While the creation of new National classes will present somewhat of a Lottery atmosphere concerning participation at the Runoff's; I think the situation becomes even more dire when one view the normal National weekend and how the additional classes can be incorporated within the framework of 5 to 7 Race Groups and still have reasonably safe grouping from the competing aspects of visibility, vehicle mass and lap times.
As most of us have experienced, local race officials are become more 'bottom line' oriented rather than safety oriented and are creating progressively unsafe race groups because the GCR leaves the ultimate power for forming race groups to the local organizing region, despite their 'recommended' groupings. We, as a group, have to turn out at the National events in higher numbers and become a very vocal presence to each Region's Race Chairman or we will be forced to run in patently unsafe race groupings and thus get diminished participation by our car owners. Unsafe race grouping are a Catch 22....a class generally gets grouped in an unsafe group because of low historical participation numbers...the participation numbers don't grow because participants don't want to compete in unsafe groupings. Chuck McAbee SEDIV #16 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christopher Eveland Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 10:24 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [F500] Pucks again Hi again, I'll pipe in here one more time, since I'm being used as an example. :) The two reasons I picked F500 are 1) cost. I pretty much in exactly the same demographic Chuck desribed, and I can't justify putting a lot of money into a single-purpose car. 2) it looks like I could have fun with the car both on the track and at autox, even if it would be difficult to be simultaniously competitive in both. That said, while initially the pucks seem like a great cost saver, I do have to say as a newbie that when a MIG-welder is listed in the required tools list to fix cracks in the frame, it does give one pause. And if making the things work is a black art that is going to keep a select elite at the front of the grid, that gives one pause too. In addition, when I read the list of new classes in SportsCar, along with the number that are going to be at the Run Offs in 2007, I do get a little worried about the longevity of the class. I personally don't have any "real race car" snobbery (oh wait, maybe I do. thats why I'm not in a spec miata -- but it has nothing to do with transmissions or shocks), but a more robust car would be more attractive. How to get there? I don't know, but I'm glad that there are people thinking about these things and discussing them. Frankly this list is a selling point for the class. -Chris ________________________________ FormulaCar Magazine - A Proud Supporter of Formula 500 The Official Publication of Junior Formula Car Racing Subscribe Today! www.formulacarmag.com or 519-624-2003 _________________________________ _______________________________________________ F500 mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change options please visit: http://f500.org/mailman/listinfo/f500 *** Please, DO NOT send unsubscribe requests to the mailing list! ***
