2017 Rules

[Percy W]

Hi folks.
I'm already looking forward to the 2017 season and especially the Endurance Championship.
With that in mind......if you have any ideas that you think might make the Endurance Championship even better, drop me a line.
I am open to ideas......please keep it within the current bike classes.
I do have a few ideas myself, but would like to hear from the membership, now that we have got the first CVEC under our belts.
See you at the AGM weekend, if you want to discuss it there too.
Cheers.
Perc.

[Justind97]

You could take a few ideas out of ChumpCar books.

Like a points system based on value. $500 threshold or something. Adding aftermarket carbs reduce laps, aftermarket whatever reduces laps. Trading out etc. It could Be quite complicated. Just a thought.

Not sure if you guys have a mandatory minimum pit stop length?
Many endurance race car series have this.
Adding fuel, minimum length, 3-5 mins.
Just a rider change, no minimum length.

[kirbster]

I would like to see the fuel can limit of 10 Liters increased to something a bit more able to limit fueling to a single stop.
15 or 20 liters perhaps.

I don't think we improve safety appreciably with this rule. We just increase the opportunity for something to go wrong by having to fuel multiple times. Rather than once.

Perhaps looking at the bikes and where they fall in the classes. Any thoughts on this?

[Percy W]

Perhaps looking at the bikes and where they fall in the classes. Any thoughts on this?

I had a good conversation with Gary Holden about this a couple of days ago, and think it certainly should be looked at.
He made good points that hopefully he will outline them here, but it would be a good idea to look at the class structures now that we have given our initial set up a full season.

I am a bit torn on the fuel can issue.
I like having a smaller amount in the hot pit lane, in case of spillage and make for less likelyhood of an 'overfill spill'.
I also like the fact that stops are having to be made even if it's only for a fuel stop. It adds an eliment of calculation needed by the team.
However, I do see that teams would find it easier to only have 2 fills per race, but I'm not sure 'easier' is necessarily best.
Unless there is a safety issue with the smaller can, I would be inclined to keep it that way.
For and against.......? Thought?

[kirbster]

Currently Heavyweight is only P4F1 and P3 Heavy correct?

I wonder if P4F2 should move into this class if P4F3 is staying in middleweight. Or move it down to lightweight, but it's an over achiever there.

Its tough in that we are trying to mix classes and periods, and generally speaking it's the rider that has the largest influence on lap times. Quite a matrix here.

CAn you list the classes and handicaps for us here so we can have a look? I must admit i am a little fuzzy on some of it.

Thanks Percy.

Fuel can is a mixed bag, smaller amounts more often vs a larger amount once. There are pros and cons on both sides. Most machines could likely get by with a single fuel stop after the one hour mark.
I know something like an FZR 400 or 600 can carry enough fuel to go nearly 90 minutes if the tank is full at the start. That's with 19 litres in the tank. But machines with smaller tanks or that use more fuel may not be able to go that long.
I sure would have liked to use my Fuel can rather than turning into a trophy! (Although its a cool trophy).

What about larger cans that are clearly marked to the 10 Liter capacity?
Quick fill type cans are more commonly available in 20L sizes.

[gary holden]

I'll try and do this without making it sound like too much of a rant.

Nowhere in VRRA is the class that a group of bikes is placed in decided by the "performance index" of the riders of those bikes.It is the "performance index" of the bikes that is the determining factor.
Yet in creating the class structure for endurance racing it was decided that P4F3 bikes are equal to P4F2 bikes,based on statistics (this is where I could put in the famous quote that there are "lies,damned lies,and statistics",but I won't) that were used to show that they are ridden just as fast.That an FZR400 is equal to an FZR600 that has a 50% displacement advantage? In sprint classes they are not considered equal.Why in endurance racing? To reduce the number of classes in endurance races was the reasoning,but I believe it needs to be re-thought.So endeth the rant.

So either return to the concept that endurance classes are the same as sprint classes or reconfigure the Light-Middle-Heavy classes.
I realize that the sprint class based structure can result in a lot of "1st of one" and "2nd of two" and "3rd of three" scenarios and makes trophy forecasting at each race a headache,but at least the results are an indication of how a competitor fared against bikes of the same class.
In the light-middle-heavy structure,the "performance index" of a P4F2 bike is closer to P4F1 (FZR600 is only at a 25% displacement disadvantage to an FZR750,for example) than a P4F3 is to P4F2. So either move the P4F3's to lightweight or the F2's to heavyweight and award handicap laps based on "performance index",which will surely involve some lively discussion.
Moving F2 bikes to heavyweight and awarding handicap laps to some of the lower "performance index" F2 bikes seems to be the better solution.

