To avoid any confusion for next year, I figure we can start talking about how to handle our points next year.

Here is my proposal.


How to score each race:

100, 90, 85
10 Point spread to 2nd Place
5 Point spread from 2nd to 3rd and down to 10th place
3 Point spread from 10th to 11th and down 15th place
2 Point spread from 15th to 16th and down to 20th place
25 Points minimum for all finishers 21st place and higher.
All non-finishers get half of the points scored by the lowest finisher with a minimum score of 20 points.

To determine season points, I propose we drop the lowest 25% of scores rounding up. Without knowing how many races there will be next year, I figure this is a good formula. So, if there are 9 - 12 races, we would have three drops. If we have 13 - 16 races, we would have four drops.

I also propose that for Nationals, we score only in region drivers or any driver that drives regularly in the region. I add this proviso as there may be drivers that technically live in a different region, but find us closer to race with. For example, I'm not sure if Kansas is technically Rocky Mountain or Mid-West, but drivers in western Kansas may choose to race with Rocky Mountain because it is closer even though it may be Mid-West.

I'm open to having the Nationals main race count for more points, but how do we score it. If it is scored as double points, Is it scored as two races or as one. If we score it as two races, do we allow both races to be drops or just one? Lets get everything clear now so that we don't have any problems next year and new racers will know what we are doing.

I like that approach, especially with the drops being a percentage of events rather than a fixed number. I would suggest a higher percentage of drops though... That would only have given us 4 this year, and 3 for 2008 and 2007. I felt that 4 drops worked well for 2007 & 2008, but was not sufficient for 2009 (especially with Nationals alone counting as 4). I don't want someone to blow all of their drops just because they have to miss Nationals. I would suggest 35% of events, rounded to the nearest whole number... that gives us 4 drops for 2007 & 2008, and 6 for 2009.

Weston,

I'm good with 35% of races rounded to the nearest whole number being dropped. If we had that this year, there would be some very close races going into HPR for season points.

Here's how the top ten would look with 6 drops this season:
D Dirks - 750
C Taylor - 720
D Wright - 600
A Burt - 575
E Bell - 574
S Thul - 560
W Pawlowski - 524
S Stansfield - 484
S Ballard - 420
M Dirks - 408

Here's how that would work out

Races Drops
6 - 7 2
8 - 9 3
10 - 12 4
13 - 15 5
16 - 18 6
19 - 21 7

We still need some input on how to handle Nationals. I don't want to penalize any driver that can't afford to go to Nationals and so I would prefer to have every race scored normally, no double points and no race scored as two races. I also would like to see all out of region drivers removed so that it is a reflection of drivers within our region.

In Arizona we have always scored "crossovers" the following way.

1) All racers count for points. Some guy like to crossover and is Jim Foxx a So-cal guy or Az guy? He is coming out to Az this weekend.

2) Drops are sufficent to ensure that no local racer need to tow out of region to score max points at home. Az is unique in the most races are "local". I live 50 miles from both our main tracks so go home each night. As such any out of town tow is rather long and some guys are not set-up for that. So I don't want to penalize guys who don't/can't tow 6hrs+


So Nationals was score as a single race with just the championship counting. Why? I figure nationals is big enough that points were not going lure guys. Also the 3 race format make it worth 3 drops if you don't go. Harder than missing a normal 2 race weekend. Plus given the number of starters some guys will no score well since a 10th at home could be a 25th at National. Why penalize a guy 3 times for that. Also both qualfying races are just that. Qualfying. I learned quick that you need to do well in those, but most importantly not mess-up. So they really are not like a regular race.

Also for drops in Az I have always figured.. All crossovers our out of town stuff will add a drop. So two crossovers = 4 drops. Plus at a minimum 1 local weekend. Maybe you have family in town that weekend or kid's birthday or special event. Hey this is all for fun to regular life needs to come first.

So in Az we had 5 drops this year. We had one crossover, Nationals and I gave every one a weekend. So that is 5.

Oh..double points. Personally I hate them as they are twice as hard to make for. We have not used them in nearly 4 years.

AvantAddict wrote:


Yeah, that makes more sense to me, and I like that approach going forward. I had bad luck and got screwed in points all season long, so realistically there's no good reason that I'm currently in 5th and within striking distance of 4th. All of my success this season was just in qualifying and heat races... my points races all got screwed up in one way or another by something downright stupid, so I should really be further down in the season points. I think my best points finishes were only 5th's. I'm only as high as I am because I went to every event except Hallett, so I didn't run out of drops.

I like the point distribution, and I really like the idea of drops as a percentage of total races.

I think that somewhere between 25% and 35% is a good number for drops, but really whatever it's going to take so that people who can't/don't want to drive to distant co-region events don't feel like those who do go to those events are buying points is fine with me (i.e. you don't have to burn half of your drops just to make up for the fact that you didn't tow to Hallett, but those who did tow to Hallett, partially to make up for an earlier race that they had to miss, aren't left out, either). Either that, or we go with a lower percentage of drops, and take Joe's idea of adding a drop for events at tracks that aren't typically in our region. I think that either plan would work for us.

As for Nationals, I'm really not sure if that should count for regional points at all - it's such an enormous time and cost commitment (I think that you could run an entire season in-region for the cost and vacation time that it takes just to go to that single event) that it can really screw somebody up if they can't make it. At most, I think we should just count the main race for single points, but include everyone in the points (not just the RM cars.) If we're going to count it as a race for points, then I think we should reward points to all positions - it's not really representative of what happened on-track if somebody can finish 5 positions behind the next regional car, but still get points as though they finished right behind.

But honestly, I'm just glad that we're all learning from this and trying to improve the system moving forward.