CKRC Forums

Philosophical thoughts for a more inclusive trophy system, alternate race formats and track records.

- Freelance thinking about an alternative trophy system. The problem with providing the traditional 3 trophies for each class for each race is cost and redundancy. If you finish top 3 every race you run out of space in your garage, or wherever they wind up. However if you only get a top 3 finish once a year you will treasure that trophy. My thoughts are to save some money during the year and use that money to produce quality keepsakes for the year end banquet. Perhaps a framed photo of yourself in action, maybe with a head shot as well, and an inscription of your placing in the championship. That would be something you could hang up at home and treasure. I had thought about this for top 5, but maybe everyone that participates in 80% of the races gets this momento at the banquet. Again the emphasis is on getting a quality momento at the end of the year, instead of a box of plastic trophies. However we still have to reward the guys that have a good day and finish top 3 once or twice. At minimum we need trophies so they can pose for the podium photo. There would be an incentive to recycle them, perhaps a credit towards the year end banquet momento? Anyway a banquet recognition for every racer that competes in all or most of the races is what i am thinking of. It gets tiring to see the same 3 faces on the podium every race, recognizing the loyal members at the banquet would be refreshing and build the spirit of the entire membership of the club. I need some thoughts on this, i haven't figured this out entirely, but i think you can see where i am going with this. The club is more than the top 3 finishers, we need to celebrate all of the participants. Every member pays the same Membership and Race Entry fees, and deserve to be recognized for that, no matter where they finish in the race.

- I don't think that we should have official track records. Certifying them is problematic, and it is not part of any racing procedures. The spirit of racing is to compete and try to finish ahead of the kart in front of you. In fact you want to win with the slowest lap time necessary to finish ahead of the kart in front. Saving the engine and the tires without losing a place is the goal. We have nothing beyond bragging rights to offer for a track record, and that is how it should be. The purity of racing is to compete at your highest level and get the best finish that you can, which might be 6th, and to always strive for more. We remember the great wheel to wheel races that we have had, and they might have been a mid pack duel. We are a club, and it is all about participating in racing.

- Okay, more philosophy.
The race format system that we use rewards the fastest qualifiers all day long. This makes some sense in a large field at a National championship race, where you want to make sure that the best racers aren't hindered by backmarkers in winning the race. This is how F1 works, the most boring parade in motorsports. Before we had transponders we picked kart numbers out of a bucket for the start order of the first heat. The second heat was the reverse, so you had a front of the grid start, then a back of the grid start. We were part of the US I.K.F. region 10. The motocross system of points (400, 300, 225,169. etc.) was used to set the grid for the Final. You had to race your way to the front at least once. I'd like to see a format where everyone has a shot at starting at the front, and at the back. The most fun is where you have to race, not just block or run away and hide. We can even penalize winners with more weight next race! We can mix it up using various formats, let's race, lets have fun, this is a racing club. We can try this in one CKRC race and see what everyone thinks. Turn on the sprinklers, Bernie Ecclestone!
Let's see what other ideas you guys have.
- Bored in post 1, Brian Grant.

My two cents - if it's worth that much...

On trophies for the podium sitter each race - They seem not to be very expensive, so I suspect that savings for eliminating them would not be significant. I suspect the younger races may appreciate them more than the older folks. There have been a few occasions where due to various surprises, someone unexpected ends up on the podium and may appreciate a memento of the day.

On more/better stuff at the banquet - The trophies given out last year for the top three in each class were quite nice. I think we're probably near the sweet spot for value on them. I'd wonder how much more we'd get going up a tier.
There are a couple downsides to giving out more at the end of the year. 1) If too many people get various awards, the value of them to the recipient is diminished. My son has received many participation medals from various things over the years, and they quickly end up lost or in the trash - however, last year's trophy is proudly displayed on a shelf. 2) More awards=more speaking=a longer event. We need to think about pace for the evening,

On track records - The verification can be messy, but the number is less relevant in my mind. If I think about those listed in our record books, they are accomplished and deserving club racers. I think its nice to give them a little notoriety and opportunity to brag. I don't think that anyone has gone out with the purpose of setting a new record. We only accept them within races, and I don't know what a driver would do differently if pursuing a record. It's not like F1 drivers pitting for softs at the end of the race to set the fastest lap. If someone has set a new best time, it's under legitimate race conditions.

On new race formats - I agree that in some classes, it can be a little boring when there are larger gaps in driver skill, and few passes are made, however I don't think this is universal across our groups. It would be nice to figure out some way to shake things up. NO49 has given us opportunities to be creative, with pea-picks and reverse grids tried in the past. However, these formats were not very popular among racers. In some cases they might encourage on track frustration and mess.

I appreciate the comments, just throwing some thoughts out there! The best races are when you are thrown some adversity and have to charge back to the front.