Nationals Schedule- Feedback Post

[Red Tornado]

I don't know if others have seen this but a definite change from prior years.

 

If I read right we have only practice than qualifying than qualifying race on Thursday and Friday. 1 Practice session on Saturday late day and that is it for Saturday. Championship Race on Sunday.

So if we don't do Wed Test and Tune you will have one practice 20 minute session before your very first qualifying session.

I started this post so we could give feedback to John since it was still undetermined.

 

My Personal Feedback:

- I really liked one day all practice than two days of practice, qualifying, racing that ends with championships following day.

- Not a fan of need to sign up for wed to learn track and pay extra.

- Not a fan of down day on Saturday. How can we sign up for championship on Saturdaythen and get out early?

- Like practice combined groups that thus provide us more time for qualifying and racing but it doesn't look like we get anymore time than last year?

- I have to compare but looks like overall less time than in years past so where di all the time go?

 

Those are just some of my thoughts around pro's and con's. Weigh-in if you are going.

 

Great news is we epart of an organization that listens to our thoughts.

Edited July 6, 2009 by Guest

[CMC#11]

I just looked at the NASA Championship website and it still shows the schedule the same as in previous years.

Thu - practice, Friday and Saturday - qual races, Sun - champ race.

I do think that the previous years schedules have worked great. I hope it doesn't change.

[nape]

I do think that the previous years schedules have worked great. I hope it doesn't change.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like it is changing: http://nasachampionships.com/news/070309/Sched_Nationals_2009Ver1.pdf

 

I'll throw my vote in the hat for liking the previous way too. NASA is bang-for-the-buck to me and that's important. I work construction, so there's no such thing as paid time off. No workie, no checkie. If I wanted to hang out at the track with a bunch of down time, I'd go run with the other guys.

[JWL]

Folks-

 

The schedule is changing for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we have gotten very lucky with our Sundays in years past with not having a serious incident or weather that could have shut down the track and put the kibosh on the finale races. Last year taught us an important lesson when the remnants of Ike blew through and took out the comm lines, T&S, power, tech tent, and nearly every other item we need to run and officiate a race on the cool down lap of the final race of the day. We simply don't want to tempt fate again.

 

We also are expanding the effort to cover the race with Speedcast and spreading the final races over two days frees up more in-car cameras and also gives the crew time to better plan and execute the production. It can be argued that only a few folks are mentioned in the actual broadcast, but the more we expose our programs to the general motorhead public, the more new enthusiasts we can bring in through HPDE and hopefully we can have bigger fields going forward.

 

A final reason for the change is that this gives the tech guys more time to go over each class and we can do a better job carefully vetting our champions to make sure their wins are indeed legitimate. Years past have seen a rush to get inspections done and we want the crew to have time to check everything they need to in a relaxed and thorough manner.

 

Finally, if you compare schedules the Sunday groups are actually only off a small percentage of time on track and I think the rest on Saturday will be helpful to those who beat up their equipment and their bodies over the previous two days. You'll also get to see races that in the past you would have missed because you were getting ready to rumble youself and hopefully the experience will be a better one for you. If this change does stink on ice, we will consider heading back to how we did it before and hope for the best but one never makes progress by fearing and not venturing into the unknown, so this is where we plan to go for 2009. Hopefully the reduced cost we were able to put in place for the test day will help anyone who wants to get more testing in on Wednesday and everyone will be able to see the merits of the new strategy.

 

Thanks.

 

-JWL

[bpanther]

If this change does stink on ice, we will consider heading back to how we did it before and hope for the best but one never makes progress by fearing and not venturing into the unknown, so this is where we plan to go for 2009.-JWL

 

 

If it completely stinks, I'll take full blame. Pros and Cons from all sides and it really depends on if you are a Saturday or a Sunday main race group.

 

Compared to last years schedule, the Sunday groups loose 5 minute of track time. Sunday only groups have a little bit of track time on Saturday afternoon if they need it, but having the downtime would be nice if you need to swap a tranny, replace a corner etc if you screw up bad on Friday's qual race. Of course, I am running as a Saturday group in CMC. This makes it much easier for me to either get to watch the AI/AIX race on Sunday (missed it last year) or to supersize to PTC and have time to tweak my suspension settings and put on my cheater Hoosiers.

