Club Champions....

[Balders]

Ok we have Truck nights and vintage nights but we don't seem to have normal nights..

I mean we don't tend to score a 1/10 2&4wd over the course of a few weeks?

Any support for an indoor club championship over the summer?

"Caldi Jump Masters series" every other friday can be a points scoring round same points format as trucks and vintage..

Your thoughts?

[Dyna]

Yeah ive always thought club championships were a good idea, be a nice change once a month to actually race for something.

[liam]

No series is a series without old skool trophies

[evilbert]

Game on, i'm up for that

[chris-on-wheels]

Can we have a handicap system? Here come the jokes!!!

[Balders]

Chris stopping making excuses fir bills track cutting racing technique!

[evilbert]

i thought this club catered for all levels of ability and experience? In my experience my ability to cut the track is second to none

[millzy]

Club Championship sounds brill.

Im not sure what the format is now days but I remeber that the Vintage championship used the same track once a month....maybe somthing like this for the 10th Buggys? with 2 qualy runs and 2 finals , both final scores counting to make your overall score?

Just a tought, but what ever style you go for Im in.

[blue_pinky]

Funny you should mention that, Paul and I were talking about this very thing over the weekend! I'd like to do something for sure...but not sure on the best format for it.

Thoughts were...we all race each other week in week out, and pretty much know how we all perform relative to each other...Craig will win if he's racing, and Rob will win if he's racing...or maybe Dave Belston will dominate us all after his storming nationals results this year! But you get the point, we can all pretty much guess the outcome!

Maybe that's actually fine, and we'll just enjoy seeing it happen, and the middle order will challenge for their rightful spot all the same?

But I was just a bit worried it could leave it all a bit of a forgon conclusion without real chance of trophies for most people...so I wanted to try and come up with some sort of format that could mix that up somehow.

How about doubles?

I play badminton in work...and much the same as club racing, there is one person who on his own will wipe the floor with any of us...and we all know roughly who's better than who after that. But put into decent pairings for doubles....it's really close!

So how about this...it's just an idea and open to comment....

We get entries in, and the commitee roughly rank the drivers based on what we know about them. Split the list into 2 halves, randomly draw names from the 2 lists putting one top half driver with one bottom half driver, giving us doubles teams.

Race as normal, qualifiers and finals, scoring like normal then combining the scores of the team members to give the final championship table position.

Depending how seriously it gets taken this would give the bottom half/newer drivers a top half driver to learn a bit from, and give the better guys some variety to their otherwise forgon conclusion outcomes!

We could actually run it alongside an individual championship as well, but just give the main prizes to the team event?

Any good or just rubbish? Any other thoughts from anyone with that in mind? Or would you just prefer to see the individual event run as normal?

Haven't talked to Pete or anyone else about it yet, so there are no definate plans for a championship at this point, but def good to gauge interest and try something a bit new for the club if it's what you all want

[millzy]

Can you imagine the pore kid the gets Bill.....

[blue_pinky]

Oh yeah...hadn't thought of that! Scrub that idea then

[Dyna]

Andy's idea is probably the most fair, the only other way to do it without pairing the drivers is to run a handicap system.

Easy to do, decided pretty much the same as the above idea - the commitee decide on peoples abilities.

You have a 'rating' decided for everyone in each class i.e. 2wd, 4wd, micro etc etc . Then if you are a Craig or Rob for instance, they have to have 2 laps deducted from their final position ( a -2 rating ). Andy or Owen for example, 1 lap deducted ( a -1 rating ). Some like Balders would be scratch ( 0 rating ) and this is the 'datum line'.

A beginner like me would be for example a ' + 2' rating, which means id get 2 laps added onto my final position....

Its easy to do, we've used the same basic system for fun tennis tournaments for donkeys years. It does make the competition far closer in direct fun tournaments.

Before you say it, if someone lower ranked does start winning regulary i.e. improving standard quickly, you simply move them up a rating to compensate. Or if someone is at the back regulary, you move them down a rating.

