"Rocky Entriken" <rocky@tri.net> wrote:
Before we start - folks, I didn't design the timing system. I didn't spec
it out, authorize its purchase, or have anything more to do with it aside
from (like a large number of the rest of you) bug Howard that we needed
recation times.
All I did was find out the details, and pass them along. So can we please
stop the "Dennis, please change this!" messages, before I wind up the focus
of *another* set of letters to the editor? :)
> Uh, something else occurs. In Pro Solo class runs, the few times I've
done
> it (most recently ... wasn't too recent), it really did not matter who
was
> first to the finish in the class runs. What mattered was strictly ET. You
> could have two cars paired all six runs, one beating the other every
time,
> and those two still end up finishing 1-2 in the class because it was all
> based on time. As in, it was NEVER a real head-to-head match until the
> Challenge rounds. It was just two cars running for time that happened to
be
> out on course at the same time. Has that changed?
Bingo! Rocky gets a cookie - it hasn't changed. All that is different is
that reaction time is no longer "baked in" to ET. That is a loss, in that
someone with good lights would get a leg up on the competition, but as
losses go, it's a small one - especially when you consider how much better
the Challenge is going to get.
Oh, and yes, redlights DO count in class competition, and no, you will NOT
have an arbitrarily long time to launch - there will be a maxiumum RT as
well as a minimum (current talk is 2 seconds) so if you just sit there
instead of launching, you redlight as well. The impetus for cutting a .500
in class competition may be gone, but you'd better not be napping (or
playing games) either.
> Actually, if it hasn't, IMHO it should, and could. IMHO, class
competition
> ought to be moved closer to the dragrace motif -- qualify Saturday,
brackets
> set up based on ET, eliminations Sunday.
Bingo! Rocky gets another cookie. I've been championing this very idea for
a while now. Call the class competition what it REALLY is - "qualifying" -
and put more emphasis on the point of the whole endevour, the Challenge.
And accordingly, make the Challenge much bigger, on the order of 64 or 128
cars, so that more people qualify - and then maybe we won't have people
treating the centerpiece of ProSolo like it was some sort of afterthought
or add-on.
DG
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