a level.

A couple of things to consider:

1) Based on your comment, you are not going with the goal of winning the race, but to get experience on the track.  If you race with the yellow plates you likely will be around with at least some guys taking crazy lines and not really knowing what they are doing.  If you run with the experts at the very least you will be able to see the lines that other experienced riders are taking and you will improve at a much faster rate.

2) Safety - I alwasy feel that the experts are safer, particularly on the start.  I never liked running into T-1 on the green flag lap when I need to worry about Johny Rocket who has never raced before and doesn't understand that cold tires on the first lap can tuck very easily.

3) Getting in the way of experts shouldn't be an issue.  Experts know how to make passes - if you are an experienced racer and have consistent, predictable lines the experts probably won't even notice that you are there as they go by.

With ten years of racing experience - lets repeat it a bit louder TEN YEARS of experience - there is no way you should even think about racing with the yellow plates.

George

[timk]

Thanks for the slap upside the head, George!

You made several good points. White plates it is. 

[Super Dave]

+1

You'll most likely be safer with the experts.

[catman]

WHERE ELSE could you get this stuff? catman

[LMsports]

Unless Super Dave decides to enter any of the races that you are in. He's a nutjob!!!

[Super Dave]

Gum.

[chaplain220]

Hey! What's with all the  yellow plate bashing!  We're just...misunderstood, thats all.  Sure we sometimes need an extra foot, yard...er...a couple of meters between bikes...but we got feelins too.  See ya all at Daytona, just gimme a little room to pick a line.  Art.