183 replies to this topic

[MPR22]

Glenn can you articulate why my posts are so frustrating to you? Is the point that guys who can't travel for the away rounds are free to just come out and do the races they want, and don't have to worry about making all of the rounds? IE as Mike said, that doing all the rounds isn't at all mandatory, so the focus shouldn't be on championship standings but that we should just focus on racing for the experience of racing? I'm trying to understand.

TROLL ALERT


Don't get sucked in Glen.

Clown, feel free to delete my post as I speak the truth and it might offend someone.

[jeopardyracing]

TROLL ALERT


Don't get sucked in Glen.

Clown, feel free to delete my post as I speak the truth and it might offend someone.

MPR I have no idea how I've offended you so badly. I think one of the things that makes a thread like this go down hill is what gets lost in translation trying to have a discussion over text only - the non verbal cues get lost and posts may come off as hostile / sarcastic /etc. I can only assume that is what has gone wrong between you and I.

The question to Glenn was 100% genuine because what I'd like to do is to consolidate the different viewpoints I've gotten here with Mike's comments directly to the blog and pass it all on to the Board.

I think I can summarize the views Mike and others here have posted this way:

- You could still only do the home races + 1 away race and win the championship, if competing for the championship is important to you. So the new rounds need not increase costs.
- You could decide not to worry about championship standings and race purely for the experience. There is no requirement to do every round or necessarily, to worry about championship standings.
- Half of NASA's regional races are at VIR, half at Summit Point, so that series involves travel too.
- It is debatable how much the Hoosiers slow down with heat cycles, and so it is debatable whether any cost premium is triggered by the Hoosier. The region looked carefully at both tires and have test data to show both were good tires.
- There are plenty of folks in the region who like the new tracks and the travel just as much as others may not; the region needs to serve all of their constituents.

Those are all perfectly valid points and I'll pass those on the Board as counterpoints, along with showing them Mike's comments to the post. If I missed any other counter points please feel free to let me know.

[Mike Collins]

Just because I don't know and am curious... Is a MARRS sanctioned race a "national" (running SM) or regional (with sups requiring Hoosier)?

Regions spec tires... Not series.... When the MARRS series is at SUMMIT POINT a WDCR track, we race on Hoosiers. We had a grandfathered period for Toyo and that expired. Away races at tracks sanctioned by a region other than WDCR we race that rule some are open, some are Toyo or Hoosier. When we went to VIR even though we were within our home grandfather period we were forced to use Hoosier because NCR is "same as national". We have two "gentleman's" agreements on tires...1. if you are outside the top 10 you run Toyo rain tires this....2. nobody is going shave H20's and run it as a Q tire...

[DrDomm]

Jeopardy, one of the nuances that gets lost on forums is that we are all people. It's easier to remember that when people use their name. Just a thought.

But, your posts have been articulate and polite. Even if people disagree with you, they should return the favor.

[jeopardyracing]

Jeopardy, one of the nuances that gets lost on forums is that we are all people. It's easier to remember that when people use their name. Just a thought.

But, your posts have been articulate and polite. Even if people disagree with you, they should return the favor.

That's an excellent point; I think the interactions are different when we are personally acquainted too. Looking at my profile I have barely used this forum and so didn't put any time into my profile. That should just take a few minutes to update.

[jeopardyracing]

Jeopardy, one of the nuances that gets lost on forums is that we are all people. It's easier to remember that when people use their name. Just a thought.

But, your posts have been articulate and polite. Even if people disagree with you, they should return the favor.

Name added!

[suck fumes]

Man you guys sure do have a lot of free time to argue about stupid crap!

