MCUSA Format

[THRC Dan]

Lets discuss the format of the races...

All ideas are open... My idea is running 5 minute qualifiers to set up the mains. Then run 7 minute A mains, 6 minute B-Mains and all other mains at 5 minutes.

We could also reccognize Top Qualifiers from each class and region. Rank the TQ as well.

[arch2b]

Lets discuss the format of the races...

All ideas are open... My idea is running 5 minute qualifiers to set up the mains. Then run 7 minute A mains, 6 minute B-Mains and all other mains at 5 minutes.

We could also reccognize Top Qualifiers from each class and region. Rank the TQ as well.
i like the idea of shorter heats. we run 5 min. heats on my track. 7 min feels like an eternity when your racing.

[davkin]

Heck, we run twenty minute races with stock Z's, it's a blast! With good batts twenty minutes is easy with stock motors. That's an idea, how about an endurance class? :) I personally love long races.

David

[arch2b]

an enduro is a great idea too. only run what you bring... you won't want a fetted car for it anyway

[TNB]

One day here we started running at 4:30 pm and quit at 2 am. Lots of battery changes though we did have food delivered too. However, I'd say 5-7 minutes is good for a "regular" heat/race. If everyone runs lights, cut it back to 6 minutes.

[davkin]

Definately for many places shorter heats will be necessary due to a large participation group. I'm not sure we really need to worry about how people get to the A-main for the national format. Are you really going to bother rating drivers that run in the B and C mains as well?

Actually, thinking about this has me a bit confused again. The idea is that everybody runs on the same track on the same day, correct? Now what exactly is ranked nationally? Is everybody ranked according to their race performance against the clock? In other words, so and so completes so many laps in the time allotted with so many seconds to spare? So, if the national ranking is against the clock, (and I don't see how it could be any other way.) then all the races need to be the same length of time. Then it really doesn't matter when someone is racing in the A main here, while someone else is in the B main somewhere else, it's how many laps they completed in the alloted time that matters. It really wouldn't be fair for someone racing in a city that has a large participation to be compared to those in a city with little Mini racing participation where everyone would end up in the A main regardless of wether they suck or not. I guarantee if we hold a race here that will be case for at least one class if not all of them. A "B" main driver in one city could easily be faster than an "A" main driver in another, so it really shouldn't matter which main they raced in for the national ranking should it?

Also, even though it would most likely hurt us the most, I would have to say it would probably be more fair to require a minimum number of drivers in a race in order for their results to be nationally ranked. I'm sure it's far easier to put down fast laps in a race with only four drivers on the track than in a race with ten.

David

[arch2b]

the event will not be held at the same time to my understanding. it would be possible with cores software but not everyone will have that.

[davkin]

the event will not be held at the same time to my understanding. it would be possible with cores software but not everyone will have that.

That's not what I was saying. According to the web page the event is supposed to happen all on the same day across the country. However. What I am trying to say is the only thing that should count in regional or national rankings is the drivers raw race performance. It shouldn't matter wether he was running in the "B" main or "A" main or came in 1st or 10th, just the number of laps and time. Ya locally where you finish is important, but nationally it shouldn't mean squat. Some areas have much more participation by many more highly talented drivers than others so drivers in a high participation area that are running in the "B" main may be faster than the drivers running in the "A" main in an area where support is so low that all they have is an "A" main. So, I think it's only fair to rate a driver's performance soley based on how many laps he completed within the alloted time with how many seconds to spare. Which means all the races must be the same length of time, and whichever main the driver was in or what position he finished in locally is irrelevant to the national ranking.

David

[michvin]

enduro race was held this Sun in NYC. it was blast. 3 1-hour long rounds.
normally we run 8 mins heats and mains. No classes - race what you bring

[THRC Dan]

Davkin,

The race will be held on the same day and on the same track layouts. I see what you are saying regarding the number and skill level of participants.

We are definately racing the clock and the layout. Head to head on the track would be great but we cant do that, so were working on the next best thing.

What do you think about making all the mains the same length? This way if you have real fast racers beyond the A main, they can still run the same amount of time and get ranked against everyone else in the country that races. Yes that kinda negates the purpose of qualifying to position for a main but its the only way that everyone can be rated equally. The equalizer is (i guess) that if a good racer happens to have some bad qualifiers and does not make the A, then he would have to race against lesser skill levels and sometimes that is a factor.

