I'd like to toss an idea out there... Currently we are gridded on points position. Nothing wrong with that at all so don't think I am saying it's bad or wrong. What I'd like to suggest is: The last practice session before racing would be used to "qualify" you for that day's grid position. Fastest lap in that session for each class would be your qualifying time and then place you whereever your lap time falls in line with others in your class. I am not suggesting this be done the next race or even this year...just something to consider. Why am I suggesting this? To make it even more competitive and make me (or you) feel more like a racer (you know, like the big boy/girl classes). It would really change the rider mindset going into the session with a real purpose of putting down a fast lap and have everyone on equal terms (so to speak). It would also add in a cool element of being a racer to find space out on track to get your groove on or to follow a faster rider to help tow you along...just another racing element of competition to the weekend is all. For those that are making the grids based on points...I assume (I know...dangerous word...lol) they have to look that up and match up those riders that are registered for that day. With this, the timing and scoring sheets would provide you all the info you need to plug in who goes where on the grid for each class. Don't know if it would be as simple as that...but does not seem to be a whole lot more (if any) work for those making the grids...just changes what info places folks. Of course...if you forget to put your transponder on...guess you start at the back. Bet that mistake would only happen once...haha Any thoughts?? Doable or just shut up and take my crayons back to my corner? Thanks
Some racers don't practice in the last session. What if they don't practice in the last/qualifying session? Sometimes the last session may be shortened due to issues earlier that day. And because of the quiet time at Rd ATL, there is only one session on Sunday.
ppr Thanks for your inputs. If someone does not practice in last session, maybe they could skip the first one and ride in the one that can actually affect that days races for them? If anyone that skips their practice time...do they really care where they are on the grid? ATL is a bit special with a single session, but everyone is on equal ground here so it just makes it that much more competitive and fun. In the event of a session not happening, grids could be set by points. If shortened...you just make your time count on track.
While the idea is not without merit, Mongo has explained in the past why it is not a part of the normal WERA routine. I don't recall his statements on the matter. Qualifying has been done before in bike specific classes like Suzuki Cup, but they had dedicated qualifying sessions. That series is no more. Being that this is club racing, if you have an issue during/before practice that does not allow you to run/finish said practice(s), being put to the back of the bus for a race is an unduly harsh reality if you can otherwise make the race. Addressing that "club racing" preamble, a "pro team" would likely have the resources to mitigate any practice/qualifying issues whereas a dude on a budget, by himself, his last practice is right before his first race (not likely), one bike, he has crash damage from the first practice, he wants to change tires but doesn't have two sets of wheels, whatever...he can't compete with pro-level resources. Those types of woes can take a lot of fun out of participating. It's club racing, not a job. Another aspect is, it's practice, not qualifying. You could have someone dialing in a bike, learning the track, trying new lines, etc., then some guy on a mission comes blowin' by like the world is on fire, riding over his head trying to improve his grid position? I wouldn't want to be out there with that guy in practice. You can count gridding up by points as a blessing. With WERA, if you wanna be on pole, you attend the events and win your races...that's your qualifying. (I believe the first grid of the year is based on your previous year's standings, followed by order of registration. It's in the rulebook.) Some other race org does it on a first come/first serve basis. Guess who's on pole all year? The guy that signed up before the season started and paid for all his season-long entries.
Mongo pointed out several things as to why they don't do it before, but as far as which practice to make it count as qualifying. just take the best overall time of each session and count it towards it. I think it would add to the weekend, even if they just did it for national classes, and it does work out pretty well with the triple crown stuff.
Gridding by points in mylaps/orbits happens automatically if I recall. Or it is otherwise not as labor intensive as you make it sound. Gridding by qualifying time means the practice session has to be set up with the appropriate riders and what class bike they are running, a little more work on the front end. For riders that have more than 1 bike that may fit into a practice session, you would need to somehow verify which bike they were riding (manual process) and then they would only get to have a time for the 1 race and not the other. Also if someone had a SS and SB version of the same bike you would have a hard time verifying which one they qualified on. If every single race had it's own practice session those logistics I mentioned would be easy, but with combined sessions and club racers having multiple bikes it makes this tough. Doing it by points and/or registration time gives incentive to racers to get money flowing to the club, also helps keep people from not showing up if there is rain predicted.
Short answer - we can't do it accurately. How do we police the bike a rider is on and legality of that bike for the class they're entered in if they have multiple bikes? We would have to check every single rider and double check much more than just their tech sticker and then make sure we have the right laptimes somehow typed in to the classes they're in - no it couldn't be done automatically for multiple classes. That would need hours between the sessions and printing the grids to get done. Basically it's just not logistically possible. Yes, I have thought about it, yes I agree it would kick ass, yes I'd love to do grids by times - but it isn't feasible for as many classes as we run. To do it properly and accurately we'd need qualifying for every individual race on the schedule (not class, just the races with whatever classes are in them) and there just isn't enough time in the morning for that.
What if you did the fastest race lap at the previous event at a given location for the class? If you didn't run it, do it based on current year points behind last years participants.
Way too hard to keep track of and deal with. Logistics are a huge part of why we do things the way we do. It's important to us to be able to get grids out in a timely manner and the like. Can't afford to hire another couple of people to do input and double check laptimes from prior events. Another thing is if you're fast you're already gridding up front if you run with us even semi-regularly. If you come out once a year then well, no offense but you're not as important as my customers who are there every single weekend helping us keep this thing going. It's important to reward them for loyalty.
How about picking a class or two at random for each round to do this for? Would that keep it manageable? Totally agree trying to keep riders/bikes in check (for those running multiple LWT bikes), had not thought about that aspect. Would be chaos for sure.
Grid position is almost irrelevant unless you’re running at the very pointy end. Even if you tend to mess up starts, it wouldn’t help you starting from pole. Lots of things can happen in six or 10 laps
