Keeping New Members Competitive

[porsche917]

I have a concern that as we have more people come out to watch us race and/or join the club we might alienate them quickly if they cannot be competitive.  The bulk of the club membership have put in numerous hours running on the track and therefore have a big advantage over any new member. 

I would once again like to float the idea of creating two levels of competition within the same club races – an “A” bracket and a “B” bracket.  Those racers that are experienced and fast and consistently set lap times in the 4.0 range or whatever we chose, would race in the A bracket while those consistently over the 4.0 mark are competing in the B bracket.  The points awarded would be the same and would allow a B bracket competitor to beat some of the A bracket competitors if they drove a consistent race with no de-slots.  Champions would be crowned in both A and B brackets. 

Thoughts?

 

[turboman93]

So you’re talking about an amatuer and pro class?  I’m fine with that but will we have enough to run the amatuer class with only 3 new members?  What determines the move to pro from amatuer?  Can I sand bag and be in the amatuer class so I don’t have to race against you and Ary? 

[porsche917]

Everyone, no matter is you are in the A bracket or B bracket, would win points from the same pool of points at every race.  The clerk of the course would determine if a member was qualified to move from the B bracket to the A bracket.  Having just one good race is not enough to move up.  We could maybe use the same concept as real racing does – if you are a certain percentage outside of the winner’s times you would be placed in the B bracket.  This would be reviewed on a quarterly basis to line up with our race series. 

Marty

[Bellator]

I continue to like the idea… the only challenge is in the number of racers.  If we have at least 10 racers active in each series it starts to make sense, assuming that we can create a split between 50/50 and 60/40 based on a rule like Marty’s proposed pct of best performance rule.

[porsche917]

The number of racers will not matter as the points will be awarded just like they are now only you could have a B bracket racer finishing ahead of an A bracket racer.  The points still only go to 8^th place with all racers competing for their share of the points.

Example race results:

1^st – Ary – A bracket – 10 points

2^nd –Roy – A bracket – 8 points

3^rd – New guy – B bracket – 6 points

4^th – Shawn – A bracket – 5 points

5^th – New guy – B bracket – 4 points

6^th – Jim – A bracket – 3 points

7^th – New guy – B bracket – 2 points

8^th – Russell – A bracket – 1 point

9^th – Marty – A bracket – 0 points

 

Current Points System

• 1st 10 points
• 2nd 8 points
• 3rd 6 points
• 4th 5 points
• 5th 4 points
• 6th 3 points
• 7th 2 points
• 8th 1 point

Marty 

[Bellator]

Not for per-race scoring, but for leader board standings.  If the B bracket only has one or two drivers; well, you don’t have much of a leader board.  I was thinking along lines of at least having a standard podium of 1/2/3 in each bracket.

[porsche917]

I understand your point but I don’t know if it really matters.  The goal for any B bracket competitor is to get into the A bracket races.  The B bracket can have as many or as few as long as it give credit to those that are trying hard to compete, whether in their bracket or with some of the more experienced A bracket racers.  This would give them time to compete and be recognized for their accomplishments.  I know its not a perfect system but I can’t think of anything else to help the new racer enjoy their time racing with the club.

Marty

[Toyota Man]

A couple of possibilities come to mind here. One is a “Mentor” program where an experienced member takes a new member “under his wing” so to speak, helps him learn the art of building/tuning cars, driving, and anything else associated with slot car racing. This may be redundant as I have had no problems whatsoever getting answers to all of my questions. I’m just brainstorming here so please, noone take offense and think I’m trying to tell ya’ll how to run things.

Another could be something on the order of a Pro-Am competition where an experienced  member and a noobie would be teamed up fpr the competition and combining each ones best score(s) to establish composite points and a race winner.

Another suggestion for consideration is to change the website to encourage new visitors to explore the site. When you log on, the front page is dominated by the race results, while being of interest to club members, it means little to a first-time website visitor. I’m not sure what the decorations would be, maybe a photo of a club race in progress or something flashy and still maintain links from the main page to items of interest and the forum, as it does now.

[porsche917]

I like the idea of a better home page to draw new people into the site without showing them or confusing them with club race results. I suggest you bring this up at our next club meeting on the 13th of October.

I like the idea of having some specific races where veteran club members are teamed up with new racers but I don’t care for using that format for our series races. I believe the majority of the veteran club members are helpful enough to new or prospective members that we don’t necessarily need to pair them up. It can be tough enough to find time to prepare your own race car and get to the track on time but to add the other layer of a team aspect to it could prove very difficult for many of our members.

Any ideas you have to help the club get more members are always helpful.

 

 

[Bellator]

I agree that it is time to update the home page.  I can have wire frames for the design change that I’m thinking about for the next meeting.  There a few technical issues that need to be addressed along with the updated layout that will take some time.

That being said, we need to maintain the “news” feature, as it gives us fresh content more frequently than a few calls to action for prospective or new members. Stale content will reduce our search ranking on Google and Bing, making it less likely that people will find the site.  We continue to win the search for the terms Austin slot car, and I want to keep winning.

Other features I want to explore include migrating to an embedded Google Calendar, adding an auto sports and slot car news feed tailored to our interests, a photo gallery, embedding a You Tube channel, and google ads as a potential source of revenue.

We can discuss and prioritize these and any other ideas folks have at the next meeting.

I also have one other provocative idea that needs a bit more thought before I share it.

B

[tomshaffer]

Is there a way to run a series with a handicap system.  The computer starts the rookie so many seconds before the next lowest handicap and so on.  The first race in the series everyone is even and then you handicap based on prior pervomance. Might be fun watching the pro’s coming back from behind and trying to catch up and the rookie gets to lead some laps.

[Toyota Man]

Back in my catamaran racing days, there were three fleets, A, B, and . C Fleet was pretty much the new people, B were the more experienced, and A was the “Elite. You started in C and worked your way up. The requirement was that after placeing first or second a given number of times, you wer required to move up and race against the better sailors. I doubt there would be enough racers for three tiers, but two might work using that system,

[porsche917]

Toyota Man, you and I have a very similar way to view this with I believe the difference being you have the B level racers racing against each other and the A level racers racing against each other.  My proposal has them all racing together so the B level racers get to drive with the A level racers and see how they take a turn or how their car behaves compared to an A level car.  The A racers have to learn how to drive around the B level racers by passing in the best possible zones.  This makes the racing more like a real AMLS event where their are multiple classes all racing at the same time. 

No matter what system we choose I feel we need to have this ready to go for the next round of the Slot It Challenge.  Thoughts?

[Author]

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