Its not a perfect thing, but if we work through the little things, I know we can get something respectible to rank everyone on. Plus its all in good fun anyway. 8-)

[brian]

That's a decent point, we'll have to have the same time for each main to be able to compare overall times.

There should be some type of penalty for not making the a-main though so people don't sandbag down to the c main with 2 people and have an absolutely flawless run that couldn't be achieved in the A with 10 equal cars.

[michvin]

That's a decent point, we'll have to have the same time for each main to be able to compare overall times.

There should be some type of penalty for not making the a-main though so people don't sandbag down to the c main with 2 people and have an absolutely flawless run that couldn't be achieved in the A with 10 equal cars.
points. it's easy. A-main #6 will get more points than C-main winner

[brian]

points. it's easy. A-main #6 will get more points than C-main winner

then people will complain that they have 30 super fast drivers in their area so they could only make the c, but their time is faster then everybody at a track with only 5 drivers all in the A

[michvin]

then people will complain that they have 30 super fast drivers in their area so they could only make the c, but their time is faster then everybody at a track with only 5 drivers all in the A

Right, but then the satisfaction of winning would be much higher :)

[arch2b]

Davkin,
...The race will be held on the same day and on the same track layouts....
:p got that one wrong :p

[ELMO4635]

Anyway the rankings could somehow incorporate how many laps you finished... that way you could actually see how you ranked vs. another city??

[TNB]

the event will not be held at the same time to my understanding. it would be possible with cores software but not everyone will have that.
It also would seem unlikely since there are different time zones throughout the USA and Canada to consider--that is unless the members on the east cost want to start at Midnight pacific coast time. ;) Same day--I guess that will depending on the number of classes.

[davkin]

What do you think about making all the mains the same length? This way if you have real fast racers beyond the A main, they can still run the same amount of time and get ranked against everyone else in the country that races.

Well, I think you know I support that. Unless someone can come up with a more equal way to judge a driver's individual performance in any race I just don't see any better way.

. Yes that kinda negates the purpose of qualifying to position for a main but its the only way that everyone can be rated equally

Well, I think it needs to be looked at two different ways. In one respect it's a national event and everybody is ranked nationally against everybody else according to each driver's individual race performance. In the other respect it needs to be looked at as a local event. As far as which main a driver qualifies for, which finish position he ends up etc, is all a local game, it just can't be compared fairly nationally. This means the local hosts need to have incentive for the drivers to race each other locally as well as trying to get a good race time in for the national ranking, such as trophies or other awards. I think as long as the mains are all the same length and all drivers are running under the same class rules the rest is up to the local host. He could use "eeny miny mo" to determine which drivers drive in which main as far as the national rankings go.

There should be some type of penalty for not making the a-main though so people don't sandbag down to the c main with 2 people and have an absolutely flawless run that couldn't be achieved in the A with 10 equal cars.

Yes, that is an issue but no system is going to be perfect. Maybe even a random draw would be the way to go and the qualifiers would just be practice rounds. Or, even better, a staggered lineup. In other words, rather than use the traditional heirarchy of an "A", "B", "C" main setup with "A" being the fast drivers and "C" being the slow ones, instead make all mains equal. If you have enough drivers for 3 mains for example. The 1st fastest qualifer would go in one main, the 2nd faster in the next and the 3rd fastest in another. Then the 4th fastest would be in the same main as the 1st fastest, the 5th with the 2nd, the 6th with the 3rd, and so on. Or just have local incentives to run in your best to make "A" main such as the trophies and awards mentioned above.

points. it's easy. A-main #6 will get more points than C-main winner

Uh, where do points come into this? Another idea; A multiplier could be used to penalize a "C" main class driver result. For example, an "A" drive would have a 1.0 mutiplier to his result, a "B" main .9, a "C" main .8 . This means if all three drivers completed say, 10 laps in their respective mains for simplicity sake, the A driver would get scored the full ten laps, the B only 9, the C only 8. However I don't think such a system is fair to the drivers that have to compete against 20+ other drivers vs those that only have a handful of racers at their event. I think the local incentives would be enough to motivate all drivers to gun for the "A" main, heck, even local bragging rights would be enough for most.

David

[clubberlang]

If you want to rank ppl against each other nation wide, you may as well just run 4 rounds of races. Mix up the heats each round randomly to avoid racing the same guys. then total the laps and time over the whole day

Ex. racer a in NY does a race of 20 5:01, 21 5:02, 22 5:03, and 23 5:04
so his total is 86 20:10

racer b is in IL and does 21 5:00 22 5:01 23 5:02 24 5:03

his total is 90 20:06

racer b wins

Also, the sandbagger who looks for less cars is eliminated, due to re sorts of heats.
Everybody races everybody in class, each race could be heads up to have more excitement--they all count towards the total!

