I registered to this board just because I need to reply to these posts. Personally I find it appalling to have anyone need to put weight in their cars so we all can be equal. I, as a racer, want to improve myself, and I am trying to catch the better drivers in the front of the pack. I do not want the faster drivers to have a handicap just so I feel like I am racing with them. It is my goal to be as fast as the people running in front. That is what time and experience hopefully will give me. But until then, I suppose I should grow a pair and improve myself. Especially knowing that Dave and I have the same ammount of horsepower.

Michelle wrote:


Michele, suppose you were the fastest driver. That would not automatically make you a better "racer." My idea is to try to make everyone better racers by trying to find a way to equalize cars that are in different states of build. If you are a fast driver, adding weight will possibly slow you down just enough so that you would then have to "race" the car that can't quite keep up with you for whatever reason. This would make you and the other driver learn and apply race craft.

This isn't meant to be an insult to anyone. My goal is to have the RM 944 group have the best racers. The goal of our group, as Weston stated, is low cost, equal racing. However, I don't think we will ever have all our cars at the same level of build. Given this, the cars will never be truly equal.

My idea of adding weight as a reward for good performance is to try to overcome the slight inequalities that can arise due to the subtle differences in the build level of our cars. I don't want to beat someone because I have a more fully built car. I want to beat someone because I am a better racer. My goal with this was to make us all better racers by trying to find a way to make all our cars more equal, despite the level of build.

To add on to what I said earlier... I want to support Chuck's good intentions here, and he has certainly done a better job with our class than I could, so I've been trying to view this positively ever since I first heard about it a few months ago... While there are some good points to support this, I just have to be honest and say that I just don't see this plan working out in our group's best interests. There are some benefits, but I foresee it causing multiple problems that outweigh those, and the races would not be fair.

I'm really getting tired of having things to complain about, and this would most likely give me another one in 2010. I've spoken up about our bigger issues so that we can address them and improve things, and although I know a number of people agree with me, it's really getting old and just makes me look like someone who bitches and moans all the time. This is supposed to be our hobby... This is supposed to be fun. The more that we, or especially NASA, interferes with our racing/points/etc, the more drama it seems to cause for our group, regardless of what the intentions were.

I guess what I was trying to say is that I want to run in the front because I earned it, not because others were handicapped so I could be there. We all have raced with cars that aren't fully built, in fact My car still isn't fully built, but becoming a better driver happens when you can overcome what you have. I know that I wouldn't feel as good about racing someone if I knew that I beat them by default. I believe that we are already doing things to mix up the field (ie inverted races, starts etc) I think that we should just leave well enough alone. No matter how you present it, it's going to leave a bad taste in peoples' mouths. Just my opinion though:)

Weston wrote:


Weston,

None of this is set in stone. That's why we are discussing it on this forum. If a majority of us want it, we will try to implement it. If not, then we won't. I personally don't mind "someone who bitches and moans" as long at they have valid reasons.

I'd like to know what you think the multiple problems are that will be caused if we implement this. It could be that we can address them. I'd also like to know how you think this lowers the bar. I see this making better racers. As I'm sure we all know, the fastest driver doesn't always win the race. If we want our region to show up and dominate at Nationals, we not only need fast drivers, but great racers.

If we can teach our faster drivers, who rarely, if ever, have to worry about being passed because they are fast, how to keep an even faster car behind them by slowing them down a little, I see that as a benefit. There isn't a single driver amongst us that wouldn't benefit from having tighter races that make us practice and learn better race craft.

I agree with Michelle and Weston. We shouldn’t penalize those who are at the front – we should be trying to make the rest of us faster, rather than making the front-runners slower. If somebody’s car isn’t fully built yet, they’ll still have somebody to race with – it just won’t be at the front. Chuck and others have done a great job of building a class where we all have somebody to race with regardless of driver ability or car prep level, and thus I think that we already have plenty of opportunity to learn how to race, as opposed to just driving fast.

For my part, it’s my own damn fault that my car is still 90 lbs overweight, and I don’t want to find myself racing with someone I ordinarily wouldn’t be just because they’ve been successful and thus have had to weigh their car down. That doesn’t really give me as much to strive for, and wouldn’t be nearly as much fun for me. Building and prepping a car is part of racing, even in a spec class like ours.

I think that we’ve got a great class as-is, and in my opinion Nationals should be a fun end-of-season event, not the entire focus of everything that we do. At that point, I think this will stop being fun for a lot of us. In the end, I see Nationals as being just a slightly longer race against a bigger field than we typically see, and I don’t think it’s worth mortgaging the entire season with new rules to try to make everybody better racers just so that we can get at most three RM drivers on the podium at Nationals. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

That said, I do enjoy the conversation about these things, and I appreciate the attempts by anyone who offers a suggestion for input by the group on something that they think might improve the class.