Rule change question

There is alot of weight to both the pros and the cons of this issue.

Manfred brings very valid points to the table.
The theoretical senario of someone running only a lap or two on purpose is possible but very unlikely. We are all here because we want to race and pulling off to watch others run would be rediculous.

Defining "racing" is nebulous and subjective. How do you draw the line to say a driver has raced or not? --Has he (or she) raced if he made it past the green flag without getting taken out? --Has he raced if he diced closely with another car for 4 laps before his engine blew? --Has he raced if he drove 10 laps to finally pass another car who took him out in the next turn? --Has he raced if he drove the whole 30 minutes without dicing with anyone or passing anyone (just like a club track day) to take the checker?

Not so easy to define. After listening to the above discussion though, I'm inclined to say that anyone who starts a race should be considered to have been racing. They deserve credit for that. They deserve the most credit for finishing the race and finishing at the front, of course, but the rest deserve credit for what they have done also.
The guy who was in a hard battle for 8 laps has raced harder than the guy who never had to pass anyone but still took the checker...

WRT rewarding mistakes: No system will ever be perfect. If you are worried about rewarding mistakes, you in effect end up punishing bad luck. If you don't penalize bad luck, then you allow that mistakes may also not be penalized. You just can't have it both ways, as I see it.
But you know, a driver may have been doing a great job of racing (!) for 10 laps before he blew it and suffered a lapse of judgment. Does he deserve credit for his job during those 10 laps before his mistake, or does one mistake make him an idiot? I can name names of really good drivers who have screwed up (some recently). Doesn't make them bad drivers--just human. Things happen. Even Indy/Champ car drivers muck up and wreck cars. Would you say they're bad drivers? If you are perfect, and have never made a mistake while racing, you can throw the first stone. I suspect there will be no stones...

This new system may actually make racing safer. A driver would not feel compelled to complete a race under less-than-safe conditions just for the points.
Case in point: the Labor Day race at Mission. Monday had very changeable weather and I and my crew chief decided it was not wet enough for our full rain tires. I went out on slicks, and the sprinkles eventually turned into hard rain. My window was fogged, my wipers worked about once a lap, and I had almost no traction--intelligent people would have said "this is crazy" and pulled in, but I needed the points. I made it 8 laps, before having a slight lapse of judgment which spun me into the front straight wall. Does that mean I'm an idiot? Probably not, as I won on Sunday. Under the new system, I could have made a safer choice about driving my car under the given conditions, and saved my husband alot of time and effort over the following 3 days.
Note: If the damage to the car had been worse, then Conference would have lost my entries to Portland and Seattle too. Or, if the EIP points span had been slightly bigger then the accident would probably have caused us to cancel my entries for Portland and Seattle regardless to save time and money, and not having to drive a car with issues. The new rules would have been safer and potentially better at keeping the entries up.

No system will be perfect. We should choose the one the seems the fairest and helps the most drivers have the most fun racing in Conference.
The more I think about this though, the more I think the new system may be better.
 
I like things the way they are.

westipton said:
I took third in CF last year by being steady, and slow, but if we had run under this proposed scenario my competition would have been awarded 45 points instead of 9 for his three DNF's, and the fight for that class would have been over in July instead of mid September.

Wes is right. With the proposed system I would have won club ford last year by mid summer despite my broken gear, flat tire and cowling in the head experience. The current system forced me to focus more and I had to win alot of races at the end to win the championship. It made for a better experience and I believe I became a more consistent driver because of it.
Also, from what I remember if a person makes it to the 1/2 way point of the race and can at least limp around the track for a lap, they could finish from the pits which would accomplish the same thing. But if a car cant go under its own power it should get a DNF.
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As with Lance, I don't think we should award anything for DNS. That really is a "gee, thanks for the making the effort" point, which is (IMO) silly.

As for DNF, I'd be perfectly okay with not awarding any points, but I think we should at least ratchet up the minimum number of laps. As Eric said, 50% doesn't really seem like all that much, and I'd like to see something more like 70% (again, if we're going to have points for DNF at all).

While I disagree with them, I think the current DNF/DNS rules are fairly innocuous, but the intent of the proposal seems to be to encourage people to keep coming out to race, even if they've had bad luck/bad prep/bad whatever in a given race. While I agree that we need to find ways to encourage people to race, the awarding of race points should ONLY be for racing, by which I mean competing on track until the checkered flag.
 
