Season 15 Historic Trophy Registration

[Syd Drake]

Burt, you need to vote in the poll.

[Hristo Itchov]

Count me in.

[Syd Drake]

Hristo you didn't vote either.

[EvilClive]

Keep shouting Syd, Im sure someone will hear you eventually and do the right thing .   

[Hristo Itchov]

Hristo you didn't vote either.

Done.

[Burtoner]

Burt, you need to vote in the poll.

Done 

[Clive Loynes]

I'm in but not convinced that the car allocation thing is going to work.

By my reckoning the range of car performance will only compensate for driver variation down to about where I am in the rank ratings.  In other words, in 67 speak, I need a Lotus to cope with Hristo in a BRM or similar.

Having run several races in the BREASTS league I don't think that anyone really has a clue as to the relative performance of the various cars.  The problem being that the rank data is not yet adequately developed. 

As for guessing at the relative performance over a season, I give in!

[Syd Drake]

And you got a Lotus. But if I give a BRM to Hristo nobody is gonna be able to cope with him.   

[Clive Loynes]

LOL

Let's face it Syd, we have both drawn the stort straw for Watkins Glen.


Please don’t read this as a soapbox rant as I am quite happy to see the fast blokes winning the races and I am sure that we will all find someone to race against.

I see it as follows:-

You can equate the difference between, say, Hristo and any other rank on a seconds per second basis.  This comes from difference in rank divided by total lap times at all rank circuits.  That is to say that in a similar car, Hristo will pull away from me/another at say 0.05seconds per second.  So after 120 seconds around Mex I would expect him to be 3 seconds up the road.  Yep, sounds about right. ;-(

If you look at the spread of fastest 66 mod laps on Mexico it is 1.2 seconds.  This would suggest that, even if I had a BT19, I would be unlikely to ever see Hristo/Lorenzo etc as they will be pulling away ay about 1.8 seconds per lap but I don’t think that this is true.

If we assume that the 66mod rank will develop with time to give at least the same spread as 67 then we can expect something in the region of 2.4 plus.  Furthermore, given that 66mod ranges from 3ltr to 2ltr it is reasonable to expect that the eventual spread could be approaching 3 seconds.

This suggests to me that if you want to engineer the closest racing then the BT19 end of the handicap system should be at about my level. 

Otherwise the aliens will still be winning by a comfortable margin as nobody will have been allocated a fast enough car to catch them.

The other aspect of the problem is that we may be able to identify the fastest and slowest cars but as to the order that the rest might appear in is anyone’s guess.

Good luck with the format.

[Syd Drake]

Well, at least Monza, Spa and Reims should work in our favor as there's a big difference in top speed among cars. And would it be interesting to Hristo, or Lorenzo if we handicapped them in such way that they're always at the back, even though they're the fastest drivers? With the change into pro format from s16 that's an additional thing in our favor. Just ask Hristo who retired from multiple races last season.

[MikeBeattie]

I'm afraid I'm going to miss the opening round as I'll be out of the country. Pity, as Monaco was one of the places where I was hoping to make my nimble 2 litre get a good finish   So it looks like my first appearance will be on the long long straights of Spa and Reims ( somewhere towars the tail of the field )

[Syd Drake]

Shame. I think valuable points for Drake racing were just lost. 

[Ken Murray]

Just some more comments regarding the plans to use a handicap system for this Championship.

I was reading an interview today with Fonsi Nieto, a World Superbike rider. He was commenting on how difficult it is to race his 4 cyl Suzuki against the Ducati twins. He was saying even though the lap times are similar the characteristics of each machine mean a different riding technique is required and it becomes difficult if you are riding close together. He said he was fine with other 4 cyl bikes. That in turn reminded me of the 500cc V-twin Grand Prix bikes that were run for a couple of years against the 4 cyl monsters. Jeremy McWilliams actually put a twin on pole at Philip Island but in the race he was swallowed up by the pack before he even made Turn 1 and then just couldn't make progress because the 4's were slowing him in the corners and just leaving him on the straights.

Point I'm coming to is that in the UKGPL test races and in some BREASTS handicap races I've competed in recently I get a similar feeling. I can lap fairly quickly in the 246 Fez but not if a lumbering Lotus BRM is holding me up in the corners. No disrespect to any of the other drivers, I'm sure I'd be slow in the corners in the same car. I just think we need to be careful how we run this.

[Syd Drake]

On the other hand, knowing all this then you need to adjust your driving, and you'll be fine. I race in GTL, and we have this situation every race. There's the odd incident here and there due to differing cornering speeds, but mostly it's fine. Looking at the attendance numbers, it certainly doesn't effect them, and it adds another element to racing. Otherwise, we might as well run spec races.

[Ken Murray]

On the other hand, knowing all this then you need to adjust your driving, and you'll be fine. I race in GTL, and we have this situation every race. There's the odd incident here and there due to differing cornering speeds, but mostly it's fine. Looking at the attendance numbers, it certainly doesn't effect them, and it adds another element to racing. Otherwise, we might as well run spec races.

Well I'm not saying we shouldn't have some form of handicapping, just we need to consider the options. What about allowing the use of a faster car than your ability merits, but take a pitstop to compensate, like we do in the Masters and Clubmans? Trouble with that is the lack of available data to set the pitstop times?