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That's not a bad idea. It may help keep some newcomers around for a little while longer. But that's up to the powers that be.

Sorry Kevin, I'm not a novice but I do have a proposal for comment. I promise it's constructive:

So there are plusses and minuses for both the novice-till-trophy and year-long. And there are lots of good reasons not to add another class.

How about TWO 1/2 year long novice classes? One from Mar-Jun and one from Jul-Oct? Best 3 events count, and if you do 3 events in any 1/2 year, you're out. Award tophies at the xmas party for Nov1 and Nov2.

You get the competition, get some longer-term fights, but no uber-experienced people by year's end.

_________________
Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

^i like that idea

Ditto.

Everything that I stated in the original thread I still believe is valid. However there are numerous things I have seen that make me perhaps not quite so avid a proponent.

I see that having a driver with six, seven, or eight autox's behind them in the same class as a total newcomer is far from a level playing field. However it is more level than a driver with three autox's vs drivers with 2,3,4,5, and more years of experience. As PJ said I looked at some of the novice drivers at Sanford and Laurinburg and they truely looked lost, and I knew they would not be competitive against the top of the year long novice class. I entertained thoughts of a novice and a not so novice class just as PJ. But I fear that may be too much work to impliment, I guess there is no easy answer.

I also have thought of expanding the mentor system as Rob has stated by having a group of folks leading the real novices (one and two timers) around by the hand the first couple of times they attend. That I believe is easily do able.

I concur with all who are in favor of more schools, they all were fantastic, and its surely the easy route to becoming a better driver.

I would like to see a name tag distribution so I wouldn't feel like such an ass when some says " hey Bernie" and don't recall their name. I've had that problem all my life, at least now I can say its alsheimers. Poor Rob is going to have to wait twenty five years before he can use that excuse.

I still believe that this program is on the right track, nothing in this world is perfect so there always can and will be contraversy over the format for novices, but I believe that the year long format is good.

My only regret is that I didn't do this thirty years ago, 63 is a little long in the tooth to start competitive driving.

There are no regrets however in the people we've met and made friends with this past year, my fellow competitors in novice, the Instructors who gave their time to us and the general membership.

I've had a great time. And thats what is going to keep people (novices) comming back, enjoying themselves and associating with Friendly people who share the same interest. I'll be back.

Onward to The Rock for my next challenge

Bernie

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2004 C5(415whp,390ft/lbs),
1997C5,1997Trans Am, 1986 C4,
1990 Miata, 1976 MGB,1997 Protege, 1989 MR2

so it would seem, Cosby. but lets say for discussions sake that any one of the fore mentioned participants (you included) came into novice class mid year. it is my opinion that they would still have been very competitive and still been in the season point chase. i believe you will finish the year ranked higher than me and i ran all 8 events.

while none of us are still novices we did compete against each other all season. two seperate issues. novice mentoring is good for novices and good for the club. what many may be missing here is that this years class had some damn fast drivers. my question is does every year yield 7 or so competitive autoX'ers? if so, then how is this year any different from past years? we just kept everybody together for the whole season.

Ok, I was a BIG proponent of the YL Novice class. I have mixed feelings about it now.

It did seem that a late year newb got really thumped by ANY of this years bumper crop of excellent novice drivers.

How about 2 trophies and then your out of novice? No season long trophy either.

I am totally open to suggestions, but really dont want what we had in 05 or 04.

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

Man I hate it when someone brings up good points. It makes the discussion that much harder to validate the one side. I suppose that's what makes this good then.

The only thing I guess that really would get me is, how would a true novice feel if they came in and had someone who already has half a season under their belt? What are the odds that, even though they may be good, they aren't good enough and feel that if they got stomped by another novice then they feel that they aren't good enough to stay? That's my only reservation I guess. I just don't want to run off anyone who may have a chance but doesn't know that the rest of the novices are only novices by name.

And thanks for that take on it Steve. Like I said, it makes things a lot different to look at.

Would the novice class of '05 developed the same kinship if they were competing in TIR? Thus opening up NOV to others that followed.

_________________
Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

boy that would have made tir more competitive this year. for me it was the spotlight placed on nov class that made the season easy to navigate.

going into TIR halfway thru doesn't seem to me to be quite the same. thing is i got beat like a drum all year. but i feel the playing field was level. except for those damn awd german miatas. just kidding.

Our decision on how to run novice class next year should take into account that a major goal is to increase new driver retention. The good news about this year's program, is that we had one of the best novice classes ever in March. This was true in terms of driver talent and in terms of driver retention. The March Laurinburg class of 22 new (first time) recruits drove another 79 events after March or 51% of the possible events. The not so good news with this year's program is that the next seven events provided an additional 71 new recruits, but they only ran 19 additional events (beyond their first event) or 9% of the possible events beyond their initial event. While it is not necessarily true that the year-long format was responsible for this, we need to give some serious thought to how best we can retain new drivers and get them to be regulars.

Date -- Location -- # of first time novices -- Percentage of events run after initial event

3/20/2005 - Laurinburg - 22 - 51.3%
4/23/2005 - Greenville - 9 - 13.0%
5/21/2005 - Sanford - 9 - 11.1%
6/11/2005 - Laurinburg - 8 - 6.3%
7/17/2005 - Danville - 11 - 0.0%
8/21/2005 - Greenville - 15 - 10.0%
9/25/2005 - Sanford - 11 - 18.2%
10/9/2005 - Laurinburg - 8 -

For the record: Of the 8 at Laurinburg this past weekend, one trophied. So much for the late season novices being at a severe disadvantage? (maybe it was just the outstanding instruction/demo he received? )

_________________
SPIN or WIN!
there's no glory for going slow.

Rick, some people ran Novice once and then moved into a different class. Did you take that into consideration with your numbers?

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

Just a reminder...



The point of this thread was to keep the discussion among the novices, without the "guidance" of experienced people. We are only to observe, not to participate in the discussion.

Thanks!

Rob Harvey wrote


Yes, I did.