Anyone have an issue with Novice racers getting bumped to Amatuer?

[Doc]

A great change an d something to look forward to. But this was sent out to the elite at LRRS: Bashing is welcome but a MAJOR concern nonetheless Feel free to start it in a new post

Eric Wood/Don Hutchinson/LRRS

We send this email not as a disrespect to you or the community, but only as a note to safety and educated decisions. We were recently informed that certain riders have been officially bumped up from novice to amateur class for the 2011 LRRS season. In an attempt to alleviate the novice class (seems the direction you are heading in with bare minimum novice races) you have bumped up a good portion of the novice class to amateur class. It is understandable that it would be in our best interest to have only amateur and expert classes since this is how the majority, if not all, of other road racing organizations work. However, it's our believe as well as other racers ( novice, amateur, and expert) we have spoken with about the changes that the LRRS officials are making a very bad decision with mixing riders that are far too inexperienced to run in races with experts and amateurs. If was never allowed to let novice riders run “practice sessions “ with amateur and expert riders, but now we are moving in the direction of letting them race together!? You are waiting for a disaster to happen. Even though the races are in different waves, who thinks it’s a good idea to have experts running 1:12’s with other riders running as slow as 1:26? Do you as a educated and respected road racer believe this is a good decision? We do not believe a limited experience novice rider should be sharing the track with experts like Narbonne, Hildebrand, Cronin, Greenwood along with the other elite racers at Loudon. Do the top experts really want to race along with much slower novice riders during their races? Are you trying to slow down your lap times? We had much heartfelt sadness last year with the loss of Morgan Rose and the massive injuries suffered by Chris. We all know the risks we take while road racing and accidents are inevitable, but why take a greater risk at more injuries or deaths by mixing riders of vastly large experiences on the track at the same time? We believe that the novice class should be geared only to riders just completing the Penguin roadracing school and be carefully monitored for performance before being advanced to ride with faster and more aggressive riders. The reasoning behind advancement has always been a sore topic within the community. It should be based on lap times not the amount of races completed and position. Is it feasible to bump a novice up to amateur after ten completed race that may have contained only 3 riders in the ten races? We have expert riders running lap times in the mid 20’s. This make no sense. Now it has been decided to review the lap times and advance novices to amateur because of the lap times? Why was this not a priority in the past? The cutoff times for advancement now is low 20’s yet one novice rider was advanced with a best lap time of 1:26. If the novice advancement stands, It would be in the best interest of safety and rider participation to separate amateur and expert riders. Although looking at the schedule it may double the race schedule a combination of the following may bring the schedule back to reality.

1. Keep expert races separate
2. Review history of races and combine historically low entry races ( assuming respectable times) into a additional waves within other races
3. Combine races that are nearly identical except for negligible differences in Heavyweight , Middleweight, Lightweight, Unlimited
4. Eliminate GTO, GTL, GTU

These are just a few suggestions, but carefully scrutiny by the LRRS community would certainly bring the schedule that would fit into everyone’s interest and at the same time provide for responsible decisions and rider safety. If the economy wasn’t bad enough to lose participants this year you are preparing to lose many more riders to this very bad decision. Once again this letter is not sent for disrespect but to point out some major issues that need extreme attention.


Concerned LRRS racers.

Who are these "Concerned LRRS Racers".

I personally do not have a problem with the change, The only thing I would suggest is make it easier to spot the new Amatuers by having them wear a vest or something.

[Palm Bomb]

interesting. I was one of the people bumped. I don't think that was the wrong thing for LRRS to do because based on my laptimes I'd be somewhere in the middle of the amateur MW pack. the other factor is safety. I've had a couple close calls, but close is subjective and at the end the bike stayed shiny side up.

guess my point is, i understand what they're saying but it's not such an easy thing to evaluate. case by case basis is the only accurate way.

some guys have years of trackday experience before racing. others do not. while years of track day experience don't qualify to race whatsoever, you can't usually compare these two types of riders either because of the HUGE corner speed differnce....but they're in the same class none-the-less.

safety is huge and in my mind the letter makes a valid point that it's worth a second evaluation of those of us that got bumped.