 

 

Actually - blame it on Griswold. I changed the schedule so he could race SM on Saturday and AIX on Sunday w/o as much of a scramble between 2 cars.

[D Algozine]

It makes sense to me. In past years, I was amazed that all the championship races were held on the same day. As JWL explained, I'd hate to be the group that got bumped because a major incident screwed up the days schedule. I also would like to watch more of the other races.

My one minor consern is the combined groups for warm up. I'd hate to see an overcrowed track or problems with extreme speed differentials.

[bpanther]

I'd hate to see an overcrowed track or problems with extreme speed differentials.

 

Good point. I think we should be ok for warm ups. It'll be 50 - 60 cars on the track, but Miller is so dang wide and 3 miles long - it's not much of a problem. The front straight is 60' wide, so even if 1 AIX is passing an STR passing an AI that is passing an FFR that's passing a CMC it should be all good .

 

For those sessions we are "warming up" not setting a fast lap or trying to figure out the absolute quickest way around a corner. I will remind the race directors to emphasize this...

[D Algozine]

I'd hate to see an overcrowed track or problems with extreme speed differentials.

 

Good point. I think we should be ok for warm ups. It'll be 50 - 60 cars on the track, but Miller is so dang wide and 3 miles long - it's not much of a problem. The front straight is 60' wide, so even if 1 AIX is passing an STR passing an AI that is passing an FFR that's passing a CMC it should be all good .

 

For those sessions we are "warming up" not setting a fast lap or trying to figure out the absolute quickest way around a corner. I will remind the race directors to emphasize this...

 

What, no trophies for winning warm up sessions?

[bpanther]

I'd hate to see an overcrowed track or problems with extreme speed differentials.

 

Good point. I think we should be ok for warm ups. It'll be 50 - 60 cars on the track, but Miller is so dang wide and 3 miles long - it's not much of a problem. The front straight is 60' wide, so even if 1 AIX is passing an STR passing an AI that is passing an FFR that's passing a CMC it should be all good .

 

For those sessions we are "warming up" not setting a fast lap or trying to figure out the absolute quickest way around a corner. I will remind the race directors to emphasize this...

 

What, no trophies for winning warm up sessions?

 

Sometimes I offer a trophy to my AI/CMC guys for surviving a warm up session....

[ST#97]

large highspeed tracks like miller are deceiving. They seem to have TONS of room, yet the "trains" are frustrating. With cars of similar speed, there aren't a lot of passing opportunities at MMP if the slower car isn't wanting to give up respectfully.

 

 

Not real keen on the STR1/STR2 cars on track with us either. Those guys should be about the same speed as AI and always seem to screw up our race because they either don't get out of the way, or want to race for a position with the front running AI field passing them... maybe we could have a combined group "X" meeting covering respect to other classes' races? Qualifying always has a problem when we mix that group in with AI/CMC.... I would expect with the track configuration and from other race series I have watched there...we should have few, if any cautions and will run the full 40 minutes. If so, there is going to be a lot of mixing of the 4 classes on track.

 

Not real keen of having a down day....just another day off work I might not have.......although leaving the track by 1pm Sunday is great!

 

Beyond that, no big deal. I am actually thinking of supersizing to run CMC2 so I don't get bored on Saturday...just need to find a car!

 

 

JWL---you hinted at additional time for post race inspections....How long are we talking? It seemed like forever waiting on the awards ceremony last year....maybe you are thinking of making the top cars idle for several minutes prior to their dyno?.... I'd like to stick around for the trophy ceremony to support our winners and just looking to plan departure from the track on Sunday.

[Red Tornado]

As long as we don't finish under yellow that alone will make any chedule change worth it.

[ST#97]

As long as we don't finish under yellow that alone will make any chedule change worth it.

 

Amen!!!! I wanted that extra 15 minutes to TRY to chase you down last year!