elec. scoring and qualifying

[anonymous]

GRID BY POINTS IN CLASS

Actually, this would nix two birds with one stone.  CCS would be forced to keep better/efficient records on points in a timely manner and we could just pay as we go without worry.  You don't think they'd put Michael Schumacher in a 2nd wave because he paid late???

[ronin]

Gridding by points in class seems to be fair to me, otherwise what good are those points until the end of the season. I also agree with the gentleman on all the red flags on GTO races, it kinda sucks getting 6 or 8 laps cuz some guy wants to be matt maladin, i race GTO some I can get more seat time, practice, learn to pick the best places to pass, and not have to be in a hurry like in a sprint race. ;D

[StuartV666]

Oh my! WERA is here!

Personally, I am running CCS now, after running WERA for the first few races of the seaon. One of the main reasons for my switch is exactly the points/gridding system. I think gridding by points sucks. It means that the rich guys that can afford to show up at every race can have a few mediocre finishes early on and pretty much assure themselves a spot up front for the rest of the season.

It's a vicious cycle. You get gridded up front in the first race of the season and run just average laps, but still finish close to the front. So now you still get gridded up front, and the cycle repeats.

I got tired of showing up to WERA races, coming from the 2nd or 3rd wave to 17th and still being gridded in the 2nd or 3rd wave again next time out.

I think gridding by points vs. order of entry is about a wash in terms of guys with bucks being able to get better grid spots. The one advantage of gridding by order of entry is that it DOES allow for somebody to come along after the start of the season and still do well, if their riding ability is up to it. For example, somebody who has been running some other series decides to run CCS. The enter a month ahead of time for a race in August, and they can still get a decent grid spot. If they're fast enough, they have a legitimate shot at actually winning the race. This is in contrast to the WERA way (gridding by points) which means that, no matter how fast you are (unless you're somebody like Giovanni Rojas), if you come to WERA after the first couple of races of the season, you're not going to have a shot a winning anything, period. At least for your first couple of weekends or more, out.

- Stu

[StuartV666]

Having said all that, I think having qualifying is the only fair way to really set grids. Of course, I proposed this in the WERA BBS a while back and was flamed so hard my monitor started smoking. Mostly by the guys who would lose out on their cherry grid spots, of course. Anyway...

I think qualifying could be a successful way to do it, if it was done like this:

1) Assuming CCS institutes electronic scoring for next year.

2) Every rider has to have a transponder for each different bike they are going to run.

3) Every lap of every practice session all weekend is timed and scored in the CCS computer.

4) Grids are set by the best lap of practice, period. If Saturday was dry and Sunday is wet, then the guys who just show up on Sunday are going to get gridded behind everybody that practiced on Saturday. That's the breaks.

If all of practice counts towards qualifying, then I think that will alleviate the concerns about people going out and treating a practice session like a race. Yes, if there was some limited qualifying session, like only one session on Sunday morning, or something like that, then I would be concerned about a bunch of people all going out then and causing problems.

Actually, now that I think about it, if people have some incentive to really try to run a race pace in practice, that might have some good effects. People who are going to crash themselves out can do it in practice instead of the race itself.  :)

There are some potential issues with timed qualifying that would probably need to be addressed.

1) CCS would probably need to do something to prevent cheating. Otherwise, I can imagine guys swapping transponders for a session so that a faster guy can help his slower buddy get a decent grid spot. Perhaps just monitoring the qualifying, spot checks at Pit In, and huge penalties for cheating would be sufficient to cover this.

For example, Joe Rocket takes Jim Turtle's transponder out for him. Suddenly, the qualifying computer show's Jim's qualifying times drop from 1:40 to 1:25. That might cue somebody to be looking for Jim to come in off the track and, when he is observed to not be out there ('cause Joe Rocket's bike has his transponder) he is busted. Or if Jim is out on his bike, too, a grid marshall checks his transponder when he comes in and makes sure it's the one assigned to that particular bike.

2) Some people will fail to get in a timed lap for whatever reason. Those people will get gridded at the back, by order of entry.

3) Getting transponder assignments matched up to bikes, matched up to riders could be a significant admin burden to accomplish at the track - especially if it has to be done between the time you go through Registration or Tech and the time you roll out for your first practice session. To address this, CCS could say this: If you want to have timed qualifying, you have to buy a transponder for each of your bikes and register it with us ahead of time. Otherwise, you'll be provided with a transponder at the track, to facilitate scoring, but you won't get timed for qualifying. In that case, you will gridded behind all the timed qualifiers, by order of entry.

