So, someone once told me that no idea was too stupid to say out loud and I'm gonna test that theory. But first let me say that I am in NO WAY badmouthing the way things are currently done, I think Tony and the rest of the current board are doing nothing short of performing miracles, I just wanna put out food for thought.
I'm not saying that this idea is the best thing since sliced bread, that it will solve the world's problems and anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot...but it has it's merits and should definitely stimulate some discussion.
What brought this on was looking at they way some other successful clubs (mainly WERA) run their show combined with the constant discussions regarding how to get MORE people to come race with the MRA. Most of the ideas to attract more riders seem to be associated with creating new specialty classes (LoR, Sportsman and now the Ninja 250 idea). I'm not saying these are bad ideas, but here's another view - how about trying to attract a larger number of riders who would race in existing classes by giving them a better value for their dollar, and by making the championship chases more interesting?
How do we do that? Instead of creating more and more classes, we eliminate a few and trim the schedule such that every weekend is a double header.
Right now we have 25 classes if you count the four endurance classes. We spread them out over a 2 day program and each class has one chance per weekend to earn points. Instead of creating even more classes to cater to certain bikes I say we shave some classes, get back to the basics, and run the same schedule twice each weekend. My proposed schedule would include the following classes (not run in this order):
LWSB (new class)
LWGP
MWSS
MWSB
OSS
OSB
STGTO
STGTU
MVGTO
MVGTU/LoR
Sportsman/Colorado Class
RoR
SuperStreet
I can hear you now - WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NOVICE CLASSES?!?! Well, RoR would be experts only. LoR, Sportsman and Colorado Class would be run as Amateur classes, with novices and experts running against each other for position. All other classes would have the novices and experts running at the same time but scored separately with the experts in the first wave and the novices in the second wave. Some might think this sounds suicidal, but WERA and AFM have been doing this for years and they have plenty of uber fast experts dealing with the traffic just fine.
Right now our Sunday schedule has two hours of practice and 91 laps of racing. The above classes (with LoR/MVU and Sportsman/Colorado Class staying combined) would be 98 laps of racing. You could run this program on both days. Riders get more track time for their dollar and DNF's don't hurt so bad in a championship chase, which could lead to more riders sticking around for the whole season instead of giving up after one or two bad weekends.
Also, the four hour endurance was a RAGING success. With this type of schedule you could put on an 8 event season (ie, 8 weekends) and on maybe 3-4 of those weekends you only run a single header with the other day being dedicated to a 6 or 8 hour endurance race.
OR, if you wanted to stay with the 4 hour format you could break them up in the following way. On a particular weekend you do this:
- Saturday: run 50% of the sprint classes, then a 4 hour endurance
- Sunday: run 100% of the sprint classes
Then on another weekend later in the season:
- Saturday: run the OTHER 50% of the sprint classes, then a 4 hour endurance
- Sunday: run 100% of the sprint classes
All classes would still have the same number of points rounds, etc.
Whaddya think? Let's get some discussion going and see if we can either turn this into something that REALLY works, or poke enough holes in it that it's dead and buried.
Or, you can just tell me to shut up and go away.... :shock: