Endurance 2024. Open discussion..

First off, congrats to all the 2023 champions: AOD, Alpha Omega, RBoM, RTR, and Nature Power Superbike. It appears that the endurance series continued to grow (or rebound) in all aspects. The series increased to 6 rounds to include a 6 hour race, the entries for ULW has gone up quite a bit, and the LW and MW grids were strong. The HW class was light but things could heat up in 2024 as Alpha Omega, Nature Power Superbike, and Robem Engineering have all hinted on making the jump up to HW.
With that being said, I'd like to hear ideas or suggestions on what could be done to keep things moving forward. So, post up whatever idea you have and lets see where this goes. Since I started this thread I will get the ball rolling..

There has been an idea of limiting fuel capacities. HW bikes to a 24 liter fuel (FIM standard) capacity to enable the purchase of tanks that are readily available. Thoughts?

After seeing fuel being spilled out of fuel jugs all over pit lane numerous times, should dry breaks be mandated for the big bike race?

With middleweight twins becoming a popular engine configuration with manufacturers, where should they be placed?

 

We need to figure out a way to have red flags not impact loss of lap in your class. With the high number of red flags this year it has been huge impact. It sucks when working really had to stay on the same lap as your class competition and then go a lap down on restart just because you were passed by the overall leader and the team you are actually racing against was not.

Screw the overall scoring and just score by class if that is the only way to do it.

 

Yeah, I figured that was going to be the case.

 

More of a question than a suggestion but why is there no set pit lane speed limit? I know in the riders meetings y'all make a point to emphasize keeping it at a reasonable speed but it seems like it opens the door for a team to interpret that as full send it in the pit stops.

 

Back in the day, finishing top 10 overall was kind of prestigious and the top 10 got to run the number of their finishing position on their next year's bike. I don't know it that's a thing anymore, but thought it was kind of cool to earn a single-digit number.

If N2 decides to do Friday qualifying again, I think the whole day should be qualifying and use the best time logged for each team....or just do the morning endurance practice session for qualifying.

 

People were taking their sweet ass time getting off the warmers and out of the pits. It happened at Roebling also and with the summer heat, bikes were sitting on the grid a long time waiting while engines temps went up. You could treat it like a quick start procedure. You have one minute from the time pit exit opens to get out onto the track. If you miss it, you lose your warm up lap and start the race from pit row after the pack clears off.

 

......

Don't worry, we're running a dry break next year.

 

I don't know when the pit out marshal is told to display the 5 minute board and allow bikes on track, but maybe speed that part up. The riders that got on their bikes in a hurry because they were being yelled at by officials were left sitting at pit out waiting for it to open up. I think that something could be done in the timing of the first, second and third calls and the opening of pit lane to fix a lot of that. The 5 board goes up and pit lane opens at second or third call, then close pit lane at the 4 or 3 board forcing riders to start from pit lane. That'd be a way to quickly penalize the teams that are purposely dragging their feet on restarts. It's probably already in the rule book as such, but it's definitely not getting implemented in real time during a race.

 

I agree.... Start from Pitt Lane at 3 board. That will fix this issue real fast.

 

The GSX8S is only making 77hp stock. I could see that bike racing in lw but limited to ss mods. The KTM790 is too fast for LW.

 

Probably makes sense until true potential of bike plays out. I say make it superstock rules for motor modifications.
More than likely bike will need triples and different offset to make it work just like the R7 does. These new LW bikes are still just commuter bikes and do not really have good track geometry numbers.

 

There are two big eras to Endurance, pre Global Financial Crisis, and post N2.

Pre GFC there were usually 2-3 teams chasing the championship in any class. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Superbike = run what your brung, but we also had Supersport which had stock gas tanks, and no overt quick change. The "no work under a red flag" rule was actually created to give the Superbikes a little advantage over the supersport teams because, before that rule, the supersport teams would refuel and refresh tires under the red flags. So, six classes, 2 to 3 full season teams a class, call it 12 to 18 full time teams a season. There was also contingency money and it was much more expensive to run because of the nationwide events.

Post N2, just talking big bike race, we have three classes and we've had, on average 4-5 teams running each class all year, each year, giving us about 11 to 12 teams running the full season each year. The series is kinda less expensive now (fewer rounds, no west coast) but the bikes are more expensive and the contingency is less so its probably a wash.

Teams that ran all rounds
LW MW HW Relay* Total
2019 3 4 3 10
2020 4 3 3 10
2021 6 10 3 19
2022 6 6 3 1 16
2023 5 5 2 3 15


Ultralight
2019 3
2020 1
2021 4
2022 4
2023 8

*the abomination

To me that says that the rolling recession and higher interest rates are starting to weigh on participation and/or, the advent of the Relay class cannibalized some teams that would have fielded real endurance bikes but did Relay instead. MWSB is the class that has seen the most dramatic decrease in participation from 10 in 2021 to five last year. I am not going to look up race licenses but maybe a bunch of folks left the big bike classes to race in the less expensive ultralight event?

Or maybe adding the sixth round started pushing the team budget's too much?

This year our gas tank never actually gave us an advantage as all the races were dramatically shortened by red flags caused by bikes in other classes. We always took the same number of pit stops at other top teams. It would feel pretty targeted to change a rule, applying only to AOD (and Kustom Cockpit?) since we are the only veteran heavyweight teams. I am against gas tank limit rules for a variety of reasons from enforcement to history to "its cool we do the hardest endurance racing stints in the world".

We get a lot of flack for the appearance of our gas tank but keep in mind that we made it in the back yard and, honestly, anyone else could make one as well with some practices and some youtube videos. It was our first time to build a tank like that as well! We learned to beat the aluminum on a hickory stump and welded it up using a cheap welder. We sand cast the dry brake fittings by melting down old hard drive casings, all in the back yard. It probably makes us old that we think it is in keeping with the spirit of the sport to make prototype parts and learn new skills and such rather than "add to cart" a race bike but, fortunately for 'click to buy' bike builders, there is: supersport

I'd propose the reintroduction of HW SS and MW SS but make the rules even more restrictive than in the past so they are easier to enforce. I'd propose that the only mods allowed past SS rules would be modifying the gas cap to allow keyless full opening, and that's it. All axles, axle nuts, all that stuff stays stock. That way, for people who don't want to build parts they don't have to build anything and its a level playing field amongst all the SS teams. Its late for planning now so I don't think there would be many teams in that class for 2024 but if it picks up another 2 to 3 teams in each class that would increase full season participation.

Cut the gas cap a little, get an Acerbis quick fill, you're done!

 

Big fuel tanks are cool. Hopefully 2024...

 

You win. Yours is bigger.

 

There was what 3 teams that competed in the heavyweight class this year (entire season). So now would be the ideal time to do it as there would be minimal impact for new teams. If you wait a year, people are going to build massive tanks for next year and then have to build another one for the following year. Its still early enough as most teams have yet to start building the bikes.
All other classes should have stock capacity tanks.

 

There is a pretty wide spread in stock fuel capacities for LW bikes:

2nd gen SV650 4.5 gal
Yamaha R7 3.4 gal
3rd gen SV650 3.8 gal
Aprilia RS660 4.0 gal

Plus, all of the competitive LW teams have already invested in big tanks allowing 80 minute stints. The LW class is usually well represented. I wouldn't mess with it.