Vintage Road Racing Association

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I took over the transportation of the souvenirs and pit in/pit out easy ups and other assorted gear. It was a no brainer since I had the room and was going to be at the track for all activities. With this change, I’m having difficulty coming up with a reason to be at the track on a Friday. What this means is potentially someone else may have to take over the previously mentioned transport of all this gear, or it arrives late in the day Friday or Saturday morning.

pd

I feel I'm repeating myself. I'll stop now.

As an endurance only racer, I do not agree with the new handicaps and I especially do not agree with the

attempt to railroad them through without discussion or input from racers. Although they are not "rules" the

endurance performance index should be locked in for a specified period and changed only through the same

process as any other rule change.

I am going to repost my comment from the earlier thread I started a few months back asking about the changes.

I think this is very relevant and it's important to have a goal in mind when making changes to this type of scoring system.
I have no understanding of the "goal" or "reasoning" behind the changes that have been made. But I can see no clear logic for them other than to ensure P5 teams have an advantage. Which is 180 degrees from the original plan of "a slight tilt in Favour to older machinery".

Here is my previous post:


The original handicaps were calculated across the entire range of classes in the club.

So, while it hasn't happened much at all- the idea was that any bike in the club could do the endurance race if they so choose.
They will have a shot at winning the class because we tried to level comparative riders on different machines.

Our historical information would show we had primarily P3, P4 and P5 entries. And this was somewhat predictable as they are the newest and most comfortable machines to run for an extended period. Easiest to maintain and get parts for.

We did have a very successful team on a P1-350 a few seasons ago. I believe they had a great season and ended up on the podium often.

The handicaps are there to level out machinery, not rider skill.

Scenario 1.
A well prepared P3 Heavy team with Eddie Lawson and Kevin Schwantz on board should beat a well prepared P5 Heavy team with club fast guys on it. Because the rider skill is what is separating the teams.

Scenario 2
A Well prepared P5 Heavy Team with front running team members on it should beat a well prepared P4 Heavy machine with mid level club riders on it.

Teh handicaps were calculated off of lap records in each class as a way of setting a "maximum potential performance" in any given class.

In any class the records tend to be set by "fast guys".

Rider skill set is still the largest contributing factor and ultimately winning teams should be the fastest rider combinations in any class.

This can mean that a standout rider - someone considerably faster than most, can dominate no different than in a sprint. And if the team chooses to ride older equipment they can leap even further ahead due to the handicap.
But if that team also ran on newer equipment - they would also tend to be out front by a considerable distance - enough to overcome any handicaps by reasonably fast teams on older equipment.

No handicap system will ever be perfect, there are just too many variables.

But a handicap system can be shown to be working reasonably well if the fastest teams (greatest rider skill) tend to win. Regardless of what machine they are on.


The raw timing data from the race will always give everyone the ability to measure themselves against other teams "head to head".

I just hope any changes to the previous system don't lose sight of the original goals:

1. To allow any machine in the club to have the opportunity to race endurance. Growing the field.
2. Allow the fastest teams to be the ones that finish first. Regardless of what machine they choose to enter on.

And remember, speed comes from also being well prepared in the pits and keeping the bike out of the pits, and on the track as much as possible...

Because ........."slow laps are better than no laps"
and losing even a minute in the pits requires a lot of hard fast riding to recover from.

It's a team sport and as such all components of the team have to perform to make the most of it and maximize your mileage.

Based on the past, the system has worked reasonably well.
There is a lot more P5 data available now and as such the handicaps could be recalculated based off of better data.

P5 was estimated when the current system was put into place.

Good luck this season- I don't think we need a full rewrite - but some tweaks could be beneficial.

I agree that the current handicap system isn't broken and should be left as-is.
It doesn't make any sense that a P4-F2 bike is as good a racebike as a P5-F2
and should be scored equally.

Andre Kipin #818
Team On the Verge

Brian Stevenson wrote:

Michael Vinten wrote:After much discussion a 1% bonus was agreed for P3 classes. The 1% was my error as I read the current handicap for SMP for P3L (1.077) and rounded the .077 to 1.01 when in fact it is 1.10.

Sorry Michael. Just to confirm as this confused the hell out of me when I was talking to Doug Andrich about it earlier.

Is the intent that a P3 Light rider that does 100 laps will be awarded 1% more laps so will end up with 101, while a P2M rider that does 100 laps will be awarded 9.3% so end up with 109.3 laps? So in other words P3L is rounded down to 1.01, and not rounded up to 1.10? The 1.10 doesn't make a lot of sense.

Brian your outcome is correct with the 1.01 handicap. My mistake during discussion of the 1% was to round up 1.077 in my head to 1.1 thinking that was 1%. I agreed with the 1% proposed for P3 bikes on that basis. I also did not take into account the elimination of P4 handicaps. I do not support the elimination of the handicap system.

There is also the question on the Post Vintage bikes. Will they fit in the middleweight or have their own class like Modern Lightweight?

I think post period 5 needs to be scored separately as they aren’t an official club class.
Just like modern light.
We could have put them in light and adjusted handicaps but again- not an official class so no rules can be written for them.

Michael Vinten wrote:

Brian Stevenson wrote:

Michael Vinten wrote:After much discussion a 1% bonus was agreed for P3 classes. The 1% was my error as I read the current handicap for SMP for P3L (1.077) and rounded the .077 to 1.01 when in fact it is 1.10.

Sorry Michael. Just to confirm as this confused the hell out of me when I was talking to Doug Andrich about it earlier.

