Attention all az, ca, nv, ut, nm, tx stk/ss racers:

[Jeff Stout]

Originally Posted by MR DERBY CITY

See Mark Yacavone

x2^^^^
Mark tried for years. It was a great event with nostalgia drags and I think 18 cars at most per event. If car gets done by winter time I would have no problem attending race. Tucson track has always treated me great. WHP on the other hand.

[BUDDY JENSEN]

Count me in

[novassdude]

I would suggest talking with groups like the Midwest Class Racers that have very successful programs going and see how they are doing things.

I would strongly suggest switching to qualifying off the indexes. And heads up races. Those are two of the biggest reasons people run these classes (in my opinion) Otherwise it is strictly a bracket race With really expensive cars.

[T. Boucher]

Great to see other Stock/SS associations being potentially formed. Living in New England I'd never be able to support but wanted to provide the viewpoint on positives of qualifying off reaction time:

1) Associations are typically supported by the same group of racers at every event and those said racers typically have the same relative performance to each other over the course of the year. This means, that racers will qualify at relatively the same spot at every race and often be very close to having the same first round match up at every race. Can get old after a full year. Reaction times are much more random and keeps first round pairings "fresh".

2) Eliminates the ability for racers to play the "ladder game". Reaction times are unpredictable so shooting for a certain spot on the ladder is tough. This has more of an impact if heads up runs are allowed.

Ultimately the association needs to do what's best for its interested members but would suggest not ruling out the idea of qualifying off of reaction times for the long term benefit of the association. I would suggest that heads up are important to keep the spirit of stock/super stock (otherwise the argument of it being a normal bracket race is more valid).

Just some experiences from the east coast and take it as you like.

[HawkBrosMav]

Thanks for the quick responses!

I want to clarify our thinking on a couple of the points that have been brought up. Lets have an open discussion and see if we can come to a compromise/agreement on how to do this.

First the 4 reasons we went with Qualifying on RT:

1. This series at least at first is going to be fairly small.. We are being realistic in hoping at race #1 we have a solid 20 cars.. if there is more we will be ecstatic. Our fear of qualifying against the index is that the ladder will look the same each and every race. That really isn't any fun.

2. We also don't want this series to be a rich man's game. We realize this class is expensive and it takes money and hard work to go fast, but like we stated in the original post. We want this to draw some new interest to S/SS. If we do the qualifying points the way were purposed. The number one guy is earning an 2 entire rounds worth of points over the last place guy just because he can afford to go faster. While we realize this is a performance class, we are just trying to balance the small scale and funding of the racer we are trying to attract. A lot of the reason for creating is to draw some of the racers that can't afford to run the Lucas series and get them cars out of the garage..We don't see a lot of money being spent to speed cars up at this point.

3. Next, we did look at a lot of the series that have rules posted across the country and most of them do use RT for qualifying. We thought, if a lot of them did it this way, it was fairly accepted.

4. We are only 2 people and we planned on racing at these events as well. This leaves us enough time to complete only certain things on race day, when it comes to extra work involved. We also don't own all the necessary tools to correctly do any kind of tear down. This means that if someone wanted to stretch the rules, we really don't have a realistic way of policing it. Will people do things like this?? who knows.. We are all aware of the stuff that is already done at the NHRA/IHRA racing because they are in a similar situation with no man power. They at least have HP consequences to help deter people for making outlandish passes with illegal combos.

We are for sure up for discussing potential changes to what we have laid out.

First of all, after these first responses, I think we want to include Heads up eliminations when same class cars run each other. We were already 50/50 on this and can see that this needs to be done.

What I would like to propose are 3 solutions to the qualifying aspect:

Option 1:

We leave the laddering of 1st round based on RT, but we could award qualifying points based on a different list of us qualifying against the index...points would only go to the top half of the field in similar fashion as we would have before. (ex: 16 cars. 1 would receive 8 pts down to number 8 receiving 1 pt. the bottom half of the field would receive no qualifying points, but this would accomplish part of the goal, of eliminating ties.) I would then also like to include a bonus point system for Win, Runner-up, and Semis. This being the Winner would receive 3 points. Runner-up 2 points. Each semi finalist would receive 1 pt. The rest of ties would be broken by the listed criteria in the original post..


Option 2:

We would always qualify against the index. Top half of field would get inverse points as before, and Win, R-up, and Semi would get same bonuses (per option 1), but in this option we would draw at race #1 whether we would be doing a PRO or SPORTSMAN ladder and rotate, or redraw at every race after that, so we might mix up the pairs a little bit. This would allow us to stay truer to the S/SS identity but also not become so predictable with the pairing every race.


Option 3:

We leave everything the way it is for qualifying and Matt and I will create a ladder based on what it would have been if we qualified against the index. We look at the 6 ladders from the year and see how similar they actually are. If they are very similar across the 6 races we stay with RT if they seem to have been justifiably different we switch to qualifying against the index for the future.

Let us know your favorite or let us know any other ideas..

Thanks

Brad Hawk

[KayMozeris]

I agree with qualifying off of RTs in order to avoid ladder monotony. However, I prefer the idea of heads up runs in eliminations to play into the Stock/Super Stock feel. Otherwise, we are essentially running Pro..

[Dave Muller]

Count me in too, once my car is built.

[7423]

Qualify off RT from the last time trial. Makes it a drivers game instead of a wallet and ego game. No heads up, everyone dials, a drivers game. If it wasn't 400 miles away, I would be there. Good luck with it, sounds like a great idea, a class legal no E bracket race.

[Albert Lee]

* I'm in.

* Don't get bogged down with the details. It will always be about the FUN and Prize Money.

* If possible do two races for one tow (Saturday/Sunday).

* Avoid the hot summer (Note my personal prejudice).

* Contact John McLeod at Midwest Class Racers for the formula. Arguably the best series in the country. In a nutshell, 2 days @ $100 entry per, $2k/$1k/500 etc with 75 for rd2 loss, 60 car average in the middle of nowhere, BBQ, camaraderie AND 150+ sponsors @$250 which includes a lot of member support plus businesses which subsidize the purse. Of course that kind of program doesn't happen overnight.

Al Corda

[Bernie Cunningham]

Mr. A Lee, you should help these guys with all of your experience. I understand you're card is clear lately, like, nothing better to do ??
Seriously, Uncle Al would be a great asset for your plan. Go for it!