["Dangerous" Dan K]

When I bumped to AM in ptwin, we needed 29's.

The new rule is now what, 130% of the fastest lap of the guys in the same class, in the group you want to bump?

Last year the fastest AM ptwin lap turned was 1:24.751. It wasn't a fluke either, there were some 24s turned. To be within 130% of that, you'd need to run a 1:30.163. That's .164 seconds slower than what was needed before the new rules. Not a huge deal in my eyes, as far as rules to advance.

When I bumped, I was on track as an AM with the fastest LW guys at the track, on the slowest bike on the track, running 29's. I just had to be consistent, follow a predictable like, and try not to mess my drawers when the real fast guys came by.

Can't speak to the other classes, but I think the biggest speed variation you'll find on the track is ptwin AMs vs. the really fast LW guys. This rule changed the margin for that particular variation less than 2 tenths of a second.

[PainfullySlow]

I certainly understand the concern of the "LRRS Elite" (although honestly that statement bothers me a lot more than the proposed changes). As a fairly new racer I think that I would have been traumatized had I been put on the track with the "elite" flying past me and I was grateful to get my feet wet with people turning about the same times as I was.

That said, I understand why they are making these changes and I just dont see a great compromise available. I suppose it would be possible to run the novices and amateurs on the track at the same time but that would mean running 2 expert waves concurrently.

[Woodcraft]

I got this letter, as it was sent to several LRRS officials. After talking to Don Hutchinson, I confirmed that lap times had always played a part in the bump up process...but now the guidelines were actually a little tighter. My repsonse to this letter (with a few more details) was as follows:

I appreciate your concern. We looked at this for a long time, and the feedback from the officials and most racers has been very good. Most of what we have done is actually in line with what you are thinking. We did, in fact, move to a 100% performance based index for Novices. I agree with you 100% that just because someone trolled around mid pack and did 10 races, it does not make them an Amateur. The thresholds that we set were based on advancing someone only when they can run the pace of other Amateurs in the same class. I like this much better, as there have been riders advancing over the past several years at slower lap times than the thresholds that we set for 2011. Of the list of Novices from 2011, about 1/3 of them were moved up.

With the new system...only the faster guys will advance. I think you will agree that this is better. You could end up with a rider advancing after 1 weekend...but if they have the speed to do so, that's fine. By our system, this could have guys running 1:12's with guys running 1:23's on big bikes.......but that is already taking place, and has been for years.

I would have liked to separate Experts and Amateurs for myself. However, there is simply not time in the schedule to do so and I had safety concerns if we did that and eliminated the Novice class. With our current EX/AM combinations, for example, AM MWSS and EX MWSS run together. Yes - it is faster guys and slower guys, but it is all bikes that are roughly the same speed. It's not mid corner speed that creates the most danger - it's closing speeds at the end of the straight. Once you separate AM & EX completely, the class combinations make less sense....MWSS with, what, LWSS? When you look at it, it becomes nearly impossible to make combinations that work without limiting the number of classes someone can run (by running, for example MWSS & MWSB together - or eliminating one of those classes). We looked at this, and we would have ended up with at least another 5-6 races......when we were charged with the challenge of eliminating 3-4 by NHMS.

Also, by leaving Novices separate, you eliminate a much bigger issue. I think that the rest of the country should follow our lead with this move. On a 600, I'd much rather see an Expert running 1:12's pass an Amateur running 1:23's than if we ran all Experts and Amateurs separately and eliminated Novices. Why? On 600's, we have Amateurs that run 1:16's...and we have Novices that run 1:42's! Given the choice - I'll take a fast and experienced Expert passing someone 11 seconds slower over a 2nd-3rd year Amateur passing someone who is 26 seconds a lap slower.....every time. These are real numbers that we had to look at. By keeping the Novice class, we invite new guys to only race with other new guys (or guys that have several weekends but have not gone fast yet) ...and everyone (both fast and slower guys) are all more comfortable. I feel that bumping faster guys out of the Novice class as soon as they run the right times will make the track more comfortable for new riders and help grow the sport.