Fire away.

ps: As for the fuel can issue,I think allowing more than 1 can,but limiting the size of each can to 10 litres is the way to go.Verifying that there is only 10 litres in a 20 litre can adds a lot of work for the "pit police"
pss:It would be nice that if a team is to be penalized,the team captain is notified at the time of the infraction.

[Percy W]

No.....that was pretty much a rant.

But I hear you.
I will take a look at the official results and see where the differences are.
I can't see moving the F2 bikes to heavyweight. The Middleweight class is very healthy and I aim to keep it that way. However , a possibility for the F3 bikes to get bonus kilometres is possible.
Perc.

[kirbster]

What was the breakdown of what was entered? Machine wise?

I tend to agree with Gary a bit, the P4F3 is a bit of a red herring. Not sure which way to go, but i think F2 in heavy makes some sense - we are arguing performance index- my guess is that there is very little between the 3 P4 classes.

We have some options, all take some work.

1. Bikes are classified by their weight classes across all periods so P4F3 would end up in lightweight along with whatever other "lightweight classes" from each period. In this scenario the handicaps within the class will need to be recalculated. In order to try and level the field.

2. Bikes are classified by their period- A bit different but with added handicaps this could also work. Again all the handicaps within the mix would have to be recalculated. So awards would be for Periods one to four. With handicaps trying to level the field within each class.

3. We move P4F2 up to heavyweight. I think it's a closer match. And you only have to calculate the handicap for F2 compared to F1 and P3 heavy.

As soon as we introduce a handicap system, then theoretically, you can group any bikes together under one class. Heck in theory you could still do everyone head to head for overall. it just means less awards that way (the horror! smaller plaques for the trophy though!).

And this was a test if i recall, we knew there was potential for future "adjustments".

But we may want to base the handicap system off of endurance over the last two seasons vs sprints from 1 season. I don't know- it's some number crunching for sure, but i will happily volunteer for crunching if someone can supply the raw data.

[Percy W]

Revamping the entire Endurance series classes wasn't really my thought process here.
Safety and streamlining of the event was.
The Endurance races have been changed from season to season.
I think that there is something to be said for leaving things be and establishing the Championship for a while.
While I am willing to look at small changes I am not willing to ,once again, revamp the entire system.
Last year was arguably the most successful endurance season so far. I would like to run it in a very similar fashion.
4 classes, all periods have a home and if one is 'out of whack' we have handicap points to make things more equal that we can adjust.
No matter how we adjust the classes there will always, in my opinion, be something that doesn't seem to fit quite right.
So for the coming season, I would like to keep the classes the way they are and slightly adjust the handicap points.
Beyond this.......I am looking for safety issues, pit lane etiquette,etc.
Passing on infringement/penalties is not always possible at the track as the results are not fully tallied until after the weekend. However, once they are the penalties could be posted along with the results.

[kirbster]

Revamping the entire Endurance series classes wasn't really my thought process here.
Safety and streamlining of the event was.
The Endurance races have been changed from season to season.
I think that there is something to be said for leaving things be and establishing the Championship for a while.
While I am willing to look at small changes I am not willing to ,once again, revamp the entire system.
Last year was arguably the most successful endurance season so far. I would like to run it in a very similar fashion.
4 classes, all periods have a home and if one is 'out of whack' we have handicap points to make things more equal that we can adjust.
No matter how we adjust the classes there will always, in my opinion, be something that doesn't seem to fit quite right.
So for the coming season, I would like to keep the classes the way they are and slightly adjust the handicap points.
Beyond this.......I am looking for safety issues, pit lane etiquette,etc.
Passing on infringement/penalties is not always possible at the track as the results are not fully tallied until after the weekend. However, once they are the penalties could be posted along with the results.

I do agree with you Percy,super successful for sure, just throwing out some possibilities.
Looking at the overall results though, we are very light in the lightweight class....Middleweight has the majority, putting P4F3 into lightweight and adjusting their handicap may make the most sense.

FINAL STANDINGS.