Is the intent that a P3 Light rider that does 100 laps will be awarded 1% more laps so will end up with 101, while a P2M rider that does 100 laps will be awarded 9.3% so end up with 109.3 laps? So in other words P3L is rounded down to 1.01, and not rounded up to 1.10? The 1.10 doesn't make a lot of sense.

Brian your outcome is correct with the 1.01 handicap. My mistake during discussion of the 1% was to round up 1.077 in my head to 1.1 thinking that was 1%. I agreed with the 1% proposed for P3 bikes on that basis. I also did not take into account the elimination of P4 handicaps. I do not support the elimination of the handicap system.

There is also the question on the Post Vintage bikes. Will they fit in the middleweight or have their own class like Modern Lightweight?

Thanks Michael. That makes total sense. Based on that initial conversation I wasn't sure if it was *1.01 or *1.10. I would sooner take the *1.10 though.

I also was told that the 600's in the invitational class will run in middleweight with P1 - P5 and that the litre bikes will run in heavy, again with P1-P5. All scoring except for the modern lightweight will be within existing VRRA Light, Middle and heavy classes.

Can I ask that we get some clarity around this.

I'm in the process of buying an R6 based on this information and had intended to run it against P1-P5 middleweight bikes. I'll be super pissed if I buy this thing and I can't ride it . It would be good to know tonight as I'm going to look at it tomorrow.

I don't think non VRRA class bikes should be taking trophies away from VRRA class bikes....
Add it as a separate class. Open- well that's a little different. It's not a native class for any bike.

If they are running in the regular classes- should there not be a handicap for that too then?
Another bit that doesn't make any sense.

It would be great if those responsible for the changes would step up and at least try to explain the logic and reasoning behind the changes.

kirbster wrote:I don't think non VRRA class bikes should be taking trophies away from VRRA class bikes....
Add it as a separate class. Open- well that's a little different. It's not a native class for any bike.

If they are running in the regular classes- should there not be a handicap for that too then?
Another bit that doesn't make any sense.

It would be great if those responsible for the changes would step up and at least try to explain the logic and reasoning behind the changes.

I agree Kirby, this is nonsensical.
It would be great to hear the logic, if there is any, here.
How can ANYONE say that a competant rider would run the same times on an fzr600, a gsxr600 and an r6.
Ridiculous.

I too agree with Kirby's points.

I was going to run a P3Lwt in endurance this year but am now on the fence about it. Not because of the effect this change could have on my team's results, but because there was no prior consultation with participants. A fait accompli.


If the Endurance Coordinator opens this up for discussion and a resolution is reached by a majority vote, then I'm in.

If not, I'll vote with my feet.

I really don't care about What going on. I just like riding. But I have a question. How can the new formula work when there are no track records for endurance?? Our team has easily smoked the track records for sprint races. But do not get credit for them.
I'm sure those lap times would change things a bit.

After looking at the data provided - still without any explanation as to what the goal of revamping endurance was......
Here is my analysis of the file provided.

You are cherry picking data and using too small of sample size to really have any hope of accuracy.
Thats why lap records were previously used.
At least it could be argued that those are set by top riders on well-prepared machines over a span of many years. MANY data points.
Your data from endurance can be discarded as there has to be some assumption of trying to compare fairly equal skill level teams. You can't really do that as the sample size is very low.
You chose to discard data that didn't show what you wanted it to show.
I'm sorry but this a steaming pile of lazy work that started with a goal of proving the handicap system wasn't working, and then cherry-picking data points to support the conclusion instead of using ALL RELEVANT data to come to a logical conclusion.
Good luck... I'm sure you would be happy to swap your best of class GSXR600SRAD for a KZ750 - right?
After all- there is only a 1% difference in performance- oh we don't actually know because you didn't include any P3 data.
This is a giant swing and a miss. You are getting enough negative feedback from endurance teams that you should be second guessing your method. And more importantly your reasons for making changes to a system that systematically GREW endurance for many years.

kirbster wrote:After looking at the data provided - still without any explanation as to what the goal of revamping endurance was......
Here is my analysis of the file provided.

You are cherry picking data and using too small of sample size to really have any hope of accuracy.
Thats why lap records were previously used.
At least it could be argued that those are set by top riders on well-prepared machines over a span of many years. MANY data points.
Your data from endurance can be discarded as there has to be some assumption of trying to compare fairly equal skill level teams. You can't really do that as the sample size is very low.
You chose to discard data that didn't show what you wanted it to show.
I'm sorry but this a steaming pile of lazy work that started with a goal of proving the handicap system wasn't working, and then cherry-picking data points to support the conclusion instead of using ALL RELEVANT data to come to a logical conclusion.
Good luck... I'm sure you would be happy to swap your best of class GSXR600SRAD for a KZ750 - right?
After all- there is only a 1% difference in performance- oh we don't actually know because you didn't include any P3 data.
This is a giant swing and a miss. You are getting enough negative feedback from endurance teams that you should be second guessing your method. And more importantly your reasons for making changes to a system that systematically GREW endurance for many years.

Not to mention Kirby, once we start looking at the "DATA" more closely, it shows that there is indeed a difference between Periods 3, 4 and 5, and there are data points on there that are not even correct.

Take Louis Raffa's apparent 1:55 record in P4F2, this is not even correct. The lap record is 1:57.872 as indicated on our own webpage.

I would hazard to guess that this is not the only error in the "Data" , considering it was the first one I even looked to crosscheck.

This is very frustrating, misleading, and disrespectful to all those that helped to make this system work for so long.

Notice the lack of response, Time to step back and re evaluate