If you feel lap addition/deduction is not the best way to do it, work out the average lap times for a middle standard driver and/subtract a certain amount of time for each level of ability.

The system is very easy, the hardest part is at the start, working peoples abilities. But tbh, most of us have been around for a while, i would think we have a pretty good idea of how good people are, if they are likely to improve quickly etc etc.

And its always a good idea to keep the total levels of abilities low, otherwise it can get confusing - in this case 5 levels would probably do it : -2, -1, 0, +1, +2.

You can still use these as ratings even if you use the 'time' method over the 'laps' method. And you can add an 'most improved driver' catagory as well if you so desired.

[sunbeam]

A comp may be a good idea, but it will end up being just the people that can always turn up and the good drivers that will win.

In theory it's a good idea, but in practice, I think some will see it as unfair.

Also, the one thing that is nice about the club, is that there is nothing to lose and therefore more relaxed. I think the people that want to win comps tend to already go to the Nats or the Welsh round thing.

I also don't think it is fair that a good driver has to lose points and a beginner gets extra points, it all becomes a farce.

So I would vote in the no camp.

Just my opinion.

Rob.

[axeman]

This just confuses the sh*t out of me!!!

I am a racing god.

[Dyna]

a) You wouldnt run it every week, maybe once every 3-4 weeks, and like the other series Caldicot run ( Vintage, trucks ), you would have, for example, 5 out of 8 rounds to count thereby giving people a chance to miss a couple of weeks if they couldnt get there for any reason.

b) if someone didnt want to enter the competition that week, then im sure its no problem for a heat or two of 'normal' club driving for those that dont want to run in a competition ? Easy to run both side-by-side if required ? Thats a no-lose solution surely ?

c) Any handicap system you use, mine or Andy's system or anything else for that matter, is to even the results between top and bottom standards... it makes the playing field more level... trust me they work...

d) they are lot easier in practice than written down...


But just goes to show, no matter what you do, no matter what is suggested, you cant please all of the people all of the time....

[liam]

Just do an endurance event on a sunday! Teams of 2 or 3

[sunbeam]

Originally Posted by liam

Just do an endurance event on a sunday! Teams of 2 or 3

You would NEED shades to race against 'The Yellow Perrel' in an endurance !!

(Unless it has the wrong tyres, then it will be upside down most of the time ! )

[Body Paint]

I'm with Rob, count me out... Caldi is not about club championships IMHO. Club Champs ALWAYS ends up with bickering and the innevitable crying about someone breaking the rules. People will quickly start to feel that they have to have this or that to compete. Then will come control motors swiftly followed by control tyres... not for me, no thanks.

One off fun meetings are a laugh, as are fun classes but club champs will very quickly take the FUN out of Caldi for a lot of people.. If anyone wants to see what sort of farce club champs turn into pop down to COBRA in the winter when they are argueing about... I mean discussing rules.

Please don't take us down this road

ps. no offence meant to any of the COBRA guys, I'm not being personal, in my experience all club champs have the same back biteing and shouting matches.

[peetbee]

I've not commented so far as I wanted to see what everone else thought.
A couple of points tho:
Vintage - a competition was created to give some structure to a one off class and because it would be fun - I won it the first year so obviously fancied my chances and ran it for a second year!
Trucks - a competition was created last year to try and get them to clean their driving up to try and stop them all being quite so mad. This year was to try and get a semi regular truck heat (which doesn't seem to have been succesful so far)

Now I've said that bit, please let the discussion continue!

[Teaboy]

I have no real opinion on this as a recent returnee to the sport. My proles during te summer are cotments to full size racing meaing its all a bit hit and miss to making Friday nights. To try to make myself improve i am focused on trying to match then beat other members of the club one at a time, although i cant get anywhere near Sunbeam at the moment !!, this give me the competition at the moment. From years ago i remember having to runs stock motors on championship nights which was a pain sometimes. I recon bring on more full days racing live Easter!!!

Cheers

Rich

ps not meaning to upset anyone as a newbie!!!!