On the other hand, there's no reason the timing/scoring equipment couldn't store the lap times for a given transponder, even before it has been matched up in the computer to a particular rider/bike. It would just make it hard to watch for cheating during practice.

4) It would be very difficult to catch people if they did something like, for example, put their 600 transponder on their 750 and went out to better their 600 race qualifying time. Or put slicks on their 600 to set a qualifying time for a Supersport race.

But, I'm not too worried about those kinds of things. Running slicks or a bigger bike or something like that is not going to help most people by very much. At most, a couple of seconds at most tracks. Most people are much more limited by their skill than their bike. And since this is only for grid positions, I'm not too worried if it's not accurate to a 1/1000th of a second. I just want to know that, if I'm one of the 4 fastest guys in my race, I'm going to be gridded on the front row, or 2nd row at the worst.

Bottom line: I think the pros of timed qualifying vastly outweigh any of the cons.

- Stu

[StuartV666]

Another way to fight cheating:

People have to own their transponders AND they have to pre-enter, to be allowed to qualify. Everybody else is gridded at the back by order of entry.

Each weekend, all the pre-entries with transponders get pre-printed labels from CCS when they register. Each label has the rider name, bike # and bike class (Lightweight, MW, HW, etc.) printed on it. The rider must put the right labels on each transponder before going through Tech, where they are confirmed to be on correctly.

Then, somebody at Pit In could randomly spot check people just by looking at their transponder's label, to make sure it's matched up with the right rider and bike.

Just an idea, put out there for constructive criticism....

- Stu

[sportbikepete]

Oh my god, the rule book just doubled in size. ;D

[pmoravek]

I'm all for it....the problem (I imagine) is the cost.
I like your idea of each rider buying their own transponder. That way it cut's down on the cost to CCS. (They wouldn't need to raise our fees any...hopefully)  
It would also be nice to have a record of my laptimes for the whole weekend. (Sometimes the wife is too busy keeping the rugrats outta everyones way to keep time for me)
I'd like to hear CCS chime in on this one and see what objections they have.  I wouldn't think it would be that much more labor intensive. They might need to buy some software in order to record and store everyones time.

CCS.....whaaddaya think?

[ecumike]

PETE!!... We gonna see you @ VIR this weekend?

- BTW, this is Mike, the 'new guy' on the RS250.

[pmoravek]

Hey Dude....I'll be there Saturday, but not Sunday.  The wife thinks a family vacation at the Outer Banks is more important.  (the nerve...eh?)

[Team_Serpent]

Oh my! WERA is here!

Personally, I am running CCS now, after running WERA for the first few races of the seaon. One of the main reasons for my switch is exactly the points/gridding system. I think gridding by points sucks. It means that the rich guys that can afford to show up at every race can have a few mediocre finishes early on and pretty much assure themselves a spot up front for the rest of the season.

What?  Who's rich?  is there a racer out there who is rich?  ;D  Stuart, come on man, get real, do you really think this way?

It's a vicious cycle. You get gridded up front in the first race of the season and run just average laps, but still finish close to the front. So now you still get gridded up front, and the cycle repeats.

FWIW they grid the first race of the season by the previous year's points. Riders without points from the previous year are grid by time of entry.

I got tired of showing up to WERA races, coming from the 2nd or 3rd wave to 17th and still being gridded in the 2nd or 3rd wave again next time out.

If there were people grid ahead of you that had less points (although I doubt this was the case) you should have said something to have the grid corrected.

I think gridding by points vs. order of entry is about a wash in terms of guys with bucks being able to get better grid spots. The one advantage of gridding by order of entry is that it DOES allow for somebody to come along after the start of the season and still do well, if their riding ability is up to it. For example, somebody who has been running some other series decides to run CCS. The enter a month ahead of time for a race in August, and they can still get a decent grid spot. If they're fast enough, they have a legitimate shot at actually winning the race. This is in contrast to the WERA way (gridding by points) which means that, no matter how fast you are (unless you're somebody like Giovanni Rojas), if you come to WERA after the first couple of races of the season, you're not going to have a shot a winning anything, period. At least for your first couple of weekends or more, out.

You have a very interesting line of thinking, that I'm just not sure I can buy into.

- Stu

[sportbikepete]

I'll be there, solo. Did not see you at Summit.

[ecumike]

Ah yea... that's right, we got 2 Petes.

sportbikepete... yea I was there, I kept meaning to come over, but never got around to it. + with the rain, it sucked... almost didn't show up on Sun, but did for only 1 race.. was a quick in and out.

I will come meet you this weekend, for real.