Pre72

1. 606 Geesixers.............................366.2
2. 139 Andrew McCracken................235.36
3. 734 James Reidy.........................55.4

Lightweight

1. 19 Mountain High Racing...............451.9
2. 770 Ron Hanley.............................182
3. 577 Triple Trouble..........................144
4. 159 Bruce Uyeda...........................125


Middleweight

1. 580 Big for Japan...........................793.32
2. 868 Joe Bar....................................739.44
3. 825 Real McCoy Racing....................734.14
4. 373 Spank Racing...........................727.08
5. 401 Half Fast Racing.......................705.34
6. 469 Almost Ready Racers................552.89
7. 125 Junkyard Dog Racing................440.91
8. 711 Bad to the Bone.......................366.72
9. 1 Woodys Cycles Racing..............351.91
10. 446 Huw Gwilliam..........................254.11
11. 489 Webb Racing...........................249.2
12. 137 Lucas Gwilliam.........................234.15
13. 57 Craig Goodwin.........................205.76
14. 19 Karsten Ilg..............................201.81
15. 343 Jennifer Carriere.......................182.02
16. 61 BRS........................................152
17. 738 Team KZ..................................130
18. 217 Pierre Leclipteux.......................115
19. 913 Justin McLoughlin......................94.97
20. 990 Jason Hellam............................83.1


Heavyweight

1. 134 Pretty Boys.................................821.19
2. 550 Spare Change.............................655.79
3. 241 Team Euro Classic.......................412.48
4. 287 Katanik Racing Team...................217.64
5. 15 Steven Smart.............................201.81
6. 77 Strange Relics..............................138.5
7. 953 ............................130
8. 355 ............................35

[kirbster]

One other thing...Can we limit team names to under 47 syllables? LOL its a lot of information to fit onto a small tag!
And when i say 47 i mean 5....LOL.

[gary holden]

"I tend to agree with Gary a bit, the P4F3 is a bit of a red herring." - only because P4F3 was forced into a class where it doesn't belong.

"1. Bikes are classified by their weight classes across all periods so P4F3 would end up in lightweight along with whatever other "lightweight classes" from each period. In this scenario the handicaps within the class will need to be recalculated. In order to try and level the field."
-this year, the top 2 P4F3 bikes in middleweight and the top bike in lightweight,a P3 light,finished within 1 lap of each other in the two races in which they all competed.The only other two P3L bikes that each entered only one race finished within 2 or 3 laps of the top P4F3 bike.

"2. Bikes are classified by their period- A bit different but with added handicaps this could also work. Again all the handicaps within the mix would have to be recalculated. So awards would be for Periods one to four. With handicaps trying to level the field within each class."
- close to the previous method,except previous method gave awards within periods where numbers warranted.Less complicated ,but a hassle for awards.

"3. We move P4F2 up to heavyweight. I think it's a closer match. And you only have to calculate the handicap for F2 compared to F1 and P3 heavy"
-easiest fix,but reduces middleweight class.But middleweight is really a combination of F2 and F3 anyway,the two most popular classes.Might bring out more P4F3 bikes when they see they are not running against P4F2 bikes.

"What was the breakdown of what was entered? Machine wise?" - definitely need this info.

"But we may want to base the handicap system off of endurance over the last two seasons vs sprints from 1 season." - definitely.

Perhaps an enticement - your first ever endurance race is free.Drug pushers' trick.

[Percy W]

The F2's won't be getting moved to Heavyweight.
The F3's either get more laps added and compete with the F2's or the Lightweight bikes get laps added and the F3's run with them.
My preference is for them to stay in Mdwt with some added km's where necessary and leave the other 3 classes as they are.
Your argument of more F3's showing up if they aren't running with the F2's makes no sense if the handicap is better. Indeed, moving the F2's would just create the same argument for another group.
The top F3 competed very favourably with some very fast F2 teams. If you consider the penalty points incured it was even closer, so I don't see a need to have anyone change classes, just a small handicap adjustment.
Like Kirby illuded ....if the handicap allowance is adjusted it doesn't matter where you run.
Not prepared to change the format at this point. We can give it another year and adjust the handicap for the F3's. Hopefully get some growth in the other classes before we disrupt things again.
One year isn't enough time to start changing the format.

[Peter Balfour]

I think the current classifications work just fine, endurance racing is more about finishing races than outright performance. Gary finished 5th in middleweight with his 400 which is not too shabby. Even our tired FJ600 that had trouble passing a Norton on the back straight at Mosport finished 7th which is beyond our first season expectations. its more about bike prep than bike performance.

I have no issue with the 10L max. In the pits, not many would dump more fuel than that during a pit stop.

[Michael Vinten]

The rules Part 3 6E do not allow more than one 10l fuel can in the pits at a time, defined as the area between the pit counter (inner wall) and the track. I see no restriction against having a second fuel can behind the wall and exchanging cans during one stop.