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Vintage Open Classes

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Vintage Open Classes

Postby evallee » Mon May 29, 2023 8:14 am

I'm struggling to understand how the Vintage Open Classes work (and I know I'm not the only one). I was of the understanding that it was based on lap times however it was clearly not the case this weekend. I don't need to state the obvious but I hope this is looked into moving forward. Thanks.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby kirbster » Mon May 29, 2023 8:27 am

I wasn’t there but looking at results there are a few stand outs in the junior class.

The idea was to try and keep a distinction between the two groups.

And there is a bit of a fuzzy line there.

Fast riders on slow bikes could potentially fit.
Slow riders on fast bikes could still potentially fit.
But the idea is if you are faster than a certain threshold- you should jump to senior. It’s better for you in the long run if improvement is your goal.

Some discretion and judgement needs to be used for this which will alway leave room for error or for outright abuse.
It’s up to the Competition Coordinator to try and help determine where someone belongs and it’s not going to be easy. Different tracks also come into the equation.

Also allow for some confusion or just plain improvements. It’s possible for someone to get faster - and then the reality is - they should move up.

Junior was supposed to be a spot for bikes that would normally become lapped bikes fairly quickly if open was just one class. To help reduce large closing speed differences which can lead to collisions.

Everyone needs to try to remember that this is for fun. So no sandbagging!
;-)
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby ChrisFehr » Mon May 29, 2023 8:28 am

Think of Open Sr as fast riders on fast bikes or very fast riders on less fast bikes. Open Jr is for slower riders on fast and slow bikes and some faster riders on slow bikes.

For those of us with multiple bikes it allows us to ride both so long as we use our slower bike in Jr.

It was created to reduce the amount of lapping of riders in the Open when was everyone and it seems to be working well.

It’s tough to just use lap times because some people will be faster at some tracks and slower at others.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby Brian Stevenson » Mon May 29, 2023 11:40 am

Just my $0.02, for what its worth, probably not much :)

I struggled with this at PCA as you have such a big range of cars and skill level. Everyone from professional drivers in works prototypes, to Heart Surgeons who basically only drive to work during the week but can go plonk down $250k on a loaded 2023 C4, to guys who raced back in the day and are keeping their 916’s running on a shoestring.

We found that all the data to decide who runs what car in what class is already in Mylaps/SpeedHive.

It could work just as well for motorcycle racing in Ontario as you have VRRA, SuperSeries and SOAR already in there (I’m not sure what CSBK uses - I assume the same as that is currently the only timing loop in the tracks, unless they bring their own) so its would be very easy compare results/riders/bikes/classes/tracks across all 3 series and then decide who goes where. The work is all up front, grabbing all that data and then organizing it in a meaningful way, but once that’s done its just a matter of keeping it up to date. The only tricky part is factoring in the conditions so you would have to make some assumptions if the average lap times for everyone in a class were slower.

I think there is more than 10 years worth of data in there as well.

Obviously its not perfect coverage as SOAR is only Grand Bend so you would key off the rider, not the series.

That way if (hypothetically) the lap time for the fastest riders at a track is 60 seconds, Timothy may decide to include everyone above 1:10 in the fast group and 1:11 and below in the slow group. Its just a matter of looking at the last couple of times they raced at that track, on that bike, in a particular class regardless of the series.

That could possibly be automated as well so you just sign up for Vintage Open and it automatically assigns you to the correct race.

I understand the point Chris makes as well. If he wants to ride his Ducati in fast, do you then want to turn away a race entry and not let him ride his EX in slow?

This “bracket” racing does work well at other organizations, and I do now have some real data that shows that the amount of racing incidents is reduced.

This is just some comments based on some other work I did over the past few years, take it for what its worth
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby kirbster » Mon May 29, 2023 12:00 pm

When the idea was originally being worked on- The time was around 1:18 for pro.
We looked at the data and average number of entries etc.
And right around 1:18 worked pretty well for pro track. Every track had a number estimated. What has happened to that since then is in the hands of Timothy - your CC.

