THSCC Forums

No tension here, just stating the facts And discussing this in an adult manner.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

i have sort of started asking novices their opinion. it seems divided just as the membership is divided. yet i don't see anyone jumping into open classes. it seems the attention placed on this years crop of novices is welcomed. (who doesn't like some attention paid to them?) would there have been this much attention had the yearlong class not been initiated? i don't know, after all i am a novice.

Man, this thread is moving waaay to fast.

The bottom line is that we are indeed all competitive and want to win to some degree. But I think that having a season-long point tally for Novices is counterintuitive because it isn't really a true reflection of skill because novice drivers start racing throughout the season at various times. In other words, it's not a true reflection of who the quickest driver is whereas the other classes have folks showing up at the beginning of the season and sticking it out all year with an equal opportunity to accrue points.

Having raced "TIRE" class last year, I truely felt that was somewhat of a novice class (slightly less competion than open classes) with the opportunity to gain points. I think the intention of novice class is just to get your feet wet and see how much fun you have before you start blowing your money away on expensive tires and such...

-Matt

so should those that won the first or second event be penalized? thing is no one has stepped up in novice to unseat the top three spots. we have to take these people at their word that they were novices at the start of the season. i could have brought my Z06 out to L'burg but i am guessing i still would have sucked. ain't no VW or M3 that will take a Z06 unless the drivers have more skill. we are penalizing skill with the old system. novice class is a comfortable place to hide. have the top 3 outrun the competition? probably. but not because the rest of us haven't been trying to do our best. all race series have a rookie system of some kind. not all rookies start in those systems at the same time. some excell, some don't. i am creeping up toward the middle of the pack. to me that is better than being DFL in DS every event. talk about frustrating.

an edit. Lucas could challenge for the top spot in novice, but we all know he is sandbagging. something about being a grad student.

No, what I was saying was that if they're looking for trophies, they should go to a TSCC event.

How about next event the novice mentors ask & find out what the novices think about the system? If they won't tell you, beat it out of them.

I guess my opinion is heavily based on the rallycross program - you see guys showing up every time who are getting abused, and you see guys who get abused once (by my wife ) & then never show up again. We have 3 (THAT'S THREE) classes, and there is no novice class. Suzuki Aerio vs. Subaru STi, no pax index, just straight up raw times. And no participation awards. If you like it, you keep coming back. If you don't I really don't see how we can do anything for you.

Just curious, what numbers you're using, or what comparison is being made? If you average the attendance from the first 5 events of this year compared to the first 5 of 2004, we are up not down.

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In need of car.

and Christine is one hell of a cook/hostess too. geez Kevin maybe they are just coming back for the food.

Actually that's not completely true. The Novice results are based on PAX (not raw time). You will not only have to run a quicker raw time, but quick enough to over come your competition's PAX also!

However, bring the Z06 out to play anyway. What an awesome car!!

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Rob Harvey
919-697-5485
1997 BMW M3
1992 Acura Integra (Simon)

Yeah listen to him Steve. Do the math. On a 50sec course the pax on your DS-BMW puts you at 39.8sec. In the SS-Z06 you get 41.5. So you'll need to be 1.7sec quicker to land in the same place on the PAX system.

If you think you can run better in the Z then bring it and prove it to yourself. I can tell you from my experience that moving from a C4 to C5 has been "interesting" to say the least. Had I swapped from a BMW 328 to a Z06 I know I would have been even more confused.

Askie Bernie how it feels jumping from a Mini to a C5.

Anyway, skip the car make/model argument. It has nothing to do with this year long Novice Class. The people who are at the top of Novice class are there for a reason. They're driving really well.

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http://www.greywinds.com

Damn, thats good to hear! How many percent are we up?

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

yeah, after i wrote that i went oh yeah dumbass there is pax involved. sooner or later i have to put up or shut up in regards to the vette. still, as graham said the people at the top of the standings are there for a reason, and i support them and the yearlong novice class as a whole. proud to be part of novice class 2005. pampered panty waists that we are.

yeah, i know "stay out of the cooking sherry if you are going to post to the forum" some day i'll learn. steve

I just added up the numbers for the Novices so far this year.

As of the conclusion of Danville. 5 Events.

67 Novices have shown up so far.
26 Novices are members.
41 Novices are not members. (This we need to work on)

Of the 41 non-members half have shown up for 3 events.
Of the remaining half more have shown up for 2 events.

Of the 26 members.

7 have shown up for 5 events.
2 have shown up for 4 events.
4 have shown up for 3 events.
5 have shown up for 2 events.
9 have shown up for 1 events.


What I make out of this is 2 points.

We have about 10 hardcore Novice Autoxrs that are members. Needless to say they are mostly on the top of the pile in season points. No real surprise.

We have 41 non-members. Half of them have shown up for 3 of 5 events. We are obviously not selling them on being members and we've already passed the half-way mark of the season.

Other than that I see no amazing statistics that show the Year long Novice class to be a good thing or a bad thing.

Graham

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http://www.greywinds.com

Hmm, maybe I'm still thinking about last year. I know last year wasn't good...how are we compared to 2003? That's probably off topic, but now I'm curious.

The reality is apparently by some metric novice retention is up. Some of us don't see a point in a year long novice class. The officers doing the work do see a point *and* they have some numbers to show something good happening. The opinion has been stated by the dissenters, and the people doing the work appear to have good results. Let the officers do their thing appears to be the logical conclusion.

I'll go on record as saying I really think the officers in this club always step up and do a great job. Nobody is perfect, but this club always makes up for that and then some with hard work. What's better is that they still do it with lots of us pestering them all the time.


--Donnie

Here are the averages for the first 5 events. (Note, I'm only including the first 4 for 2003. The fifth event was an NCAC with 175 people, so that really throws off the average)

2003: 127.75
2004: 122.8
2005: 126.2

This doesn't take into account the sites, which I think probably plays more of a role in number of entries over anything else.

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In need of car.