Nevermind. Some time between yesterday early afternoon and late yesterday, the criteria was changed to "top 50%".
So, effectively no change.
Scott
Ladies and gentlemen,
I do not run SM, but SM has the same kind of participation numbers as SRF.
With the new rules (and I like the idea of tightening up the requirements, just not with zero lead time like this), most of us are screwed by the new qualifying criteria, especially if you are in the Northern conference in 2020,. Top 20 seems like a lot of people, but go look at the conference points for 2019. A lot of the top 20 are not in the Northern conference.
it will be worst this year since the RO's are at RA, and we will see a lot of additional out of conference people at both RA majors, and at the RA divisional.
I sent the following to the BOD. I suggest that everyone here send in something similar.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I applaud your efforts to make runoffs qualifying a little tougher.
However, I have a very large issue with the timing.
You have announced a major shakeup just a month before the season starts, and I do not think you fully realize the effect it will have.
This should be announced now, but effective for the 2021 season.
I will give you my specifics, although I am sure this will apply to others as well.
I was planning on running both American Sedan and GT2 at the 2020 runoffs. Since they are always in the same run group, I needed to plan out a season that let me get in 3 majors weekends for each car, with a bit of a cushion.
I am registered for the Winter nationals in AS, and was going to run one other Major in my home Northern Division to meet the criteria. I was going to run 3 Majors in GT2 in Northern, leaving me one, or possibly 2 events "open" for either car.
Under your new rules, in AS, I stand a good chance of not being in the top 10 in the Southeast, with only 2 race weekends. I'll risk this and work something out, maybe adding a 3rd SE race if possible, but a lot of people don't have the money and time to do this.
If I split and do 3 and 3 in Northern, I stand a good chance of not qualifying in either class.
Why? Because there is going to be inflated participation at both Road America Majors, just like happened at VIR, by out of Conference participants.
Also directly affecting me, and my team: SRF. My son and my team mate Michael are not going to qualify under the new rules, under any circumstances.
There are 90 people in the Northern conference results for SRF. it will be worst this year. Most of them only did one weekend, but most of them finished well enough to take points away from my team mates, and push them out of the top 20 in the Conference. Even though they are both good enough to run mid pack at a well attended event.
Multiply this by all of the SM and SRF drivers in the Norther conference, and you get a huge displacement.
Please, make the new criteria effective in 2021, so everyone can adapt. (yes, I know that for all the low participation classes this is a non issue)
Failing that, change the rules as follows:
1. 2 race weekends minimum in a conference in a single class to be counted in the top 10/20
2. All people who qualify for the runoffs in the same class in multiple conferences will only receive an invite from one, preferably their home conference. Everyone in the other conference will automatically bump up in the ranking.
3. Allow top 20/top 30 in the conference that the runoffs track is located in.
4. Allow the divisions in the "runoffs" conference to invite the top 10/20 divisional path qualifiers instead of the top 3/5.
2 , 3 and 4 will help compensate for the out of conference surge a runoffs track experiences. Especially when there are 2 majors held at the same track.
Best regards,
Scott Sanda