[davkin]

If you want to rank ppl against each other nation wide, you may as well just run 4 rounds of races. Mix up the heats each round randomly to avoid racing the same guys. then total the laps and time over the whole day

I really like that idea. That also gives more total laps and track time to separate the drivers further. I'm sure there will be quite a few ties with several hundred drivers being evaluated for a 5 minute main. Having a total over 3 or 4 races makes it so there will be fewer ties if any. Also, a driver's result is not based on just one race, which if you only had the one race and had problems it would really hurt, but if you had three or four races you could maybe make up for a mediochre result in one race by doing significantly better in another, of course the consistent driver will have an edge.

David

[THRC Dan]

Man I really like that idea clubber. Maybe we should look real close into that format and try to solidify it.

Keep in mind that there will be city or track rankings along with the national ranking based on everyones results across the country, so in a sense you will be ranked in two locations... local and national.

[clubberlang]

Man I really like that idea clubber. Maybe we should look real close into that format and try to solidify it.

Keep in mind that there will be city or track rankings along with the national ranking based on everyones results across the country, so in a sense you will be ranked in two locations... local and national.

It's similar to the invitational format at the Reedy Race. I think that it would work well with what you're trying to acomplish.

[THRC Dan]

What do you guys think about this.....

Going with Clubbers idea of running multiple 7 minute mains and taking the combined total of 2 or 3 rounds of mains to formulate totals...

In order to get to the mains we would run 2 rounds of qualifiers at 5 minutes each. The only purpose of the qualifiers will be to get like racers racihg together in the 2 or 3 main rounds.

So at the end of the day you have ran a total of 4, or a maximum of 5 races per class... 2 @ 5 min. and 2 or 3 @ 7 min.

By running the qualifiers and grouping drivers together by their performance, you will usually get the like drivers together. Also the top guys should run the best times, but that does not mean a sleeper in the lower group could come up and have better times.

I think this is a worthwhile idea to look at as a race day format. I'm all for running as many rounds as most folks can get in in one day, but if we run 2 mains per class we could at least invert the field between the two races based on qualifying time.
If we run 3, then we can still invert and do something else with the 3rd round starting order. Let us know what you think...

[THRC Dan]

One other thing to think about.... How many cars max per qualifier and how many max per Main?

In our local races we run a maximum of 4 cars in all of our qualifiers so there is less traffic and you can get a pretty accurate time based on your ablility.

We run a maximum of 8 cars in our mains. Lots more traffic but like drivers are together and it makes for good racing.

I know the Kyosho cup limited the main totals to 6, probably because of there being only 6 crystals that they would support. With x-mod and KO Crystals there is a larger option.
Some of the maximums are going to based on software support. Ours will support a race as large as 10 cars. This may not work for everyone..

We need to know the limitations out there so we can set the field size.

[clubberlang]

What do you guys think about this.....

Going with Clubbers idea of running multiple 7 minute mains and taking the combined total of 2 or 3 rounds of mains to formulate totals...

In order to get to the mains we would run 2 rounds of qualifiers at 5 minutes each. The only purpose of the qualifiers will be to get like racers racihg together in the 2 or 3 main rounds.

So at the end of the day you have ran a total of 4, or a maximum of 5 races per class... 2 @ 5 min. and 2 or 3 @ 7 min.

By running the qualifiers and grouping drivers together by their performance, you will usually get the like drivers together. Also the top guys should run the best times, but that does not mean a sleeper in the lower group could come up and have better times.

I'd rather see just "mains" . Make it like a round robin where everybody races everybody. I know some 1/10 scoring programs have a "reedy race" mode. Basically, try to get the maximum number of races, and keep people from racng each other twice, if that's possible.

Thank you for considering my ideas.
:D

[revzalot]

Lots of mains and a point system. I'd like to see one mandatory pitstop.

[ruknd@aol.com]

That sound good...we jsut need to make sure that all races ahve the same number of cars. It is a bit easier to turn more laps on a 4 car race than a 6 car race.

I also like the all main rotating idea. Sounds like fun...and at HKS we've got web broadcast if we can get them to host in NYC...

[ruknd@aol.com]

Lots of mains and a point system. I'd like to see one mandatory pitstop.
pit stop in a 5 or 7 min race? thats not necessary.