Overall Championship

Has WERA ever had an "overall" champion? Meaning, an award for the person who amassed the most total points nationwide.

Seems as if i have read about other orgs having such a champion. Personally, i think it is (or would be) pretty cool.

I can see the argument being that it could be considered a financial award, meaning it is an award for the person who can afford to race in several classes.

But OTOH, it would also be an award of commitment, consistency, longevity and speed. It would be cool to have everyone in the Nation competing (either primarily or secondary) for a single goal of earning the most points over the course of the year.

It would make sense to have 2 overall champions:
< 600cc
600cc and up

I am going to race in C-SB, B-SB and HWT-SB on my 675 in 2011. I think it would be very exciting to chase an overall championship. If there were such an award, i would run more classes (like A-SB and F1) soley to try to earn more points. It would probably encourage more people to enter more classes also. Especially later in the year if/when they realize they have a shot at an overall championship.

WERA's home page could have a sidebar listing the top 10 in total points for the 2 overall classes throughout the year so everyone could see where they stand.

I think it would be a very prestigious award and if you think about it, what would it hurt? In other words, it wouldn't cost WERA a single dime to offer an overall championship other than 2 extra trophies at the end of the year (1 for each class, LW and HW). Hell, just my personal entry fees alone into the additional classes entered in an effort to earn more points would pay for those trophies several times over.

 

You running all nationals next year?

 

Haven't decided yet.

I am thinking about it though. If im not mistaken, there isn't a HWT Twins class in the National Series, right?

 

I don't know which classes are in there anymore.

Are you no longer working in Africa most of the year?

 

Might be difficult with the way WERA is structured. Out here in SoCal, WSMC (Willow Springs) runs a pretty straightforward program. It's been modified a bit over the last couple years but traditionally, it was a 12 month campaign at one track. (They've since added another track (Streets of Willow) and nipped December from the schedule)

So, although it required a lot of pre-planning, strategy and money, it was doable. The overall winner wasn't always the fastest or best racer, but rather the most consistent.

 

No class break. That would penalize a guy that races a lwt and hw bike. He still runs a bunch of classes and gets a bunch of points.

It would take a lot of womanpower to go through all the regions and classes to do it.

 

I could see it working as an "Overall Nationals" champion like WSMC does. Just add up the points of a racers top 3 finishes per national and he who has the most points is Overall WERA Nationals Champion. Mongo could him a pie or something at the GNF instead of a trophy.

I guess you could do the same at the Sportsman and Vintage level as well. Top 3 finshes in a class and add up points over the whole year.

 

AFM does it quite well over there. I'm not sure if CMRA does it. I think it's easier to do with a smaller organization. Cool idea, but I think it would be too difficult for WERA to do and have it really mean something.

 

Nope, i changed companies. I used to work for a contractor, now i work for a 3rd party company performing audits/surveys etc.

I changed companies for several reasons, one of which was that it paid alot more money . But mostly because now i have a more flexible schedule. Before, i was off ~6 months out of the year, but i was at the mercy of the schedule. I worked a 28-28 schedule and if i was off for a race, great. If i wasn't, i was SOL.

Now in addition to being off the normal 5-6 months, i have 35 vacation days that i can use. So if im not normally off for a race weekend, i can schedule to be off for it.

That is where the "thinking about it" comes into play. I am trying to decide how i want to handle next year. If i want to just make what races i can "naturally", while fitting track days in my time off when there isn't a race and save my vacation days for extra stuff. Or if i want to spread those 35 days throughout the year (like 3-4 days at a time) to ensure i am off for all of the races in a Regional or in the National series.

 

CMRA does it but it changes every few years because someone complains about a guy entering less attended classes than the ABC classes.

So it goes back and forth from just about all classes added up to mainly ABC classes. CMRA takes the top 3 finishes from the weeekend and adds them up. I like using just about all the EX classes for the total, but when that happens most of the ABC guys start crying foul and it switches back.

 

Ehh, it would just be giving a award to the guy that cherry picked the most classes. To me class Championships and Regional championships have more Clout than a championship for the guy that raced the most races with nobody in them.

 

Good point. So a single overall champion, regardless of bike/class. Makes sense.

At first i thought it would also be alot to keep up with, but maybe not. I mean, at the end of a weekend the points are calculated anyway. During the season, you can go on the website and see the leaders in each region, in each class.

You could print out each page for each region and add up the total number of points for each rider to get his individual total. Yes, it would be extra work. But if it results in more people entering more races nationwide, i think it would be worth it.

 

HWTs went away at the nationals a few years back. Not enough bikes on the grid I believe. One of the reasons I sold my RC.

 

The underlying issue is that too many people sit around and try to think of ways to discredit the accomplishments of others.

Instead of trying to discredit somebody for running in empty classes, they should direct their attention to all of the fuckers sitting at home that caused the classes to be empty.

 

Then make it simple and it would be the F1 WERA Champion since that it the biggest baddest stuff out there. /sarcasm

 

Ah ok, makes sense.

I was browsing through mylaps and i found National results for HWT's sometimes, but then sometimes i didnt; it was confusing.

I didnt pay much attention to the dates.

 

+2


I'll give credit to the cats who showed up and ran long before I jump on the bandwagon hating on guys who raced in low-turnout classes.

 

It's pretty easy to enter those classes too.

 

It could encourage more entries, always a good thing. It would reward someone for doing it. It may even make some of the popular classes grow a little.

I'm good with it.

Oh, you probably saw HWT on the combined weekends. Regional/nationals