well, let me put on my other hat, or at least my wetsuit. my wife and i
race catamaran sailboats. racing is broken down into a, b, c, and novice
fleets. you start in novice, and after 1 year, or winning a series
(usually some number of races), you graduate to c fleet. you then remain in
a fleet until you win a series, and then get bumped up one fleet. you
remain in your fleet, basically forever, until you get good enough to beat
the ones in your fleet. if you don't sail for a year, you go down 1 fleet,
but never get back into novice once you leave it. you are also given the
option of requesting bumping yourself up one or more fleet, but this is up
to the decision of the rest of the people in the fleet. this is really
necessary as an inexperienced boater could easily get hurt or die on some
ocean races. i'm not sure this would be applicable to autox.
seems to me this would solve a lot of problems i see in the present autox
scheme; allowing one to race against their peers rather than being thrown
from novice into a class where they may not do well for years, if ever.
this would also prevent someone from being totally disheartened and leaving
the sport.
regards,
charlie
phx, az
>Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 14:16:27 -0500
>Subject: Re: Significant Other Class
>From: greg@ThumbsUpRacing.com
>To: autox@autox.team.net
>
>As best as I can recall, the idea of competing against others of similar
>talent/experience/native ability/determination/car preparation/RESULTS was
>postulated by one Ben Thatcher (aka "The SCCA Anti-Christ", a title FAR from
>the truth) in a publication known as North American Pylon a couple of
>years ago. I must admit that Ben presented an eloquent case for classing
>drivers based on results. If I remember correctly, he proposed either three
>or five levels where drivers competed against each other based on the
>results of prior competition. I thought this was brilliant "out of the box"
>thinking. He even had a concept that took into account drivers that
>sandbagged in order to be classed at a lower level.
>
>I think that concept is exactly what Katie (who by the way is my favorite
>writer, Hemmingway be damned) is trying to accomplish. Her idea may have
>been somewhat "tounge in cheek" at first, but wouldn't it be great to see
>what some "out of the box" thinking could do for this sport?
--
Charles Spitzer
Stratus Computer, Inc
Speaking from Stratus, not for Stratus, Ascend, or Lucent
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