Vintage Road Racing Association

Pending another successful year of Endurance, I'm wondering how many of us would be interested in doing an invitational event? This is just me glassy-eyed dreaming, but my basic premise would be to reach out to the other organizations and run a combined Endurace season finale event at Shanny. (Or season opener!) There's a lot of pros, and a lot of cons, but I'd to hear some thoughts and have a discussion on it. There's a good crew of Vintage Endurance racers in USCRA, and modern ER racers in SOAR. I'm sure with some promotion we could field 30 teams? I'm thinking a 2-day event- practice day and race day. 6 hours? 8? 24!?!?

As an outsider to Endurance racing (I'd love to get into it, just haven't found a team yet), this sounds like an awesome idea.

Coming from promoting other events, it will take a lot of time and dedication to getting the word out, poster made, prizes etc lined up. Totally do-able. Also will have to check with all the schedules of the different organizations to make sure nothing is too tight. If it's close to another weekend, possibilities of people not going based on possible bike failure, money etc. Finding the right weekend will be key.

Finding a common ground for rules might also be a bit of a challenge, but you guys have that pretty much covered now.

Race should be at least 8 hours. I personally would not travel more than 6 hours for a 3 or 6 hour race. But that's just me.

Great idea though! Pricing might be another consideration in terms of rental and insurance.

I think this is a great idea! I would love to try something like this.

My only personal point would be perhaps a more improved track? Might draw more people if we had an 8hr endurance race at Mosport or something comparable in the states. Obviously I know certain tracks have pros and cons, just thought if this will be a one time event annually, let's aim high.

That being said, if the time comes, I will definitely volunteer my time to help make this event happen. Logistics, scheduling, organizing, or planning, anything to help!

Thanks

This got me excited by just reading this!

I would love to participate and as Huw said, I would be more than happy to help this event happen.

hgwilliam wrote:I think this is a great idea! I would love to try something like this.

My only personal point would be perhaps a more improved track? Might draw more people if we had an 8hr endurance race at Mosport or something comparable in the states. Obviously I know certain tracks have pros and cons, just thought if this will be a one time event annually, let's aim high.

That being said, if the time comes, I will definitely volunteer my time to help make this event happen. Logistics, scheduling, organizing, or planning, anything to help!

Thanks

the problem is that it would not be cost effective at mosport, plus mosport is hard on machinery

I think Shannonville is a good place to start, maybe make it a end of year event...

No where is impossible, but Mosport in particular is more complex. More expensive, yes, but it's staffing requirements are a real hurtle in a competition based rental. Calabogie is a good compromise between Shanny and Mosport in those terms, but Shanny shines in a lot of ways. Their food services are second to none, we have no bigger supporters in terms of Marshalling services, it's geographically centered, you can see the whole track, and yes, it's less expensive than other options.

But we're dreaming, so let's dream big if we want to!

At our current entry fees, plus a $100.00 practice day, Mosport for 2 days needs 35 teams and $20K in support. Bogie needs 35 teams and $15K in support, and Shanny needs 35 teams and $5K in suppport. So that's kind of a rough "mental budget"...

What I like about the idea is it gives us a reason to reach out to other organizations and invite them to play where we otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity. We're a pretty fun group of racers, and our continued push to preserve endurance racing is pretty unique. Endurance in its basic premise kind of matches our own, and this would give us a way to show that to others.

As for classes and rules, the simplest is to accept the rules based on organization and let them all compete indipendently with shared track space. If a team forms from say RACE or CSBK, they would simply slot into say the SOAR rules matrix, same true of a vintage team coming up from the States simply slotting into ours. We have transponders and live timing, those older "major" stumbling blocks just don't exist anymore.

I really like the idea.

Me too, I would love for an event like the 24H of Nelson Ledges to take shape again....

Maybe not every year, maybe do 8H and every 3rd year you throw in a 12 or 24H with some night riding

This is a cool idea, not sure a 24h one makes sense considering the logistics of arranging track marshals for that length of time. But a 4 hour or 8 hour would work and avoid adding lighting to bikes.

RACE put on a 4 hr endurance a few yrs back ,moderns mixed with vintage . It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. We raced a 600 single in a two man team, boy were we beat up ,but what a hoot.
End of yr would be good but you lose the daylight early. Maybe the early events next yr may be better. Over the yrs we have had endurance races at different times like after supper at Mosport and shannie, I thought they worked well as long as the marshalls get a good enough break during the day.
Sounds like fun tho
Steve

The team I endurance race with has been the GTL Class champions with SOAR for the past two years. We race a modern lightweight single. We do a 3 hour endurance race at every SOAR round. All classes run together..... that means being passed every lap by superbikes that have a closing speed far in excess of what our machine is capable of. The speed difference has resulted in the lightweight bike riders being obliged to wear reflective safety vests. Adding a full grid of vintage bikes could mean a far bigger difference in speeds and particularly cornering speeds.

Why not start your long term plan by having all the VRRA vintage teams do a SOAR endurance race event to see if the VRRA guys are even comfortable with the speed of the modern heavyweight bikes. Only then will you be able to "sell" an event that mixes vintage and modern bikes on the track at the same time. Start with something small before jumping into planning an event that could turn out to be a financial failure.

BikeLawyer.Ca SOAR GTL champions

We did just that two years ago. It went fine, or at least that was my opinion. I think there was only 6 SOAR teams at the time.

Abond wrote:We did just that two years ago. It went fine, or at least that was my opinion. I think there was only 6 SOAR teams at the time.

And we did it with the quebec group as well in St-Eustache....

I remember at St E that the modern bike team members each used their own bike during their turn on the track, they just swapped transponders.
I thought that the closing speeds were quite high between the modern and light weight/middleweight vintage bikes and if memory serves, there was only one vintage team that finished that ER. It was only 1 or 2 P4 bikes that were able to be somewhat competitive with the modern bikes.
Would the points for the invitational round count toward the total season ER points?
I'd like to see just vintage bikes in the endurance series