First of all, I would like to point out that the event with only 6
Street Tire competitors was Round 7, the 2-day National Tour in
Atwater. If I recall correctly, Street Tire was not offered as an
official class for the tour. Those wanting to run for points in
Street Tire had to run with their corresponding open classes in
different run groups. I think that probably discouraged people from
competing in the class (especially those who knew that they would be
running on a cold dirty course in the morning while their competitors
got better conditions later in the day).
The low turnout for Street Tire certainly couldn't have caused any
shortage of workers in a particular run group for that event. Round 7
does not provide valid support for the claim that Street Tire's
attendance volatility screws up the run group sizes.
So that leaves Round 6, with 3 entrants in Street Tire. At that
event, the Street Tire/GS/HS run group fielded 15 competitors. But
at the same event the ASP/CSP/FSP run group only had 11! Could it be
that the low turnout was not due to the fickle nature of street tire
competitors, but because the event was held at a remote site on Easter
Sunday? That could explain why it was the first two run groups in
particular that were thinly attended.
In any case, Tim and Cathy Dolan were on top of things and combined the
two small run groups. I don't recall any disastrous consequences.
Jerry rearranged the run groups for Round 8, and things seemed to run
pretty smoothly after that.
On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 01:14:00PM -0800, Jerry Mouton wrote:
> Neither you, John S. or Peter qualified for a Street Tire trophy in 2004,
> so you guys are "convenience" STi entrants.
Jerry, I competed in the class at every slush event last year,
including the one at Marina. So did Pete Mottaz. What's the point in
labelling us, anyway?
> And now, people seriously interested in competing on street tires
> can get real competition from their open class pals in the same run
> group, not to mention the rookies.
The large but unknown difference due to tires prevents that
competition from being meaningful, unless you're so good that you can
beat the folks on R tires while driving street tires (in which case --
run in the open class, which you can already do!), or you're so bad
that it's interesting to compete against novices. I suppose it does
have the advantage of giving the novices a target to work toward.
--
john@idsfa.net John Stimson
http://www.idsfa.net/~john/ HMC Physics '94
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