We are always open to suggestions, and you can be sure that we are going to watch what happens closely. We will probably need to make adjustments here and there....but based on the constraints we were given to work with, I'm comfortable that we did not hurt anything. In fact, with lap time based advancement, I think we will see things improve over course of the year. That was our intent from the start.

Thanks,

Eric Wood

[FirstDuc-1098]

Eric, thanks for the reply

[Palm Bomb]

good answer. I was actually trying to mull it over in my head if it was worse to have experts passing amateurs or amateurs passing novices. Personally, I think most experts are of the opinion of, so long as the person they're going to pass doesn't do anything stupid, the have no problem passing them like they're not even there.

the experts have a skill level that far surpasses amateurs. I think the problem of passing might be compounded since amateurs definitely have the speed, but not necessarily the experience we all think we have. that coupled with most novices unpredictability probably makes it much more dangerous to group AM's and NV's together rather than EX's and AM's. An amateur is much more likely to be unrattled by a close pass than a novice. I think it's awesome when my doors get blown off...a novice might shit their pants and take some people out while he's wiping his leathers.

[Chippertheripper]

the only thing i can add to this is motard was definitely my favorite race BECAUSE the faster guys were out there. for a novice, running around chasing guys only going a second or two faster than you isn't that exciting. but when you get a good start and end up in t1 with the ams the first few laps are alot more fun trying to hang on. i learned quite a bit from that.

[RyanNicholson]

Am I the only one that thinks the rule changes, and the concerns expressed by the anonymous racer address the same issues? Sure some tweaking might be involved, but ultimately those concerns were the entire point right?

I'm a fan of performance based advancement personally. And hell, like Eric said... in the end it really won't be all that much different than what the fast experts have been dealing with for years and I'd trust them with handling it more than anyone else on the track.

In addition to that, while the safety concern of the fast experts and the lappers they'll be passing is a valid one... LRRS is club racing. It needs to be a balance between everyone for the good of the series itself, to make it as fun and safe for everyone running any lap time as possible.

I dunno, just my .02 off the top of my head. I'm still a fan of the changes, esp since I'm sure they'll be adjusted as necessary.

[airhead749]

Agreed 100% but I'm pist because I bought a 749 in the off season to race in thunderbike and 40 lights and now I have to run it in middleweight novice. Wish there was another way to get from point a to b other than the mailay that is middleweight novice. No disrespect of course but I'm pushin 50 and my body doesn't bounce so great anymore. How about a middleweight novice twins class?

[SVRACER01]

Wirelessly posted (HTC EVO "DROID" : Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Sprint APA9292KT Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

If you really wanted to run AM and EX separately you'd have to combine things like mwss ,mwsb, mwgp or any combo of the three to meet time constraints. Problem is that some people run both or all 3 of those classes.

[The Snowman]

Well, if it makes all of you amateur LW riders feel better, Don would not allow me to bump to amateur yet, as I had only averaged 1:26 in the last 2 races that I ran in the 2010 season.

I was trying to bump, because I'm not crazy about the new classes for novice and felt that bumping would make me faster by having to chase the faster riders much harder.

I guess we'll see.

Well, I guess I really am slow, since the email Doc posted says so.

[Chippertheripper]

dear chuck,
you suck.
love,
lrrs

[Palm Bomb]

Agreed 100% but I'm pist because I bought a 749 in the off season to race in thunderbike and 40 lights and now I have to run it in middleweight novice. Wish there was another way to get from point a to b other than the mailay that is middleweight novice. No disrespect of course but I'm pushin 50 and my body doesn't bounce so great anymore.

based on the response it's 100% performance based...hit the times you need to hit and petition to bump immediately once you hit them.

[CBR929RE]

Agreed 100% but I'm pist because I bought a 749 in the off season to race in thunderbike and 40 lights and now I have to run it in middleweight novice. Wish there was another way to get from point a to b other than the mailay that is middleweight novice. No disrespect of course but I'm pushin 50 and my body doesn't bounce so great anymore.

ride the wheels off it and bump after the first weekend. That's what I'm hoping to do.