I know that it is not simple or as cut and dry as it would be nice to have. But- I think it generally worked well last season.
Understanding the intent of it is very important to all in both classes.

And there is nothing stopping a rider on the border from bumping up. Just not a good thing to bump down (this is referred to as sand bagging). That should be understood as the preferred path for them.
Chasing faster riders is how you get faster. Riding all alone out front of a group of slower riders doesn't seem like fun to me.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby Timothy Sauder » Mon May 29, 2023 1:52 pm

Hi everyone,

Originally the time separation was 1:18:00. It worked well for the first year and established a baseline for fine adjustment for the future. For 2023 I adjusted it to 1:20:00 to move a few juniors up to the senior ranks to help even up the groups. All the new numbers were published in the class descriptions back in February.

Vintage Open Junior

Shannonville Pro Track 1:20:01 and slower
Calabogie Motorsports Park 2:35:01 and slower
Canadian Tire Motorsports Park 1:43:01 and slower
Shannonville Long Track 2:10:01 and slower

I will have to delicately move a few riders to the Senior class since the Junior finale was a bit of a run away.
As for those on the edge, I would perhaps suggest they buy a smaller (slower) bike to continue their racing experience. I find that dicing it out around the track with a bunch of slower bikes is much more fun than pulling away from the pack with a fast bike.

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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby Davelaporte221 » Tue May 30, 2023 7:31 am

Originally there was only 1 open class and the speed differential between the fastest bikes and the slower bikes was the highest risk for an incident.

Last year we introduced Open Jr. to encourage more riders to participate. By splitting the groups, there is still potential for lapping at the shortest tracks but the speed differential is significantly less.

The mix can be fast riders on slow bikes, developing slower riders on fast bikes, and often smaller bikes including many modern lightweights. (Open is the only 2nd class for Modern LW)

This is for fun and track time.

The suggested lap times are fluid and not “brackets”.

The difference between the fastest riders and the slowest at Shanny was 15 seconds with 18 bikes starting.

Every rider had someone to race with and this is the intent.

The top 2 riders are CSBK regulars on LW bikes and the next 2 are seasoned top riders on P4F3 bikes.

They are the carrot.

Looking forward to Bogie, the suggestion that 2:35 is the suggested cutoff is inappropriate.

Applying that time to last year would result in a 5 bike grid.

Last year the class had an 18 second gap between top rider and slowest rider with 13 entries.

We should expect the top 5 fast rider/small bikes to be between 2:25-2:30

That is the carrot.

There will likely be a grid of 20 bikes so there will be someone to race with even on such a big track.

Forget about the big trophies and focus on the fun.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby aburns113 » Tue May 30, 2023 1:55 pm

Maybe I am misunderstanding something.
moving it from 1:18 to 1:16 would move the fastest Junior riders up to Senior. Moving it from 1:18 to 1:20 would move the slowest Senior riders to Junior.

Timothy Sauder wrote:Hi everyone,

Originally the time separation was 1:18:00. It worked well for the first year and established a baseline for fine adjustment for the future. For 2023 I adjusted it to 1:20:00 to move a few juniors up to the senior ranks to help even up the groups. All the new numbers were published in the class descriptions back in February.

Vintage Open Junior

Shannonville Pro Track 1:20:01 and slower
Calabogie Motorsports Park 2:35:01 and slower
Canadian Tire Motorsports Park 1:43:01 and slower
Shannonville Long Track 2:10:01 and slower

I will have to delicately move a few riders to the Senior class since the Junior finale was a bit of a run away.
As for those on the edge, I would perhaps suggest they buy a smaller (slower) bike to continue their racing experience. I find that dicing it out around the track with a bunch of slower bikes is much more fun than pulling away from the pack with a fast bike.

Timothy
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby Davelaporte221 » Tue May 30, 2023 6:50 pm

The suggested times are simply a guideline.

For Pro Track last year 1:18 was a guideline.

