NEHA

Kevin's wish for having "no classes" is kinda cool. But the result is, if you want to provide "win" results to the competitors, the fastest three competitors would be winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and everybody else would not win anything. Having classes simply allows someone to "win" who is not one of the fastest three competitors. I think it helps motivate people who are in slower cars because they can race against each other.

It seems sensible to "piggyback" other sanctioning body's class structures if they make sense to us. It helps the competitors by providing (hopefully) an accurate classification, and it helps us if we don't have to "maintain" a classification system.

My personal belief is that people won't really want to squabble over exactly which class they are in, as long as those classes are well-defined. Of course I could be wrong...

James / Kiwi

IMHO, it would be a huge mistake to use Solo 2 classes, never mind PAX numbers, as hillclimb classes. - For any number of reasons.

Kiwi - Our crew has a long and unfortunate history of quibbling for DAYS about minutae in our class system - and before Pete Duncan spent a winter crunching #'s to come up with the index system, it was far worse!
Dave Valliere gets a lot of credit for drinking enough beer to tell us the ugly truth, and our simple Prepared classes came from his concept. "The same guys are gonna win - 'cuz they drive good, and their cars work and don't shit out."

Mopar 151 wrote:IMHO, it would be a huge mistake to use Solo 2 classes, never mind PAX numbers, as hillclimb classes. - For any number of reasons.

Agreed.

Was it Davey who also suggested that we just give each driver a first place trophy at every event and get it over with? So instead of having no classes, everyone is in a class by themselves!

Classes are pretty much a necessary evil. We've argued about them in the past and we will do so in the future. Pretty much by definition any change will make some people happy and others unhappy. It's also a given that there isn't any completely fair way to do it. The methods that approach fair are too expensive and time consuming for our series. We are usually trying to figure out weight and horsepower without having an accurate way of measuring either. Even if we could figure those out accurately, driver talent has a way of souring things. What people really want is someone to compete with who runs times similar to their times. That often has nothing to do with running a similar car.

Cool! My new Dart SHP iron engine block just showed up! Anyone need a used aluminum block that has 100% leakdown on several cylinders? Fully guaranteed to keep you from racing for a year or two while you try to figure out why oil is always squirting out of some impossible place. You should also stock up on heli-coils and solid thread inserts, buy in bulk, you'll need them.

I want to hear it running at Ascutney (1st).
John

What people really want is someone to compete with who runs times similar to their times. That often has nothing to do with running a similar car.

Well said, and I completely agree. I have been racing for years against myself and specific people. People who may or may not be in my class, but because they run similair times, there is a balance of driver/car vs. other driver/car that makes it competitive.

Rabbit Farmer wrote:

What people really want is someone to compete with who runs times similar to their times. That often has nothing to do with running a similar car.

Well said, and I completely agree. I have been racing for years against myself and specific people. People who may or may not be in my class, but because they run similair times, there is a balance of driver/car vs. other driver/car that makes it competitive.

Yup. It's just cool to have someone to race with who runs similar times...some friendly competition helps people to improve.

i'm real new to all of this, so I'm just content being able to make it up the hill, keep it between the trees, and try to improve my times over the weekend. My only real concern is racing against myself, trying to learn technique and improve....but as I mention earlier, friendly competition from a class helps I think. Of course I run the lowest HP car on the hill I bet (1.6 liter diesel), so who knows what is really comparable to it.

so I'm just content being able to make it up the hill, keep it between the trees, and try to improve my times over the weekend.

Got news for you.... old time hillclimbers do this also.

Number_5 wrote:I want to hear it running at Ascutney (1st).
John

We're working on it. I just want to make it up Ascutney without trying to kill a tree on the way up.