Following our discussions at the AGM on our Endurance races, and it's re-tooling into a true series championship I'm happy to make a very exciting announcement! New for 2015 we have completely re-thought our endurance races and have formulated an all new 3-race Endurance Racing Championship Series.
We are still negotiating the fourth round as a shared event with ASM.
Paul Dewey stepped forward immediately following the AGM to take on the responsibility of helping me coordinate the series, allowing for it's expansion. We formed a small committee of myself, Dominic, and Paul along with two of our newest racers Ben Martinez and Kirby Crosby, both former WERA Pro Endurance racers, to discuss what we think are some great ideas to not only make the series more fun, but also more competitive, and more importantly attainable by all of our racing membership!
Endurance racing is a team sport, there is no such thing as a DNF, and it is a unique type of racing that rewards steady fast lap times. It's that basic premise that have led to the new structure, and I'm sure you'll agree this will make for some very close and exciting racing.
-All races will require a minimum of two riders, and will be two hours in length.
-Manual scoring mandatory.
-There are now only three classes, comprised of our current classes, placement based on lap time data averaged across all classes, across one full year's competition history. They are as follows:
Lightweight-
P1-200
P1-250
P1-350
P1-500
P1-Open
P2-Light
Middleweight Production
P3-Light
Middleweight-
P2-Heavy
P3-Middle
P4-F3
P4-F2
Heavyweight-
P3-Heavy
P4-F1
MGP
Each of the Teams in these three categories will receive a trophy at the track for positions 1-3.
Here's the twist: The Series championship is now based on total accrued mileage over the entire season. Every individual team will earn mileage based on their total laps towards the series championship, PLUS additional mileage awarded based on the following handicap table:
Lightweight-
P1-200: 28
P1-250: 10
P1-350: 6
P1-500: 2
P1-Open: 3
P2-Light: 5
Middleweight Production: 0
P3-Light: 0
Middleweight-
P2-Heavy: 9
P3-Middle: 5
P4-F3: 0
P4-F2: 0
Heavyweight-
P3-Heavy: 5
P4-F1: 0
MGP: 0
How did we come up with those numbers? It was easy! I just assigned the task to our #1 racing nerd, Dominic Aubry. He crunched numbers for the better part of a month to average ACTUAL VRRA lap times for each class across ALL our events to come up with a % difference in time between every solo class that we could then directly and realistically apply to each class to literally level the playing field so that any team can now realisticly compete for the series title!
There's more...
Bonus laps!
Every Team will be eligible to earn bonus laps based on the following table:
-Extra Team members: 1 lap/member for every member past 3
-Highest combined team age: 1 lap
-Longest time spent repairing bike in hot pit- 1 lap
Sound like fun? We think so. What this structure allows for is the earlier periods to realistically compete for the championship while simultaneously rewarding those who are out to win the day. Endurance racing is a great way to introduce new racers to our sport, and our club, without the pressure of the sprint racing atmosphere. I'm really excited to be able to make these changes available, and to see the segment grow. This year's results will of course help us steer our club's future activities, so let's have fun with it, and may the best Team win!
