DEFBOY35
Well-Known Member
enforcing quickshifter rules will make a huge difference at castrol.
there is nothing specifying the use of quickshifters in our rule book, believe that was changed to allow them a couple years ago.
enforcing quickshifter rules will make a huge difference at castrol.
I don't see the big fuss over helping out with set up and tear down. As well for the novice promotion. Either you volunteer your time. Miss a weekend or two of racing. Which sucks yes. But you don't pay to race that weekend. Or get a family or friend to fill your spot. Pay them if you have to. And still get to race the weekends.
Dean. How much has having people help set up or tear down air fence for a weekend hurt membership? Does the wmrc do the volunteer hours to promote? Has it deterred anybody from wanting to race in your opinion with your club?
Holy crap, that was a long post. Sorry.
600's ... will likely still have the advantage at this track, think about it for a second.
Holy crap, that was a long post. Sorry.
Shane, that's a very loaded question, and *is* a sore point with our club. I'll try to answer it as best as I can, but my answer can sound harsh to some. I won't try to be politically correct with this answer, and will tell it straight.
Does having people help with setup or tear down for a weekend hurt membership? No, it does not. When it is mandatory, yes it does hurt. There are people in our club, who I will call consumers. They pay their fees and to them, we provide the service. The WMRC's service is to provide a day to race, officials to officiate the races, and staff and bandwidth to publish those results. They expect trophies, and all other accolades that come with racing. These folks are first to point out that results are late or incorrect. They took time off work to come and patronize our club, so our customer service must be impeccable to them. This is about 1/8 to 1/4 of our membership. Not many, but enough "squeaky wheels" to cause grief.
The next 1/2 of the club are those that do what they can to help, as long as it's not too great a sacrifice. They'll help with 2 to 3 setups or tear downs per year and will be happy in the fact that they are lending a hand here and there. They don't complain about things, and are just happy to be there and race. They pay their fees and enjoy their time at the track. If you ask them to do something, they usually do it. However, when we need volunteers on a rainy day, or a weekend to repair airfence, bag bales, etc, they will have an excuse. "Wife's birthday, child's birthday, family gathering, promised the SO I'd work on the honeydew jar", etc. They do a small part, and if the other 1/8 to 1/4 did this, we'd be in a VERY happy place. In my opinion, if a club had 80% of their people like this, it would work and work well.
The final 20% of the people (1/8th to 1/4) are your exec and a core group of volunteers. We call them core, because rain, shine, weekends, evenings, etc, they give this all up to help the club. These are the labour of love people. They put in their regular work hours, and then put in the same amount for the club they love. They usually do not have much of a separate life outside of the club. Spare time is spent thinking of ways to improve, etc. They show up for every setup, teardown, etc. These are the people who burn so bright for the club. These are the people who burn out for the club, because of the consumers.
Ok, this is getting long. Here are *real* numbers from this year.
The WMRC has over 125 active licensed racers.
The WMRC has roughly 45 active licensed racers show up to every round.
The WMRC has 15 core volunteers including exec who always work.
of the 45 always active racers, not including the core volunteers who race, about 20 will help with 1 or 2 setups or tear downs.
10 of those racers will help with 1 and be done for the year (consumers).
10 more will always have an excuse as to why they cannot.
The core volunteers will start to resent those who don't help.
The 20 who do help will not think any resentment is towards them, because they helped once, which was the best they could do.
10 to 15 will not care, and they can go race anywhere. The club should be happy for their money.
The core do it for love. I can't remember the amount of times, I heard "I work late, so can't make it down." I usually work until 5pm, then commute home in traffic for 1.5 hours (I live in Vancouver..we have BAD trafffic). Then I pack up and drive 1 hour to the track. I arrive in the dark. I don't unpack, I head out to help with setup, which has been going on for an hour or two already. We finish as much as we can before dark, then I unpack, and head out for an unhealthy dinner of fast food at 10 or 10:30pm. If 10 more people helped, we could all eat dinner at 8pm instead.
Sounds like a mess don't it? The key word here is CLUB. The WMRC, EMRA and CMRA are not stores. We don't sell racing. We organize racing. The membership makes it happen.
New Novices wonder why we single them out. We do and we don't. We try to "fix" the new people and instill a volunteer requirement and effort to keep the club mentality going. If new people come in and are consumers, that doesn't help the club. We try to set the ground rules that we all have to pitch in.
All of you are here discussing this. That's because you *are* the core group. you care. You have to share that enthusiasm to the other members and encourage them to help too. Don't just be a voice, be an example.
I've thought about it and am still wondering why. Empirically, I see a great number of straights and longer straights. That being said, 1000s need to brake earlier, but will that compensate enough for the power difference?
Also, want me to drop your paint stuff off one of these days? Thanks for "giving" it to me for the past year lol I feel guilty for having borrowed them for this long.
The core volunteers will start to resent those who don't help.
I can understand where you're coming from. It is simply hypothetical at this point as no one has run this full course but I don't believe it will be that fast (I agree with Neil)..........will it be faster? yes, but by what margin? In calgary the fast guys on 6's were right there with the 1000's.
600's will be able to brake later, turn in later and deeper (with less chance of pushing the front), carry more speed through the corner, get on the gas earlier, and remain at lean under acceleration longer and easier with out the bike wanting to stand itself up and head for the dirt.........all because the crank/rods/cams/clutch/gears weigh nothing compared to a 1000 (and they're spinning between 7,000 and 14,000 rpm).
A 600 will be able to carry ~ 10+kph thourgh the chicane compared to a 1000, and at midpoint in the race the 600 rider will have used a lot less energy than the litre bike rider, leaving more room to 'push'.
If we were discussing the isle of mann or a fast european track, then sure, no comparison, 1000's would destroy 600's, but this is not the case here. You can't deny the fact that the fastest guys at stratotech set their records on 600's.
One question for you:
If you shoe horned a 1300cc busa engine into a gsxr 1000 chassi, do you think you could turn a faster lap (at 99% of the tracks out there)? Personally I think you would go slower.
LOL, I can come grab that stuff if you're finished. I have not had any need for it so don't feel bad man, glad I could help.
I agree with this to an extent, the fastest riders were on 600s but what was their skill set? How much did they have into their bikes? The majority of the mortals running close to track record pace were on 1000s even at a "kart" track...
Next year will be very interesting needless to say.