rick_bostrom
Onda Kattan Racing
Awarding points for "Finishing" is as arbitrary as putting a postage stamp somewhere on the circuit and then declaring the winner the first person who hits it with their right rear tire. In races of all kinds someone decides on a "goal" then rules are created to insure the proper steps are performed to achieve that goal.
In Steve's race world, all of the importance is concentrated on one arbitrary point in space at the end of an approximate period of time travelling at speed left to the decision of the individual racers. If that is what the racers want then I am fine with that. I'm just trying to offer an option that might actually make racing more appealing to entrants, more successful financially to the member clobs, and safer by some small but definable amount (unlike three year old seatbelts or required H&N devices .... oops! Thats right, safety is only important when it is emotional and abstract, not when we have actual data points supporting a change. "Nuff said about THAT subject)
So perhaps the better example is the race where the winner does 18 laps and takes the checkered flag. The guy glued to his back bumper for the whole race pulls off line in turn eight on lap 18 to set up a pass for the win, runs over a chunk of sheet metal left on the track by an incident two laps before and cuts down his front tires. Car grinds to a halt on two deformed rims 100 yards from the finish line. Meanwhile, a car that finished seven laps before losing every gear but second had pulled into the hot pits halfway through the race. With six minutes left he realizes he needs to get two more laps for an official finish and last place points so out he goes for two three minute laps in fast traffic scaring the crap out of himself and everyone else on the track. He's going so slowly that after his first slow circuit he gets a black flag at start finish and has to go all the way around again where he exits into the hot pit lane has a quick conversation with the black flag station and idles across the timing line for an administrative finish 5 minutes after the checkers and takes a right out of the back gate back to his paddock spot. Because of an arbitrary and covoluted ruleset the guy that finished 9 laps, with two at dangerous speeds, beats the guy who did 17.9.
As long as the choice is ARBITRARY, how about we reward the guy who did the most distance in the specified amount of time. Lots of other organizations do it that way in many different kinds of racing. For most people it will be transparent. We are just revising the goal slightly. It's a choice between two ARBITRARY goals, so we just need to make sure we choose the one that benefits the particiants and the organizers the most. Scoring distance covered gives us the most bang for our buck while slightly enhancing safety. We are Conference - we can make things the way we want them, not the way anyone else does them. I'll abide by the decision of the thoughtful voting members of Conference. (Unless it fails, then I will abide by their decision again next year.)
In Steve's race world, all of the importance is concentrated on one arbitrary point in space at the end of an approximate period of time travelling at speed left to the decision of the individual racers. If that is what the racers want then I am fine with that. I'm just trying to offer an option that might actually make racing more appealing to entrants, more successful financially to the member clobs, and safer by some small but definable amount (unlike three year old seatbelts or required H&N devices .... oops! Thats right, safety is only important when it is emotional and abstract, not when we have actual data points supporting a change. "Nuff said about THAT subject)
So perhaps the better example is the race where the winner does 18 laps and takes the checkered flag. The guy glued to his back bumper for the whole race pulls off line in turn eight on lap 18 to set up a pass for the win, runs over a chunk of sheet metal left on the track by an incident two laps before and cuts down his front tires. Car grinds to a halt on two deformed rims 100 yards from the finish line. Meanwhile, a car that finished seven laps before losing every gear but second had pulled into the hot pits halfway through the race. With six minutes left he realizes he needs to get two more laps for an official finish and last place points so out he goes for two three minute laps in fast traffic scaring the crap out of himself and everyone else on the track. He's going so slowly that after his first slow circuit he gets a black flag at start finish and has to go all the way around again where he exits into the hot pit lane has a quick conversation with the black flag station and idles across the timing line for an administrative finish 5 minutes after the checkers and takes a right out of the back gate back to his paddock spot. Because of an arbitrary and covoluted ruleset the guy that finished 9 laps, with two at dangerous speeds, beats the guy who did 17.9.
As long as the choice is ARBITRARY, how about we reward the guy who did the most distance in the specified amount of time. Lots of other organizations do it that way in many different kinds of racing. For most people it will be transparent. We are just revising the goal slightly. It's a choice between two ARBITRARY goals, so we just need to make sure we choose the one that benefits the particiants and the organizers the most. Scoring distance covered gives us the most bang for our buck while slightly enhancing safety. We are Conference - we can make things the way we want them, not the way anyone else does them. I'll abide by the decision of the thoughtful voting members of Conference. (Unless it fails, then I will abide by their decision again next year.)
