penalties and handicaps - Laps or Kms?

[kirbster]

Please let me know your thoughts on this.

I am fine leaving as is, but there is some validity to the argument that laps means different things at different tracks, not just the actual length of the track, but how fast you cover it.

Mosport is our fastest track, Shannonville our slowest with Calabogie in between.

The long track will be used this year.
Below is the track length and maximum theoretical distance based on the winning team from 2017 lap times but eliminating pit stops just to keep it simple. so 2 hours of track time at the fastest average lap time of the 2017 races.

Shannonville is 4.03km Theoretical max Km =234
Calabogie is 5.05km Theoretical max Km =263
Mosport is 3.957km Theoretical max Km =297



A five lap handicap - just as an example equals 20.15km at Shannonville, 19.785 at Mosport and 25.25 at Calabogie.
These are not vastly different this year as we are using long track. But that 5km gain at Calabogie could really make a difference to your season (or you entire classes season).

P1-200 potentially gets 30 laps this year. That's more than half the race at 2 of the 3 tracks. Someone should really take advantage of this! Hard to imagine overcoming that kind of handicap even on the fastest bikes in the class.


A one lap penalty just equals a single lap. But a penalty costs the most at the medium speed track. And cost the least at the highest speed track. So there could be a slight imbalance. This goes for handicaps as well.



the question then is - we only record full laps for the race, so is it just easier to continue with laps for penalties and handicaps or should it have a relationship to each tracks length and speed?


please feel free to jump in and tell me i am crazy or onto something.

It's lonely in here.

[Colin Duncan]

Hi Kirby,

I would like to see the use of Kms vs. laps.
Unless I can find a P1-200!!!!!

Thanks,
Colin

[Ashton Bond]

Penalties and handicaps need to be accrued based on laps because we score in full incrimental laps. That doesn't mean the actual calculated series shouldn't be tracked in kilometers. I beleive it should be. We know track length and number of laps. Kirby has basic math skills, I've seen them in use!

[Robert Marshall]

Since there is no sponsorship money at stake, and this is all for fun, keep it simple and stick to laps for the penalties.

[kirbster]

The only issue i have with laps is that its a fixed value. If the race is shortened due to red flags or weather, then it becomes a much larger factor.

[fmcd]

Handicap for endurance riders aged over 68 + 2 laps, team of 2 riders over say, 68 add 5 laps to total at finish. Great idea, thank you thank you.

[Darrell1]

I believe using mileage (in kilometers) is both straight forward and equitable. Finishing position bonus points are credited as ks and added to mileage accumulated per round. Handicaps are a percentage of top finishers mileage in your division. If your handicap is 5% and the winner accumulates 250k, 12.5k are added to the handicaps accumulated mileage. This means track, length, speed, red flags or rain are all treated the same. Penalties could be fixed as well. By way of example 10, 20 or 30k pending the severity of the penalty.

Eventually there will be a wet race with multiple reds, where a fixed number of laps becomes a significant portion of the winners accumulated mileage meaning the handicap will distort the intent and results.

[kirbster]

I believe using mileage (in kilometers) is both straight forward and equitable. Finishing position bonus points are credited as ks and added to mileage accumulated per round. Handicaps are a percentage of top finishers mileage in your division. If your handicap is 5% and the winner accumulates 250k, 12.5k are added to the handicaps accumulated mileage. This means track, length, speed, red flags or rain are all treated the same. Penalties could be fixed as well. By way of example 10, 20 or 30k pending the severity of the penalty.

Eventually there will be a wet race with multiple reds, where a fixed number of laps becomes a significant portion of the winners accumulated mileage meaning the handicap will distort the intent and results.

I was thinking along these lines myself and it makes sense, how you calculate the percentage could be based on the last several years of results either by # of laps completed in each class used as a divider:

P4F2 did 50 laps average
P3M did 45 laps average

So 50/45 = 1.11 or about 11 percent. So we would add 11% to the P3M mileage.

The other option would be lap times based on previous results. Same calculation. done in seconds.

P4F2 did 2:18 (138 seconds) at Bogie
P3M did 2:28 (148 seconds) At Bogie
148/138= 1.0725 or about 7.25% so we would add 7.25% to the P3M mileage.

These numbers are just as an example and were pulled from the clear blue sky. I can dig in if this seems like a good way to proceed. and it is easy to build into the scoring spreadsheet once we figure it out.

thoughts?

[kirbster]

I think based on feedback, i will just leave the current penalty/handicap system alone for another season. now all we need is another team to register with a P1-200 so we can see if they win it all.