Funny how things come full circle! When the schedule/format was announced for COTA last year(SM) I reached out to NASA and asked "why the change?" After years of 2 qual races and a main...suddenly we had become SCCA(at least for SM)?? The answer I got was basically there was some big influence to change the format...and so it happened.
Don't get me wrong...no issue with either format...but the difference has always defined both organizations!
What NASA did this year was just weird
At a minimum they should have given points/combined both results of the qual and qual race to form a grid for the main race!
My vote is to go back to the original format...qual race, qual race, Main race!
Congrats Jim on the win!
NASA did conduct a survey among Championships competitors before the event, with a choice of formats, which included the format used last year and the format used at NASA Championships in the years before, in which the cumulative points total of Friday's and Saturday's qualifying races determined your starting position for Sunday's championship race.
The format used at Mid-Ohio was the one chosen by the majority of those who responded to the survey.