Every track that has any hope of surviving long-term needs a group of Novice racers that can learn the ropes of racing without the pressure of competing with those who take racing more seriously. Ideally, that Novice class will have a more lenient set of rules governing what equipment is allowed, so that no one is excluded or forced to sign up for a class in which they don’t yet belong. The race director should take an active role in explaining to Novice class drivers that once their skills progress and they become regular winners, they will only continue their upward learning curve by moving up to race with faster drivers.
Beyond the Novice class, separating drivers by arbitrary designations of skill is stupid.
I’ve long held the stance that "Sportsman" classes are pointless, and that sub-divided classes defined by skill level make no sense - especially at the local level. It’s even worse that these skill designations are not based on any factual evidence or empirical data - tracks and race promoters simply leave it up to the customer to choose which class to enter.
Make no mistake - this argument includes the creation of obscure divisions just because three or four people ask for it for a week or two. The anti-Sportsman argument applies to adding every possible combination of vehicle type and motor, which achieves the same result. Yeah, “Guy-That-Signed-Up-For-the-13.5-Super-Stock-Stadium-Truck-class” - I’m looking at you.
It started because race promoters hoped it would increase turnouts, but it’s an answer to a question that no one is really asking, and it doesn’t solve anything. Without fail, the slowest drivers in the higher Expert/Pro/Open/whatever class turn slower times than the fastest drivers in the lower Sportsman/Amateur/Open/whatever class. As long as the drivers are left to make the choice themselves, you’re going to get those that are too proud to step down to the class in which they truly belong, and you’re going to get the sandbaggers who’d rather cherry-pick win after win rather than step up and race with drivers of their own skill level.
You’re simply dividing one group of racers into two smaller ones, giving one other person a chance to win that night. And even if you did come up with a way to accurately separate racers into divisions defined by skill level, what do you do from there? Let the same driver dominate Sportsman for four months until the rest of the drivers in that class get sick of losing to a sandbagger? You can’t really put a graduation limit in place, where a driver has to move up after a certain number of wins, because unless you’ve got a constant supply of fresh “Sportsman” class drivers they’ll all eventually get bumped up anyway.
Really, what’s the point in the title of "fastest guy who didn’t race with the fast guys?" When you’ve got a group of people racing the same type of vehicle on the same track, with the same power system, there’s already a system in place at every race around the world that separates these drivers into groups based on their skills.
It’s called qualifying.
The worst effect that the Sportsman revolution has had on RC racing is the severe discrimination among letters of the English alphabet. There’s nothing wrong with the system ingrained within RC racing over decades to separate a large group of racers into smaller bunches to compete in main events. Is making the Sportsman ‘A’ really better than qualifying in the ‘B’ of a combined class?
I get the allure of Sportsman classes. Sure, you’ll always have those few seasoned vets that keep coming back to the track because they enjoy tuning their cars and pushing their own limits to see how fast they can go. However, a sizable chunk of the population that have chosen to dedicate themselves to race toy cars competitively at any level are looking for some sort of recognition. Without some sort of reward system in place, be it 50% off of the tires they would’ve purchased anyway or a few dozen likes on their Facebook #racereport #thankstomysponsors #trophyselfie, many of these racers that are looking for validation of what they’re doing (whether they realize it or not) will lose interest and quit.
Catering to that vocal minority can have more dangerous consequences than a track might think.
When you fracture a class so that one more driver can find weekly glory, you run the risk of alienating everyone else. First of all, if you’re creating two classes with 4-5 drivers each, you run the risk of not having enough turn marshals for the following heats. With no graduation system in place, why would the third place driver keep showing up every week only to get beat by a career Sportsman champ? And where’s the fun in racing for a top five spot in Expert when there are only seven drivers? The fewer the competitors, the greater the chance that the racing action becomes stale and boring for everyone - not just the guy who might quit if he can’t win.
There are several aspects of the way races are organized that desperately need an update - the amount of time spent practicing or qualifying versus actually racing for position, or the wildly increasing costs of competing in “budget” classes, for example. Providing an incentive for all racers beyond just whomever wins week in and week out, however, is an easy one.
RC racers are often looking for full-size racing parallels, but you need look no further than sprint cars and other forms of dirt track racing to see how well the alphabet system can work. Even though the qualifying system is different, where single-lap qualifying (or a random draw) sorts the drivers into heats, and then qualifiers for the ‘A’ are determined by finishing position (sometimes with the addition of passing points). If you qualified in a lower feature, you can still race your way into the ‘A’ by winning. There’s no “Sportsman 410 sprint” class or “Intermediate Street Stock.” At major events with several lower features, a driver who had bad luck in his heat can “run the alphabet” and climb several rungs. There’s no gamesmanship or strategy in signing up for the right division - everyone gets a chance to beat the drivers in their closest skill group, and there’s automatic, instant gratification built right into the program.
Isn’t that the point?
10/29/2014
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