[David L]

I think what pissed so many people off is, by claiming that because he can't travel or because he doesn't have the right tire that is why he is not the MARRS CHAMP. When in actuallity even if he had everything he bitches about not having he still wouldn't be close to the front of the pack. The MARRS series is very competitive and the guys up front are putting serious effort into being up front. Rich there are many of us in the dc region that are having a great time with the huge car counts that we have. I am 6th in the points in ssm and have one of the smallest budgets next to maybe the 19 car. Come race with us and use used tires like we do. We have a blast every weekend we can run. I will miss 3 away races this year and will not shed 1 tear. I cant even recall seeing you at too many races in your 2 years of racing. Let me ask you something when you race with NASA how do you do when there are only 10 cars. Are you winning? Are you having more fun? Or do you like running with 30-40 cars. I just think the whole whoa is me thing is BS, don't diminish someone else's efforts because you can't make the effort.

[jeopardyracing]

I think what pissed so many people off is, by claiming that because he can't travel or because he doesn't have the right tire that is why he is not the MARRS CHAMP. When in actuallity even if he had everything he bitches about not having he still wouldn't be close to the front of the pack. The MARRS series is very competitive and the guys up front are putting serious effort into being up front. Rich there are many of us in the dc region that are having a great time with the huge car counts that we have. I am 6th in the points in ssm and have one of the smallest budgets next to maybe the 19 car. Come race with us and use used tires like we do. We have a blast every weekend we can run. I will miss 3 away races this year and will not shed 1 tear. I cant even recall seeing you at too many races in your 2 years of racing. Let me ask you something when you race with NASA how do you do when there are only 10 cars. Are you winning? Are you having more fun? Or do you like running with 30-40 cars. I just think the whole whoa is me thing is BS, don't diminish someone else's efforts because you can't make the effort.

Pretty harsh and uncalled for David.

I don't know where my blog or comments here ever asserted that I can't win the championship because of anything. That's being read into my words - that didn't come from me. I'm not sure where 'close to the front of the pack' starts but the last MARRS race I did was end of last season and I was 11th of 32 cars. Not going to win any companionships but not being lapped running 1:38s either. I haven't been back out this year because the SSM was wrecked before MARRS1 and it's still being repaired.

There's just no need post a message like this.

[DrDomm]

Name added!

Nice to meet you. Run the races you can run, and keep plugging away. The idea of a "series" in regional racing sounds fun, but adds unnecessary stress, if you ask me.

[davew]

Now this is what will aggrevate a lot of people. You have not even competed in the series you are complaining about because your car was wrecked months ago. So you have not spent any time travelling to away events, nor any money on the tires, nor gotten your car fixed during several months of inactivity.

I agree with you that Davids post above was harsh. But I have just lost respect for you. You have no more right to complain about the MARRS series than I do about NFL rules. Free speech and wasted bandwidth is all that you have accomplished.

Dave

[Newton]

If you decided to go this route I think you will find that it is a great deal more than some number crunching. Totally doable but it will take real work and organization. Schedule and rules for the series need buy in (interest) from competitors/officials. You will need to get all the different regions that host your events to buy into the new series. You don't want to go to all the work of getting a new series together only to have a disagreement between the series and host regions. As you know more than one region can host events at the same track. I don't know how many regions you could be talking about with the three tracks listed above. My .02

I dont see how it is anything but crunching some numbers. you already have it in place for the MARRS championship, so all you have to do is tally up the points at the "home" tracks(vir, njmp, summit) and calculate a champion using only those results, very simple actually. its completely possible to win both. but it gives those that dont want to/cant afford the longer travel a chance to accomplish something within their region. I think its a very reasonable idea for everyone involved because it requires zero change for individual event organizers, a very small change for the region admin, yet its definitely an incentive to keep people like jeopardyracing active.

Also to clear something up. Anyone feel free to correct me on this. but my understanding is that just because your car is not legal (slightly illegal because im buying everyones slightly used RA1s cheap, not LS9 in my miata illegal) doesnt mean you cant race, it simply means your results wont be counted...........UNLESS you are running so much slower that you create a hazard, or you are purposely interfering with the actual competitors. So if your goal is to get on track and race(like your own personal time trials) and you stay out of the way, then you can still do that as far as my knowledge takes me.

