Race quantity

The AGM is coming and I would like to see what you, the forumistas, think about this:-

As you are probably well aware, due to my insistence on living a long way away, I have a bit of a problem with the lack of racing time against travel time. This is a problem that seems to have been getting worse over the last few years with people turning up, doing the morning race and scooting off. If I had come down to Hillingdon this year I would have had about 35minutes racing for at least 6 hours driving which is a rather poor return in my book (I appreciate the reasoning at H, it is just an example).

What I would like to do is make the events bigger, so that we have something in the morning and something in the afternoon as part of the regular timetable of events. They don't both have to be scratch races or both points events but it seems to make sense to me both for racing/driving return and for better value for money on what we pay for the tracks.

One way is to go as Newport this year with both races counting for half of the points. For the weekend events I was thinking that we could work the event out in the manner of a stage race, so for the Lancaster-Preston weekend we could have 4 different races with the points either equally divided amongst them or some extra points for final position (24% for each section and a 4% bonus say). This would make a bad run in one of the stages a lesser problem and penalise those who can't make the whole event.

What do you think?

I think at least one more Preston/Lancaster style weekend might be a good idea. Didn't someone mention the new Betteshanger circuit for one of these? However, more than two might put off those with families because of accommodation costs.

Two events on a day is definitely a good idea, but experience suggests there have to be points on offer to keep people interested. Two full-scale races is probably too much for those of us enfeebled by age but we seem to be slowly developing an interesting repertoire of alternatives (devils, TTs, egg&spoon, etc). You'd probably have to up the worst-N number though to keep down the complaints.

AndrewS

I'm all for having more time on the track. 

Based on the chorus of complaints heard whenever an organisator announces a race longer than 40 mins, I doubt that  achieving this through longer races would prove popular.  Also, apart from interventions from the p+nct+re fairy, BHPC races seem pretty much decided after the first 20 minutes anyway.

Having two races for points has worked well on a number of occasions, the only difficulty being fitting them in where the track/turnout requires the field to be split into 3 or more heats.  There are ways around that though, as in having rather short races at Newport, or the second race being a shortish time-trial.

Having a stage-race over a weekend would be great fun, but I'm not so sure about having the GC count for many - or even any - points on the grounds that
a) We don't get followed around by car-loads of spare bikes; one puncture could wreck one's entire weekend
b) It would unfairly penalise anyone who could make one, but not both, of the days

gNick wrote: I was thinking of having double points in total for a weekend event with say 24% of the whole points for each race (or 48% of a normal event) and the bonus would be from the remaining 4% (of the whole)

I'd have no objection if, as per gNick's suggestion, a fairly small proportion of the total points were for the GC bonus.  In fact, it would add to the fun.  As a small extra advantage, this (and two-race events in general) would break up the the points gaps a bit and reduce the likelihood of dead heats in the overall championship.

Sorry, been away for a few days, so have only just noticed this.

As usual, nothing suits everybody all the time. I have not been able to make it to enough events this year to even figure in the lower order of the table, but this is mainly to having (a) a family who still are not sick of the sight of me, and (b) too many hobbies. I have got rid of a few (the hobbies, not the family  ), but am still rather over extended. It is also unfortunate that the hobbies that I have left are ones where the whole family takes part ....

All this is a long winded way of saying that whilst I am in agreement that we need to get ourselves more bang for the buck at an event, I am cautious of having people 'penalised' for not being able to attend an event - this could too easily remove any chance of a decent showing in the overall standings. For example, if I miss one of the proposed 'weekends' (more likely that I will struggle to make a whole one, but just for example's sake), then I would miss out four points scoring events - my dropped results for the year. Not good. In fact, my championship, to all intents and purposes, with misfortune/off days/etc thrown in, is now over, however good I am.

I am not likely to win the unfaired, even if I get to all the events (and no-one else turns up), but I feel that we must be careful to consider the level of commitment that needs to be shown by a racer to do well enough to remain motivated to come back next year (membership secretary hat most well and truly on). We must be double careful that we are not inventing new ways of splitting the top four (you know who you are !) at the expense of other racers.

As I say, I am all for making more of each event, but let's be careful about it.