If a rider is faster, then they should consider moving to senior.

If they are senior but significantly slower, they should move to junior.

It is about closing speeds, safety, extra track time and fun.

In several cases, the same rider rides their fast bike in Senior and their slow bike in Junior. This is perfectly fine.

For Calabogie, there will be Junior lap times in the 2:25 to 2:30 range but these are all small slower bikes with good riders.

Please accept the spirit of the classes and enjoy.

If a rider decides to make a point of abusing the class by riding their fast bike or obviously in Junior when they should know better, they will face DQ.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby livetoride21 » Wed May 31, 2023 10:32 am

We really are encouraging sandbagging with this class if someone is aiming to accumulate overall season points.
Looking at the results for open junior, of the 18 that started, 5 broke the 1:20 lap time cut-off. They should be moved up to senior as this is simply unfair for the others that are looking for a competitive race. Another 4 were right on the cusp of breaking it as well.

It is unacceptable that riders are being encouraged to enter a class where they can feel safe and still be competitive, only to have 9/18 riders either right on the lap time cut-off, or breaking it.

We should be looking at these 9 riders lap times from other races on the same bikes (p4-F3, modern lightweight, etc.) to see if the lap times they are running in this class are their normal pace, or they have slowed down merely to try for points.

As I had stated before when the initial discussion about the introduction of this class and the senior class began, these classes introduce a lot of complexity to manage when before with P4 Vintage Challenge it was fairly simple; P4 vintage challenge was another competitive race for p4F1 riders ( We have seen p4 f1 numbers dwindle due to the loss of this class) and Vintage open was another competitive race for P5 F1 and GP riders. We rarely had major incidents in either of these classes in the 5 years I have been riding with the club.

My two cents.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby Davelaporte221 » Wed May 31, 2023 11:12 am

Kevin,

Thanks for your 2 cents.

Rest assured we have done analysis of the riders and lap times.

There was no sandbagging either by slowing down or by riding a different bike.

Several of the top riders are in fact riding their small bikes so kicking them out would result in less entries.

If you look at the results from last year you would also see that not all tracks are favorable to all riders.

We are monitoring and sandbagging will not be tolerated.
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby livetoride21 » Wed May 31, 2023 11:44 am

I do not agree with the comment that "there was no sandbagging by slowing down or riding a different bike" as there is one very clear case.

However I digress, if we are to continue with this class rules need to be enforced to keep everyone safe and avoid riders having unfair advantages. I demonstrated this last year at Mosport when I was instructed to enter vintage open junior because of my previous years lap times.

The cut-off times for each track need to be set and if the rider breaks the cut-off time in any of his/her races on the same bike, they should be removed from junior and put into senior. Simple as that.

Maybe we can state that they need to have broken it for more than 1 lap to weed out one lucky lap, but we need to enforce SOMETHING.

This can be done by the honor system to avoid adding a lot of leg work for the executive.
If a rider beats the lap time cut-off in a race, it is up to them to inform the CC that the change needs to be made.
To encourage people to not try to beat the system, riders should face point penalties if they do not own up to the fact they are too fast for this class. Such as ;

If a rider comes in 1st in open junior and it is determined that they did not disclose they had run a faster lap time on the same bike, instead of gaining 20 points, they would be penalized 20 points.

If they run a race in open junior and improve their lap times that now they're past the cut-off but have never run that before, they will now not be disqualified from that race but they will not be allowed to continue on in junior for other rounds.

I think this would keep things in check.

I frankly (as I've made clear before) don't think the open senior/junior classes were ever a good idea, but above I've provided some alternatives to help alleviate the major issues associated.

Thanks,
Kevin
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Re: Vintage Open Classes

Postby Davelaporte221 » Wed May 31, 2023 12:31 pm

Based on the number of riders, I would say the Split Opens are highly successful.

I will predict 12-15 senior at Bogie and 20 junior.

You are missing the point of Junior.

We are not adding more rules to become exclusive. The rules right now are inclusive.
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