[DrDomm]

I don't think you should race with the wrong tires if they give you an advantage. Someone racing with you on the required tires might not appreciate that, even if it's for 20th place. It's very difficult, and not much fun to run alone at SM races.

[jeopardyracing]

Now this is what will aggrevate a lot of people. You have not even competed in the series you are complaining about because your car was wrecked months ago. So you have not spent any time travelling to away events, nor any money on the tires, nor gotten your car fixed during several months of inactivity.

I agree with you that Davids post above was harsh. But I have just lost respect for you. You have no more right to complain about the MARRS series than I do about NFL rules. Free speech and wasted bandwidth is all that you have accomplished.

Dave

Huh? 2011 was my rookie year, and I did 4 MARRS rounds.

In 2012 my car was wrecked by somebody who never should have been allowed on track in practice for MARRS1 and is not drive able, and I only have recently bought a second car and had the time to get it track ready (it sat for two years without being raced) after 4 weekends' work. Since then I've done two race weekends in recent weeks - one with MARRS, one with NASA. Now that I am back and have a car, I look at the schedule and see far away MARRS races I don't have the time or budget to attend, so I don't attend them, and I blog about how I and others can't make these races due to time and budget constraints. Plus I own RA-1 tires and can't afford double sets of both brands. So I go race a NASA race instead and notice myself thinking about how often I do that now - look to other series than MARRS.

But now you say I've lost my right to blog about a series because I haven't attended enough races to have the right to blog about them... but I didn't attend MARRS races because of the very issues that I blogged about? Huh?

I think the causation there just got inverted!

I grew up in the SCCA PDX program, went to SCCA comp school, raced almost all MARRS in 2011, was trained in the WDCR SCCA Instructor clinic and instruct exclusively for the WDCR PDX program on non race weekends.

Some of the things that get posted here! No wonder friendly opinions are only coming to me private email and phone call from within the Region. No one wants to be me on this forum. Good god.

[jeopardyracing]

I don't think you should race with the wrong tires if they give you an advantage. Someone racing with you on the required tires might not appreciate that, even if it's for 20th place. It's very difficult, and not much fun to run alone at SM races.

On reflection I agree with you. Imaging causing an incident with a leader lapping you - I would feel awful.

[Bench Racer]

Lets lighten this deal up a bit.

With that ^ I see someone has a new profile name. The "Big Cheese" state opens the NFL exhibition season in San Diego this evening.

[Newton]

I don't think you should race with the wrong tires if they give you an advantage. Someone racing with you on the required tires might not appreciate that, even if it's for 20th place. It's very difficult, and not much fun to run alone at SM races.

I completely agree that if you are interfering with the actual competitors, get out of the way or off the track completely, but if you are simply at the back of the pack but not causing trouble then why not?

[HoneyBadger - BrianW]

This is one of the dumbest threads ever. I have lost brain cells just reading it..

(null)

[David L]

And thats even better complaining about the cost of racing, with 2 RACE CARS lol. And in your blog about your accident, it was a mystery car that hit you directly in the wheels no damage to your car on that side, nobody knows who that blue car was really, I'm not buying it and I dont think the SCCA cares If you like there rules Maybe if you attended some races YOU would have been at the meeting were Mike discussed expanding the series and I would say 95% of the class was HANDS UP. Sorry if my rants are out of line IM just sick of hearing people biatch about the best damn race class known to man

SEE YOU ON LABOR DAY REGISTRATION IS OPEN

[Jim Boemler]

Clown, feel free to delete my post as I speak the truth and it might offend someone.

The truth offends many, and opinions claiming to be the truth offend some more. No deletions as long as there aren't personal attacks.

I do think you've provided some good food for thought, Rich, even though many are resisting the temptation. If NASA turns out to be the best bang for your buck, by all means race with them. While I'm an SCCA guy myself, I think the SCCA guys who want the Club to be successful should pay attention to feedback, especially to that provided by those who try so conscientiously to be understood.