Season Finale

[Grippy]

I must say that I am kind of surprised there are no close points battles going into the season finale. T40 is closest with 6 points between John and Nate. Maybe this points system did not create the close competition we hoped for.

[dradernh]

Driver attendance looks like the biggest factor in how things have shaken out. SPC and T40 are the only classes where the top two drivers attended the same number of events. And then there's driver talent. I think in many classes it's closer than the numbers show.

[Stynger]

T30 is 2 points apart.
John has maybe +4 more points over Nate when you drop the lowest. That would be a 10 point difference. I think 2 points for John will do it.

[joncowen]

More events need to be dropped. Right now, it's too much of an attendance race.

[dinoracer]

More events need to be dropped. Right now, it's too much of an attendance race.

Care to phrase that in the form of a rules change submission?

[chaos4NH]

More events need to be dropped. Right now, it's too much of an attendance race.

So you are proposing to punish those who spend the money and time to attend events? That is a sure way to reduce participation at away events that are sometimes sparsely attended due to distance and travel costs. How many events should we count?

[brucesallen]

Attendance, like loyalty is good. Club needs to pay it's bills with registered drivers! Maximize incentive to pay for all events!

[wizzman]

I must say that I am kind of surprised there are no close points battles going into the season finale. T40 is closest with 6 points between John and Nate. Maybe this points system did not create the close competition we hoped for.

I think its a pretty rare situation to have any points battle in any racing series go down to the wire. You need to have two drivers that are so equal that they have traded off finishing ahead of each other all season long for that to happen. With eight events this year things tend to sort themselves out even when there is close competition.

I think in many classes it's closer than the numbers show.

This is true in T50 for sure. Chad and I have finished within 0.5 seconds of each other at the last four away events. If Chad had bought that car earlier and gotten it sorted out before the season started it would no doubt be neck and neck right now.

More events need to be dropped. Right now, it's too much of an attendance race.

No way. While I personally do not like the drop an event rule (as I am one of the six people who have made every event this year), I agree with the logic that it should theoritically drive attendance by keeping people more interested. That said It will always be an attendance race in poorly attended classes. This is one good reason why the consolidation of the P and SP classes into Touring and Super makes sense.

[austaz]

This is true in T50 for sure. Chad and I have finished within 0.5 seconds of each other at the last four away events. If Chad had bought that car earlier and gotten it sorted out before the season started it would no doubt be neck and neck right now.

I agree the time spread for the top 1/2 of the field in a class at an event is a better judge of competition than the year end points.

Also it's worth nothing that the new classes/rules don't automaticly give you good competition. They try and create an equal playing field but driver ability plays a much bigger part in the results, to a smaller extent there are still optimizations to be made within the current rules as each specific car will benefit more or less by each point/mod. Me can Chad have tried about 4 different classing sheets this year, changing tire sizes, tire compounds, front lip and then using weight to stay inside T50, plus we fixed some issues with the suspension. With the latest setup I think it is quicker than it was at the start of the year (also keeping the axels in one piece definatly helps putting power to the ground ... ). Compared to this Dave started the season with a pretty optimized car.

For the event drop rule I see both sides and think dropping one or two events is a decent compromise. We should reward attendance but you should also earn a win not be given it just by showing up all year.

[blindsidefive0]

The OP suggests an unreasonable standard with little precedence in other series, in my opinion. I would suggest alternate criteria for evaluating the success of a classification system.

To put a finer point on a prior critique of the OP, look at F1 this year: Sebastian Vettel has a 77 point lead over 2nd place Fernando Alonso in the 2013 Season Standings. Vettel can clinch the championship at Suzuka, the 15th event of a 19 event season. If he does, he can watch the India, Abu Dhabi, United States, and Brazil GP's from his couch and still win for the year.

[Grippy]

I was not critiquing, just an observation. I was expecting at least a few classes to come down to the wire. A few years ago ST4 was 1 point apart going into the last event (Troy and Jeff). That was exciting and everyone was watching.

The only way to determine the success of the reclassification is the opinions of the competitors. If everyone feels like they are more competitive now then great, it is a success.

