2004 National Schedule(s)

Wooohoooo....Vegas here we come!!!

 

Sean....

If you could stack the two western rounds so that they were in a row with a two week break it would save many many teams thousands of dollars in travel costs.

Do the california round in mid to late april. That way east coast teams can leave rigs out west, fly home, work for a couple weeks, fly back, pick up the rigs and do Las Vegas.

The way you have it set up now your twenty top east coast teams will have to incur thousands of dollars of extra travel cost and/or time off work.

Any chance of getting an April date in California?

 

Rough Estimate on Travel Costs...

I estimated the extra travel cost for us to make the California round.

It's 6,000 miles round trip $1,800
Airfare to reduce lost days $1,200

Lost days of work (still quite a few) Priceless

Travel is estimates at $0.30 a mile on the transporter. Our team is often maxed out on days off work as it is so it will be impossible for them to spend three day driving each way to both Vegas and California.

If California was in April we could drive out. Do the California race. Perform bike maintenance, drive to Vegas, park the rig at a RV storage facility for two or three weeks, fly home, fly back ($300 each), pick up the rig, do the race, and then drive home.

That would save about $3,000 and put much less wear and tear on the crew. Each one of those western rounds is almost a full week off work with all the driving. Stacking the rounds would alllow most folks to save an entire weeks worth of vacation days that would otherwise be spent driving the same stretch of Interstate all the way back out west. Vacation days they need for the Cycle Jam and the GNF.

AOD is probably the third most heavily sponsored team in the series but $3,000 puts a big dent in our budget. I think that extra $3,000 will really hurt season long participation but many of the smaller teams.

 

But Sean...

You are going to be spending $60,000 ($3,000 X 20 teams) on extra travel cost for absolutely no return.

Non of the OEMs besides Suzuki care about WERA. Racing at Fontucky is not going to change that. Even if the OEs all sponsored WERA national endurance teams we would end up with a smaller field because, like in AMA Superbike, there is not much reason for a privateer team to race against the factories.

You think that the Sirens or Deal's gap or AOD is going to get a huge OE deal because we are running around with another eighteen teams at Fontana? That ain't ever going to happen.

We had huge participation in the endurance series last year and this is going to really negatively impact it. Like I said, we are one of the better financed teams and we are going to have to look hard at skipping either the California round or the Cycle Jam.

There is a WSMC race on April 19th. Let's run with them on that weekend.

The only team this doesn't adversely affect is Vesrah because they are the only full time race team who don't have day jobs to pay for all this.

 

Not fan-ing the flames but:

Looks like next year the champions of each class will notn be decided by who has the fastest riders, best equipment, stuff like that but only by who has the budget.

Almost every class this year was within the points of a single race. With these two races it will come down to who can spend it to go...

Yes I know National means National and that no one's making anyone go...

 

You're killin me

 

I love this sport and I love this series. I consider myself to be an ardent supporter of WERA and I am not even opposed to doing two rounds out west as long as they are not crazy in the cost department.

I am sure Sean will take another look at it all to see if he can work something out so that more teams can run the whole series next year.

I hope my previous posts didn't sound to confrontational. I had made a note to post a suggestion about, hypothetically, if there were to be two west coast rounds could we have them in a row so that it cuts the travel costs. I came in this morning to post that and found the 2004 schedule instead.

Of course, Sean might already have the date in April and this is all to distract us from the NELSON'S LEDGES date that is on the calendar.

Or how about replacing Cali with Hallet?

 

Yeah, Nelson

I with you on this one.Hopefully our season will go better than last.Just can't plan on throwing a round out!I'm cool with Vegas, and I have family in Cali, that I have not seen in years.Your Idea on having the round 2 weeks apart is good.Nelson here we come

 

I have limited experience with the WERA Endurance series, but I do like WERA making the National series "National".

With that said, I totally agree with AOD in that it really makes it tough for teams from the other side of the US to make it. I personally was eyeing the possibility of running the National series next year, but that won't work for me, given the long travel distances. Props for those who can attend all the events, as it looks like a solid schedule.

From my experience at the Grattan National sprints, it would have be nice to get more people involved in the sprint races. Going in, I thought there would be twice as many bikes, with better competition, etc. Instead the grids were really thin and I was a little disappointed.

I guess it has it's pro's and con's either way. This might attract more business for WERA from a previously unrepresented region.

Just my $.02

 

:up: Thumbs up to WERA for doing this. Folks, this is a national CHALLENGE - it's supposed to be difficult.

 

Agreed. It's just a bummer when it becomes more of an attendance award, rather than a "championship battle to the end".

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good plan - spreading things out. I just wish I could do it all.

 

It's the same thing with sportsman - with the points structure as it is you need to be at every round if you are battling for a championship so "attendance award" argument doesn't hold much water . It's doable if you want to, just take your pick either Nat. or Sportsman series.

 

I hope so because there is no way I would have enough vacation time or money to make every round on the 2004 schedule with the 2 rounds out West. I realize that's why we have a throw away round, but I have to agree with your comments that most teams won't be able to make both rounds out West and turnout from the East Coast regulars would probably be pretty light.

Now if I win the Powerball lottery this weekend I just might consider covering travel costs for those regulars who can't afford it.

 

I know what you mean about the Sportsman stuff but it's not the same because the Sportsman stuff is in a region, i.e. all SE races are in a smaller geographical area. It's a lot easier to make all the races in a 4 state radius than multiple trips across the country.

 

How so Martin? I raced in 2 National events this year and was in the top 5-6 in each class. If I did that in the regional series, I wouldn't be in the top 15.

I'm not trying to make an argument. Just saying it's a lot more fun racing with 5-10 guys over the course of a season, instead of 1-2.

And to each his own - In my particular scenario, I place a lot of value on the regional series, with the showdown at the GNF. It's the best of both worlds.

 

So to run the National Endurance Series including the time off for the Cycle Jam and the GNF I will only need 5 weeks of vacation next year !!! I guess that answers the question about buying a new endurance bike for next year.
Brian
Richocet Racing