Myles Kitchen of the giant-killer Cortina wrote:
>I may be sticking my neck out here (like I haven't already!!), but I
>think that the production car groups that I generally run with are TOO
>SMALL. CSRG typcially fields 30-40/group, and has gone as high as 60.
>But, the more, the merrier I say. If we're doing this like we're
>supposed to, that just means more cars to race with and/or pass.
CSRG has had some problems with low attendance. Moving the cutoff date
for production cars up to 67 (still older than a lot of clubs) was
supposed to add more cars to the run groups. Adding Formula Vees and
Fords (up to 72) was about the only way to keep the open wheel group
alive in CSRG. In open wheelers, I have run with as many as 45 cars.
IMHO, that was about the max. More than about 50 could be a recipe for
a real mess with open wheel cars. That's where the real problem in
grouping cars comes in. Too few, and you don't have enough people to
dice with, AND you are basically short-changing everybody on track time.
Too many and you are inviting mass sheet metal parties.
We all know Myles' opinion of Steve Earle, but he does not seem to have
a problem with attendance in most groups. The last Wine Country event
did have very few mid-60's sport racers, so they were run with the
open-wheel cars. The pre-war groups at the Wine Country event also got
smaller a few years back, so they run in one group that goes all the way
to the early 50's. I'm not sure if lumping sports racers with Juniors
was by design or not. It was mostly ok, except for the one that decided
to contend with the Mallock U2 a little too hotly. I think both of them
were a little excessive.
The sports racers seem about as fast as the faster Juniors, so that made
little difference to me. I sent them around as easily as I sent the
faster Juniors around. I really do not like being on the track with big
bore sports racers. It was CSRG that once sent me out with Can-Am cars!
An underpowered 1.1 liter Formula Junior with primitive suspension on
the track with a ground shaking 8.1 liter Can-Am car? Madness! I
complained bitterly about it and they never did that again, but what
WERE they thinking? Real care needs to be taken in car grouping. a 50
MPH speed differential is no fun.
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