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Post by sonic33 on Jan 18, 2021 20:43:37 GMT 12
Certainly not wanting to suggest that HB didn't do a good job, as from what I can gather they did good. Not a Rotorua effort, but not bad.
For this meeting to be run in two days and finish at a respectable hour it needs to be run on a long weekend. Car numbers are such now that it could be a three day meet or have pre quals.
Most places have a long weekend as an anniversary weekend or can run it over the Xmas/New Year period. Thinking more populated ares here.
Other than the Xmas/New year spot then the regional holiday could work. (perhaps not in the far extremities) but I see it can work.
To complete as a two day meet at a respectable time it needs to run Sat and Sun. Local fans (could be 50% of crowd, from my arse ) can attend without time off, Start time needs to be 4 or 5pm. If there has to be a half hour sun strike time then so be it and then find interviews/music to keep fans engaged.
Fans/teams/drivers that are not at the host track are going to take at least a day off whenever it is run.
Thoughts or smashings?
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Post by hbhornets on Jan 18, 2021 21:32:09 GMT 12
Certainly not wanting to suggest that HB didn't do a good job, as from what I can gather they did good. Not a Rotorua effort, but not bad. For this meeting to be run in two days and finish at a respectable hour it needs to be run on a long weekend. Car numbers are such now that it could be a three day meet or have pre quals. Most places have a long weekend as an anniversary weekend or can run it over the Xmas/New Year period. Thinking more populated ares here. Other than the Xmas/New year spot then the regional holiday could work. (perhaps not in the far extremities) but I see it can work. To complete as a two day meet at a respectable time it needs to run Sat and Sun. Local fans (could be 50% of crowd, from my arse ) can attend without time off, Start time needs to be 4 or 5pm. If there has to be a half hour sun strike time then so be it and then find interviews/music to keep fans engaged. Fans/teams/drivers that are not at the host track are going to take at least a day off whenever it is run. Thoughts or smashings? Hawkes bay anniversary is opening weekend lol. Canterbury is a few weeks later. Saturday, sunday is brilliant unless you work sunday to thursday. Then its abit well yea. Also baypark and im guessing palmy have hard curfews. There is not one answer that every track can do. Its goingbto be a line that best fits. Crazy left feild idea. Why not split the contact classes into three? |
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Post by midway on Jan 18, 2021 22:27:03 GMT 12
It is a sport every one enjoys from the competitor to the paying public volunteers the list goes on
Many people these days find two day events a strain on financial resources and with having Covid -19 hit us just makes it harder .
There are some good ideas that float ,but we need to think much harder and look at who can attend if it happens to be three days .
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Post by BarryB on Jan 18, 2021 22:46:36 GMT 12
There's a number of things that can be considered without major changes being required in the rule book, for example only two qualifying heats for each group instead of three, with maybe a more concise repechage system. That would have meant 16 races over the 8 groups at Meeanee, with (arguably) a case for two Repechages on Night 1 and two more on Night 2. Some will argue a flat tyre will take a driver out of contention with only two races, but with only 3 cars going through from a 27 car group, the same thing is true over three heats. The biggest problem with 220+ cars is pit space however. Not all tracks could cope with that number at all, and as this is the only class that attracts such numbers and the Stockcar championship is on a 15 year cycle, it's hardly practical to expect tracks to have to be this big.
Split the stockcar classes into three? No way, for mine. That only dilutes the competition.
Hold the title over three days? Would need a rule change, but it merely adds to everyone's costs (including the track if things, like the weather, go wrong).
Pre-qualifying? I'm not totally against the idea of three tracks being involved each season, in theory, as with a 15 year cycle (that could grow further) it'd give tracks a chance to have some involvement every 5 years. But it may need to be four tracks, 2 in the NI and 1 in the SI for qualifying, then the title being held at the track on the current rotation basis. How you work a fair % balance to proceed from each qualifying round would need some work however, due to both quality and quantity at each round. It's a tough one that'd be impossible to gain buy in from all parties.
But will we see such numbers again? The previous record of Stratford (173 from memory) stood for years. The Speedway economy seems to follow the country's economy by a year or two, so over the next couple of years we could see numbers back down around the 150-170 mark. I guess the current large numbers are a good problem to have.....
Barry B
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Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2021 23:25:12 GMT 12
Ok stick with me here for Ramjams How It Should Be NZ Champs. It might sound complicated but it's not. It kind of take the boring bits out of the outlaw format and adds it to our 3 heat format.
OK night 1 has 8 groups of 28 cars...
Qually 1
Heat 1 top 7 cars go straight thru to qually 2. 56 cars so far.
Heat 2 reverse grids close the gaps that are left open by the 7 cars missing, and any other DNS cars. Top 7 straight to qually 2. Now 112 qualifiers to qually 2 after 16 races
Qually 2
112 cars into 4 grps of 28 cars each see bottom of this post for how the groups and grid will be quickly dscided. Heat 1 with top 5 thru to finals
Night 1 over after 20 races
Night 2
Qually 2 continues heat two for the same 4 groups less the 20 cars already qualified using reverse grid of heat 1. Top 5 to finals.
