Quote Originally Posted by dave.gallant
This thread was and is not about me tooting my horn, but about why in the sam-heck we have 5 bikes in RORU and 31 bikes in Novice GTU.
As a slow ass expert who obviously didn't stay in novice long enough (maybe I should have an orange vest with my white plate), I would say it is because there seems to be a huge jump in speed and time/resources required. While I would like to say I'd race MWSB or ROR-U and try to learn from the fast guys, I'd likely be running a solitary race after the first half a lap, so I run Thunderbike, AM-U, and Endurance hoping to find some people to race with, often unsuccessfully as most of the other experts who aren't really fast have hung it up. No matter the speed you go, if you have people to compete with racing is a hell of a lot more fun.

I have kids, a job that requires a lot of travel, and a budget that is probably more than some but much less than a lot of others. I am lucky to get 3-4 track days a year to try to improve, and it can be frustrating on weekends like this one where I ran my best times in Saturday practice and then chased tire/suspension/clutch issues all weekend and got slower and slower.

Unfortunately racing is like the NFL, most have short careers, and people try to chase the "glory" while they can in that short time. I don't think 8th place in ROR is as impressive as a Novice win in a lot of people's minds even though they are very different levels, or at least are supposed to be skill-wise.