2008 rules changes

[Super Dave]

That would help me. 

[kl3640]

it would be cool to "qualify"  but for which races? In FL region, we have a BUNCH of races all run on Sunday with 1 practice session on sunday morning. How would you qualify your supersport 600, your superbike 600.. and your unlimited bike?? Not possible. This is "club" racing after all, if you want pro racing with qualifying sessions there is ASRA or WERA nationals or the former AMA. I really don't think guys just getting into racing will have the extra tires for qualifying sessions AND for the races. I saw a comment about "Richy Rich" paying for races up front.. well.. that same guy is gonna put on new tires for both qualifying and race, what about the guy that runs 1 set of tires for all races then practices on them next race weekend?

I was thinking that Saturday's practices, which are all day, would count towards qualifying.  I agree that it's not really practical to do "true qualifying" because there is no way to really enforce which bike someone is using for which practice without a LOT of extra effort, but as you say it's Club Racing and the goal here is just to try to mitigate the purely FIFO system of pre-entries as they exist.  The goal here is to eliminate the advantage of pre-registering early rather than at the wire, and also to put the faster guys up front for safety reasons.  Realistically, whatever advantages money brings to the club racer are probably going to hold true in practice and in races.  True that amongst the fastest people in any one group it's going to make a difference, but it's still going to put the fast guy who can't afford new qualifying tires well in front of the rest of the pack who might have otherwise been in front of him simply because of the order in which their pre-registrations were received.

For CCS racing, with ALL the various classes that have to get squeezed into a weekend there is no way to do qualifying. Perhaps to what Henry D. does in FL region.. you pre enter all your FL region races with POST DATED checks that DO NOT get cashed till Monday after the races. There goes the "Richy rich" argument.

This would definitely mitigate the "Richy Rich" phenomenon, but then it would be a race to get your pre-registration in the mail (yes, mail, as Henry doesn't take faxed registrations since he only accepts checks/MO's).  How then would order be determined when on the first day of pre-registration, 20 registrations show up in Henry's mailbox?  And how about the guy who lives in Florida where the US Mail takes one day vs. the guy who lives several states away with a 5 day mail delay?  As long as it's mail-only, I think that such a solution would only partially mitigate the first-come first-serve griding issue.  Even in regions where faxes are accepted, or if the reinstitute on-line registration, then it's going to be like buying concert tickets - if you get the busy signal or "Server Busy" screen then you're screwed anyway, through no fault of your own but rather due to the whims of the Ether.

I go back to randomization.  If qualifying for Club Racing is deemed impracticable, then that means we have to rely on some kind of points/performance index system for griding people; and people will complain endlessly about that because they will claim that it unfairly favors people who can afford time and money to race more, or that it unfairly favors the people who did or didn't race recently (depending on how it's set up), and so on.

So if there is no equitable way to set the grid based on performance (either qualifying or historical performance based), then the way to do it would be to accept all pre-entries up to the deadline and grid them in front of all post-entries.  Then, randomize the order of all pre-entries in the pre-entry section of the grid.  The post-entry section could still be first-come first-serve, because those people would have had the option of pre-entering, or, when they do post-enter, they could try to get to registration first-thing on the race weekend if grid position is that important to them.

[boston-birdman]

Okay, some clarifications / questions I had.

1. The BMW HP2 is legal for LWSS,LWSB,LWGP  (air cooled 2 cylinders below 1210cc)
2. The BMW HP2 is NOT legal for Thunderbike (it has >3 valves / cyl, and no pushrods)?  There is not a rule category for air cooled, 4 valve, non-pushrod in the rules (6.4.3)

So, some clarification on #2 would be useful.

Now, the meat of my post.  Given that the HP2 was competitive in the Daytona 200, and thus AMA FX competitive, and #1 above is true, is it REALLY a lightweight bike?!

[spyderchick]

Now, the meat of my post.  Given that the HP2 was competitive in the Daytona 200, and thus AMA FX competitive, and #1 above is true, is it REALLY a lightweight bike?!

No, but if the rules state you can run it in LW, then you can. 

[EX_#76]

No, but if the rules state you can run it in LW, then you can. 

I have heard that the HP2 is no longer legal for LW

[Team_Serpent]

I have heard that the HP2 is no longer legal for LW

I wonder if that's because it's not light weight?

[boston-birdman]

I wonder if that's because it's not light weight?

Or maybe because it has roughly the same hp stock than most of the 2008 600's and isn't that much heavier?

[EX_#76]

I wonder if that's because it's not light weight?

LOL, I heard that

[weggieman]

Hell, even when I was Race Director I didn't agree with gridding by pre-registration date.  The point system is the only way to go.