Suggestion for new classes

[K3 Chris Onwiler]

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!

[MUZ720]

 +1 here

[vnvbandit]

You are confusing us with FACTS! 
Good Idea! 

[dylanfan53]

I like it.  The way it's proposed it wouldn't cannibalize existing entries it would be additive. 

Someone's going to complain that the 10+ riders will get in the way, but the slower EXs, AMs and noobies are already being lapped and the cause of crashes is usually not slower riders.

[Cowboy 6]

Chris, while I was originally cheering your post, reality set in.  The problem with your solution is that it is at best, temporary. One of the things that has dessimated the LW classes (I agree they should be kept entry level and affordable to attract competitors) is the allowing of much more powerful machinery into the class. I have been given justifications such as "technological advances" etc. but it just doesn't work. Here is a link to Sport Rider's article from 2004 on the XB12 and the Ducati 1000SS. 

http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_0312_buell_xb12r_ducati_ss1000/index.html

The article states what we have found on the track. You have two bikes that are about the same weight as an SV ( full tank, off the showroom floor ) yet, as the article states "Both pump out close to 100 horsepower." Compared to the Suzuki SV650 @ 70 hp and the Kawasaki 650 at about, oh yeah, 70hp, the Ducati and Buell are not even in the ballpark with true Lightweight class machinery. The reason this was not immediately noticed was that the two larger bikes were not developed in our league immediately. The SV had been due to it's long history. So, you had worked to the limit of the rules SV's running against off the floor Ducati's and Buells. A good rider had a chance. Now that the Ducatis and Buells have been developed, that chance has passed.

So fast forward.... The best your suggestion will do is to put off the inevitable. In only 3 more years, the Ducati 1000SS will be eligible for your L10 class. Then a year later, the Buell. The scene is now the same....

I am very sorry if the Ducati 1000SS and the Buell XB12 are not competitive in middleweight. That is where their power to weight puts them. The answer to this point has been to toss them in LW and tell the LW guys and gals to "buy a new bike" as you so eloquently stated. I agree with you, that is the wrong answer.

You are definately walking down the right path but I feel the answer is in proper classification not "aging."

[2old2fat2slow]

I have a 2000 R6 just screaming "put me in coach"!

[Super Dave]

I am very sorry if the Ducati 1000SS and the Buell XB12 are not competitive in middleweight. That is where their power to weight puts them.

Ok, so how much was my power to weight on my XB12R?  I've raced a number of bikes, and the XB12R in production trim isn't any middleweight. 

Then, if there is some way of coming up with some kind of power to weight ratio, move SV1000's to middleweight.  They'll still get hurt there.


K3, it's at least an interesting idea.  Keep running with it. 

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

Not a bad idea Chris. Just keep them as an addition to 4 classes (LWSB, MWSB, HWSB, ULSB) Maybe make the plates Green with white # for AM and Black plate with white # for ex. Dunno about other regions, but superbike fields here are not that big. This could add some to it.

[Boober]

Last time I was at a track day I saw more cool new bikes than old bikes!! So those track day guys that wanna race are gonna sell their 2009 MV Agusta or Ducati or GSXR1000 or CBR1000 and buy a ten year old bike?
Nope.

not flaming just saying

[George_Linhart]

Aw geeze - not this crap again...  It is a LW series, not SV Cup.  The air-cooled displacement limits were not changed, but, main line manufactures built bikes were met the rules and were competitive.  Same thing happened in the late 1990's when the SV displaced the Hawk on the basis that the Hawk 3 valve 650 twin motor is uncompetitive against the 4 valve SV motor.  Yes there were complaints from the former LW riders, but most adapted and moved on to accept the SVs (if you can't beat them, join them).  The fact that there was a 7 year period where nothing new was produced to contest in the classs doesn't mean that LW should be the sole property of SV riders.

If we want real LW racing back - lets re-write the rules to go back to the day of Fizzers, EX-500's and Hawks battling it out!  I would consider selling my Ducati and racing an FZR 400 if the rules were re-written to an extent that it would be competitive - but that would absolutely mean exclusing the SV650's as they are in comparison more of a MW bike against the Fizzer than the Ducati is vs. an SV650.

Time moves on.  Accept that unless you are an exceptional rider your Stock 1999 SV 650 isn't competitive in LW Superbike anymore.  You are free to upgrade if you want.

Forgive my blutness on this issue as well, but, I don't think that racing in any existing class is meant to be in-expensive.  As a competitive venue there will always be people with money to thow at a bike to make it faster.  The only way I can think to keep it cheap would be to create a new class with claim rules where any bike could be "claimed" by another rider for some arbitrary amount (say $3,000?).  This would ensure that nobody has incentive to sink too much money into their bike as somebody else would just claim it and it would be their competition the next weekend...

Just my $0.02.

George

Chris, while I was originally cheering your post, reality set in.  The problem with your solution is that it is at best, temporary. One of the things that has dessimated the LW classes (I agree they should be kept entry level and affordable to attract competitors) is the allowing of much more powerful machinery into the class. I have been given justifications such as "technological advances" etc. but it just doesn't work. Here is a link to Sport Rider's article from 2004 on the XB12 and the Ducati 1000SS. 

http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_0312_buell_xb12r_ducati_ss1000/index.html

The article states what we have found on the track. You have two bikes that are about the same weight as an SV ( full tank, off the showroom floor ) yet, as the article states "Both pump out close to 100 horsepower." Compared to the Suzuki SV650 @ 70 hp and the Kawasaki 650 at about, oh yeah, 70hp, the Ducati and Buell are not even in the ballpark with true Lightweight class machinery. The reason this was not immediately noticed was that the two larger bikes were not developed in our league immediately. The SV had been due to it's long history. So, you had worked to the limit of the rules SV's running against off the floor Ducati's and Buells. A good rider had a chance. Now that the Ducatis and Buells have been developed, that chance has passed.

So fast forward.... The best your suggestion will do is to put off the inevitable. In only 3 more years, the Ducati 1000SS will be eligible for your L10 class. Then a year later, the Buell. The scene is now the same....

I am very sorry if the Ducati 1000SS and the Buell XB12 are not competitive in middleweight. That is where their power to weight puts them. The answer to this point has been to toss them in LW and tell the LW guys and gals to "buy a new bike" as you so eloquently stated. I agree with you, that is the wrong answer.

You are definately walking down the right path but I feel the answer is in proper classification not "aging."

[Super Dave]

Forgive my blutness on this issue as well, but, I don't think that racing in any existing class is meant to be in-expensive.  As a competitive venue there will always be people with money to thow at a bike to make it faster.  The only way I can think to keep it cheap would be to create a new class with claim rules where any bike could be "claimed" by another rider for some arbitrary amount (say $3,000?).  This would ensure that nobody has incentive to sink too much money into their bike as somebody else would just claim it and it would be their competition the next weekend...

I agree with that.  I think it might be hard for CCS to implement.

Now, if a group of riders got together within the confines of the opportunities available from the organization, one could do anything.  A bunch of Kansas City riders talked about getting Ninja 250's to race in a class.  No one really needs the wood or anything.  Just racing between competitors.  Additionally, out west they have the guys that compete in the CB160 program too.  Really, a small group of guys just need to get together and do it. 

Most are part of the unofficial SV series as it is...

[Cowboy 6]

Time moves on.  Accept that unless you are an exceptional rider your Stock 1999 SV 650 isn't competitive in LW Superbike anymore.  You are free to upgrade if you want.

How about if I buy a new set of tires this year?


Sorry you think my post is crap.