40 qualifiers into the finals made up of 4 groups of 10
Finals race 1, group 1, grp 2 & group 3
Finals race 2- grp 2 grp 3 & grp 4
Finals race 3 grp 3, grp 4 & grp 1
Finals race 4 grp 1, grp 2 & grp 4
1NZ will either be top points scorer overall (after the inevitable run offs that will be needed)
OR
The top points scorers from each group go into a 4 (or more of there is a tie for first in any group) way 6 lap race off (highest points scored gets grid 1, points ties and the grid spot will be determined by coin toss) to determine 1NZ, 2NZ, 3NZ, 4NZ (5,6,7 etc)
The maximum number of races a car who makes it thru each stage will do is 4 races per night (5 if ya do the top 4 race off idea). Given the number of place getters who have come thru repechages I don't think it's particularly onerous.
Night two has 4 finals races + the last 4 races of qually 2. Tier 2 can be made up of those who didn't make it out of qually 2 (3x grps of 24 cars qualify for a 1 race tier 2 final)
Tier 3 & 4 can be made up of those who didn't get out of qually 1
The groups and grid draws for qually 2 are a predetermined format which just needs to be populated with numbers and names as the night goes by IE: qually 2 group 1 grid 6 is the guy who comes 3rd in qally 1 group 3 heat 2.
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Post by sonic33 on Jan 19, 2021 9:34:23 GMT 12
Certainly not wanting to suggest that HB didn't do a good job, as from what I can gather they did good. Not a Rotorua effort, but not bad. For this meeting to be run in two days and finish at a respectable hour it needs to be run on a long weekend. Car numbers are such now that it could be a three day meet or have pre quals. Most places have a long weekend as an anniversary weekend or can run it over the Xmas/New Year period. Thinking more populated ares here. Other than the Xmas/New year spot then the regional holiday could work. (perhaps not in the far extremities) but I see it can work. To complete as a two day meet at a respectable time it needs to run Sat and Sun. Local fans (could be 50% of crowd, from my arse ) can attend without time off, Start time needs to be 4 or 5pm. If there has to be a half hour sun strike time then so be it and then find interviews/music to keep fans engaged. Fans/teams/drivers that are not at the host track are going to take at least a day off whenever it is run. Thoughts or smashings? Hawkes bay anniversary is opening weekend lol. Canterbury is a few weeks later. Saturday, sunday is brilliant unless you work sunday to thursday. Then its abit well yea. Also baypark and im guessing palmy have hard curfews. There is not one answer that every track can do. Its goingbto be a line that best fits. Crazy left feild idea. Why not split the contact classes into three? It doesn't have to be the host tracks anniversary weekend as they don't need time off to travel! If it was Auck anniversary it gives those in the top half of the Nth Island the Monday to travel home. If you work Sunday to Thursday that is unfortunate haha. Tracks with curfews need to think about whether they have the ability to run the meeting under the current formats available when there rotation comes up. BP were very very lucky to get thru on time. (mins to spare, and wouldn't have handled 8 heats). They might have to pass the meeting up or see if another track can take it and they get a percentage of the gate. As you say there is not one right way to handle it, and may only be a short term problem if numbers drop back to the 150 mark. Just think that midnight finishes are not ideal. |
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Post by meeaneemic on Jan 21, 2021 7:00:08 GMT 12
From a Commentator point of view I do think the format needs tweeking somehow.
Qualifying night was arguably the most efficient I have seen Meeanee pump races out the gate and we still ran late ( Getting St Johns staff to work earlier on a Friday was an issue ).
The logistics of the Pits was massive, 23'000 sq mtrs and this created a few issues for information flow, mic range etc.
On the Wednesday prior I worked with a sound guy to install extra Aerials, PA horns and adjust the mixer.
We had the system working even behind the Clubrooms but as anyone who picks up a mic will tell you, you can test test test but until the Big Rigs, Trailers, Radios and various other gear shows up you can't tell if everything is good and as it turned out it frustratingly wasn't.
The remote Camera wasn't supplied with its own mic!!!!! and this meant I had to make do with dragging Drivers away from their cars to interviews and I couldn't show any damage, pit work etc.
A solution of sorts would be to have a winners circle next to the weigh scales for after race interviews.
I hope Bruce has created a document of what can be done better in all areas as they will certainly need a refresher course before next year at Wacky.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2021 14:04:39 GMT 12
Thanks for that insight meeaneemic there is always behind the scenes things the affect the final show that ya put on. In glad that two tracks hosting it back to back have the same promotion as often institutional knowledge learnt that one event isn't passed on to the next event and that is one of the downfalls of the rotation system. I have been critical of meeannee running long meetings in the past, and while I stand by that, having watched night 1 on the stream I thought they got thru the race program very efficiently even if some of the off trick process seemed to fall down. I didn't bother with the second night, but believe me i could feel your frustrations on night 1 from this far away |
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