Simple finish substantially higher per race than the fellow competitors intending to make all the races in the series, then calculate the worst case mathematical points model going forward. Cant be to hard obviously Wes can do it. :)
 
Steve/Rodney,
So you would consider those who drive round the track until the checker but never pass anyone to be racing? But those who dice for position for some # of laps but don't take the checker to not be racing?
I don't think it's that simple. Frequently, the hardest racing it at the green flag.
 
A race goes for a set period of time and those who don't finish it according to the newly proposed rule, would still finish behind the neophytes ur referring to. Second a championship series is usually 12 or more races long a true competitor should be able to win or finish well fairly often enough in his class so he should have no problem making up points from an unfortunate DNF or two. We also have throw away races for those who make all events on the schedule which also help mitigate an occasional DNF. I am just one racer and am not to worked up about the change Ill go with whatever I just think things are fine and FUN the way they are.
 
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karen_stimson said:
Steve/Rodney,
So you would consider those who drive round the track until the checker but never pass anyone to be racing? But those who dice for position for some # of laps but don't take the checker to not be racing?
I don't think it's that simple. Frequently, the hardest racing it at the green flag.
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Well, that's kind of an interesting question. For someone in a tiny class (especially, say, the only car in class) who just circulates around... no, that's not racing, not really.

OTOH, if you're in a multi-car class and you drive your ass off for the duration, but never close the 2-second gap to the leader, but at the same time the cars behind you never threaten your position? Damn straight that's racing, just as much as a back-and-forth, never-say-die battle for dead last that's only decided by the wave of the checkers at the end.

Driving like mad in a heated battle, only to make a mistake and go off, stall the engine, and then have heat soak prevent you refiring, resulting in a DNF? Hell yeah, that's racing too... but you still didn't finish the race, so I don't see why you should get rewarded for the 90% of the race you DID do. Not finishing a race, for whatever reason, is as much a part of things as anything else, but there's no reason you should get a substantial percentage of the winner's points just for a fine display of racing prowess.
 
After thinking about it, I kind of like the idea that people who get lapped in a race are automatically DNF'd. If you can't even manage to keep from getting lapped, that's certainly not racing.
 
Randy Blaylock said:
After thinking about it, I kind of like the idea that people who get lapped in a race are automatically DNF'd. If you can't even manage to keep from getting lapped, that's certainly not racing.
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Randy - if this was the case, you'd have DNF'd all of the Pro3 cars by the sixth lap of the race. :eek:

Oh - you mean lapped by cars in the same class ... ;)

Dan
 
This discussion is motivating me to expand my horizons. If I try a little harder, and rented or built a couple more cars, I think I could qualify for championships in GT1, SPO, ST, and something in G3 and 6. Five classes would be a hoot. On Sundays only anyway.
 
Steve Adams said:
As for DNF, I'd be perfectly okay with not awarding any points, but I think we should at least ratchet up the minimum number of laps. As Eric said, 50% doesn't really seem like all that much, and I'd like to see something more like 70% (again, if we're going to have points for DNF at all).
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I think one of the reasons for the DNF points is the way we award our championships. You need to run a minimum number of races to qualify for a year end championship, having 3 points next to your number in the points keeper's spreadsheet has to make it easier to determine who qualifies for year end awards.
 
And of course, traditionally MAYBE 15% to 18% on a good year actually complete enough races to qualify for a championship anyway. Do we need to start DQ'ing anyone for a championship who doesn't strictly attend a minimum of 10 races? How about anyone who doesn't attend all the races? Maybe we should just go ahead and eliminate anyone from contention who can't provide documentation that they spent at least $20,000 on the season? I understand not wanting to dumb down the effort required and cheapen the Chamionship but how arbitrary is arbitrary enough?

If you have a problem with only completing half of the laps then I'm curious how you feel about qualifying for a championship if you ATTEND half of the races and FINSH half of those. That means in a very real sense that someone can win a championship by completing half the laps and taking the checkers in ONE QUARTER of the races while successfully rolling through tech in another quarter of the races without ever entering a hot track. That equates to ONE EIGHTH of the available laps over the course of the season! Somehow that is better than keeping the points totals close enough to encourage drivers to keep on fighting for championships? I just see this very differently than some of you I guess.