[joncowen]

More events need to be dropped. Right now, it's too much of an attendance race.

So you are proposing to punish those who spend the money and time to attend events? That is a sure way to reduce participation at away events that are sometimes sparsely attended due to distance and travel costs. How many events should we count?

I think what gets people to events is the competition. If competition isn't important, why choose COM over any of the other track events?

Right now, there are extra points for going to an away event. That, on top of the single dropped event mean that winning a class while missing an away event is difficult.

I can see the logic for attracting people, but i don't believe it is working. I don't think that's what gets people to the events.

For example, If we are halfway through the season, and i have missed 2 events and am in a competitive class, I have a very small chance of winning - why keep going to events? As soon as one person misses 2 events, that logic goes right out the window, in my opinion.

Furthermore, cars break down, tires heat cycle out, car setups need to be developed, and people make mistakes. With 8 events on the calendar, it's pretty likely you are going to have at least one or two bad events, even if you show up to every event.

I think more points drops would breed more competition. It would give people that have a bad day, or get screwed with tires, or have a car failure, etc. a chance to win. It would mean more people in the hunt toward the end of the season. I think that would get more people to events.

I DON'T think it would punish those who show up to every event. If you do show up to all of them, you have a greater chance of getting first more frequently, and still have a big advantage. That makes it much harder on the guys who miss an event.

I run autocrosses with the BMWCCA. They have 6 BMW only classes. They have 8 events a season, and drop 4. Attendance is amazing, and the competition is fantastic in all but one or two of the 6 BMW classes.

It's just my opinion. Other people have brought it up in the past, and it doesn't go anywhere, which is why i didn't bother with adding another rules change proposal. Maybe i will. If i have time, i'll go through some of the classes and see where we would be now if there were 2 or 3 drops. I think it might change things, or make them closer. I think it would be more fun for all but a few.

[McMahonRacing]

As a now NON COM Member I would be very interested is finding out what the real response to this would be:

" The only way to determine the success of the reclassification is the opinions of the competitors. If everyone feels like they are more competitive now then great, it is a success. "

Is everyone or the real majority happy or just the few who have the time to post here ....... just curious, as most know I have moved on and one part of the incentive to do so was the new rules.

[dtlemoine]

Is everyone or the real majority happy or just the few who have the time to post here ....... just curious, as most know I have moved on and one part of the incentive to do so was the new rules.

T50 driver here - I'm PUMPED with the new rules despite missing more events than I had originally hoped.

For the events I was able to attend - I felt like the cars I was up against were very close in their capabilities despite vast differences in setup: 1 tin-can front wheel drive with moderate power, my rear wheel drive with good power, but heavy, and a bunch of nicely prepped Miatas. I do feel strongly that any driver towards the top of T50 could have taken the trophy at any event this year - totally depended on who nailed their fast lap, instead of what big boy slicks were hauled in on the back of a trailer.

Committee responsible for putting the new classing system together: job well done.

[6PAK72]

I was at the beginning of the season, and I remain now, excited by the rule change and the level of competition.

I have the same opportunity as every driver to put points on the board - it's up to me to assure my car is built to the class, prepped, and that I am capable. I unfortunately had other priorities this year that caused me to miss events, and again, that's my responsibility, thus I'm not in the running for a class. You know, that's real life.

I've been fascinated by the multiple approaches to building cars for the T50 class, from Matt's lightweight 1.6 (58.6 points, I believe) to my middle-road, worn-out (and 54.8 points) 1.8 on Hoosiers, to Dave's hotrod 1.8 on street tires (I think around 58-59 points, right?), to the fearsome FWD (59+ point?) Acura. And the individual event data shows just exactly how the driver ability has improved along with the tuning capability. Yesterday in T50, the first 5 places were within 1.5 seconds. When I got involved with COM, that spread was more like 6-10 seconds.

So overall, I believe the competition is tighter, the classes are more fair (Look at our new track record in T30, a car that was never going to be competitive in ST4) and we have balanced the "car wars".

"Drop 1" is a fair leveler, I believe, it allows each of us to say "Bad Day". Extra points for away days...I could see that going away from a competition perspective, though I understand it from a financial and attendance perspective.