Well, if it makes all of you amateur LW riders feel better, Don would not allow me to bump to amateur yet, as I had only averaged 1:26 in the last 2 races that I ran in the 2010 season.

I was trying to bump, because I'm not crazy about the new classes for novice and felt that bumping would make me faster by having to chase the faster riders much harder.

I guess we'll see.

Well, I guess I really am slow, since the email Doc posted says so.

twist the throttle on that purple beast and man up....remember it takes a man to wear purple.

[Doc]

Ahh Chuck... You don't suck. You just need a little more time.

Interesting tid bit that NHMS asked to cut races from the LRRS schedule... I wonder what that was for?

[Chippertheripper]

Ahh Chuck... You don't suck. You just need a little more time.

Interesting tid bit that NHMS asked to cut races from the LRRS schedule... I wonder what that was for?

that was to allow you more time to suck.

[ginness72]

We'll i am happy that i bumped , I ran the required time's consistently over the last couple weekend's. I know the only way i will progress is by trying to follow faster people..

Not that i am fast , but i know i am consistent. I dont make unpredictable moves , I follow my lines the i know.. I think that is the key to being on track with other racers.. If you are going to make a pass MAKE IT CLEAN ! we all have to work on Monday.

I had to think and make sure myself that i was ready to bump at the end of the season... then oreo even gave me a link to the older years of the race results and if you look at what the avg times where back then ( 2005-2006 ) not that long ago.. I would be in the top three on a good day..

I have not looked, but are there any AM that are currently racing that run slower than the Novice bump time's ?

[Sheppo]

Interesting tid bit that NHMS asked to cut races from the LRRS schedule... I wonder what that was for?

ooooh ooooh let me take this... Legend Cars

[CBR929RE]

We'll i am happy that i bumped , I ran the required time's consistently over the last couple weekend's. I know the only way i will progress is by trying to follow faster people..

Not that i am fast , but i know i am consistent. I dont make unpredictable moves , I follow my lines the i know.. I think that is the key to being on track with other racers.. If you are going to make a pass MAKE IT CLEAN ! we all have to work on Monday.

I had to think and make sure myself that i was ready to bump at the end of the season... then oreo even gave me a link to the older years of the race results and if you look at what the avg times where back then ( 2005-2006 ) not that long ago.. I would be in the top three on a good day..

I have not looked, but are there any AM that are currently racing that run slower than the Novice bump time's ?

track changes have lowered lap times.

[butcher bergs]

The person who composed that letter apparently doesn't seem to realize that this is a first-year attempt and changes will definitely happen and are necessary in order to facilitate the success of this new approach.

Personally I am all for a known laptime threshold however I do feel the times I saw posted with regards to advancing from NV to AM in particular were a bit "gracious". Sorry but 26's on a MW at Loudon's Road Course doesn't equal AM times, IMHO.

Also IMO, at a track as compact as Loudon, closing speeds become even more critical as there aren't too many areas that offer an escape route/ runoff room. That said, and as I've stated in the past, I still feel the cap should be no more than 7s off the average laptime of the top 3 to 5 runners of any given class when moving from NV to AM and 4s of the average laptime going from AM to EX, this suggestion obviously to coincide with the guidelines already in place.

[CBR929RE]

but 26s are for lightweight bikes. seems reasonable to me. and they did say it could be adjusted during the season.

[nt650hawk]

I loved the old Red/Yellow/ Blue Pratice sessions. This alone introduced different levels of personal achievements one could obtained within the class. Granted it was a mixed class of bikes but all the lap times were somewhat similar. I learned a ton running with the bigger bikes.

Lap time will ultamately controll the advancement of individuals. It is what it is without any fluff.

[butcher bergs]

but 26s are for lightweight bikes. seems reasonable to me. and they did say it could be adjusted during the season.

Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. Comment was more for the MW-types.

Post edited.

[CBR929RE]

Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. Comment was more for the MW-types.

Post edited.

go back and edit again. they said cut off for MW/HW is 23s to Amateur.