Maybe if we set the bar high enough Conference Championships would be extra-super special since they would only occur once a decade or so. Woo-Hoo! Big savings on Trophys and Jackets.
 
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Seems to me that I sat and applauded through a whole bunch of class champions at the 2008 ICSCC Banquet. 18%? Hmmm...
 
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm

Interesting dilemma….

I see what Randy is trying to do to encourage more participation .

But I also see Wes/Steve/Eric’s point of view too.

Now I am more of the mind to leave it alone. I am sure there is a happy medium I just don’t know where that is.

I would never want something I did not earn or deserve in a sportsman like manner. I love driving the car to its/my limits and hopefully doing with someone else door to door. As a matter of fact that is why I ran as many Group 1 races as I could. There was somebody to play with. That was actually far more important than the points I was earning. My brother as early as the first Mission race told me forget about RS and run SPM so you’re in a run group that has people to play with.

Although I did not really kick anyone’s butt this year for the RS Championship I did do it via the established rules. Yes I did read them thoroughly and knew exactly what I needed to do and did keep track of the points.

My car through preparation or sheer dumb luck finished every competition lap it started and almost all of my competition did not.
So in a way it feels like I am getting an attendance award. But it’s not like I can control who or how many in my class show up.
My car is legal in several classes and almost competitive in only one class performance wise. So I ran that class. And I showed up to more races then I had originally hoped to.

Anyway enough about me……most of us are going to pull off and not limp around for points because of our sportsmanship and respect for the others on the track.

I will say it is very cool that we can discuss pro’s n’ con’s and different viewpoints without degrading to a school playground brawl.

It would be better with a cold beverage though in person with my new racing friends….:p
 
Thanks Rodney, I love you too man!

So back to the issue at hand, which has fallen far afield the last 24 hours. Do we leave a very good, smoothly running system alone, or change it because there is a perception that drivers aren't getting their monies worth with the current system? We all have concerns with the escalating entry fees and the shrinking amount of track time, at least at some of our venues, so perhaps that is contributing to this issue? Not sure where it came from or what committee or group put this proposal together, but as Rick said earlier, if this passes it will make championships even harder to win. That to me means more time, money and effort than ever before to reach that goal, and in this tough economic climate that doesn't sound like a very sound financial plan to me. For the 85% who don't run enough to qualify for a years end podium I doubt they'll care one way or the other, but I'd bet the other 15% will.
 
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No one even mentioned the occasionally occuring someone diving into turn 1 at the start of the race trying to win it all right there (someone with the initials BT comes to mind) and taking out one, two or three folks who worked hard and spent hard to get $$ to get their cars on the track to all get the same DNF points. Maybe we should have a negative point for doing something like that.

I am not against change. No sir, I am for positive improvement. And the idea of changing the point structure is an interesting one for me. But, until we can all put our heads together and come up with a better rat trap I see no reason to change it.

But please, keep plying through the waters and working the issue. I think it needs some improvement and refining, just not a major change. Continued discussion will bring about the answer.
 
BTW: Randy, you wrote
"Kyle, if I won a championship because you had a mechanical, I wouldn't feel right about it. I wouldn't feel right about it so much that I would probably DNS my next race just to tighten up the points again, so I could race you on the track. Or I might DNS my next race and give you the best tires I have, and if you win, you win the championship. "

I appreciate the sentiment if you ment it. If not, I still do. But I would never ask or expect you to go that far.

If you had parts I could borrow that would fit my car if it broke, gas, tires or what-ever and would loan/pay-forward to me to use so I could race you I would appreciate that. In fact that is what makes Conference so great because folks do it often here. That is what makes ICSCC great.

So I am going to read your message as a positive and very welcome offer but ask you to not go that far for me. I am a stubborn Okie who has to be hit in the head several times before I remember to load the spare set of tires or to check the switches being in the "On" mode before hitting the track.
 
Randy,
What can I say. I tip my hat to you and I'd buy you a beer any damn day of the week. We need more folks like you everywhere.
 
In that, we are truly all volunteers, Randy.

Time, money or talent, alone we decide how to apply those tools we each have to lend. In the end, it can be very satisfying to know what we've given to our great sport has true worth.
 
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