Some random thoughts

Dwight Southerland · 07-24-2008, 01:52 PM

Excellent post, Mike. You addressed the "rightness" rationale of the way Indy was run originally. kudos!!

Another reality that most people would not be aware of is part of the point you made about all the class winners being torn down. Only the winner or runner-up in class earned a spot in the eliminator. The winner had to be torn down. If he failed, the runner-up was then torn down. If neither were found legal, then no one from that class was in the eliminator. This was a way to keep pressure on racers to be legal. The other factor in that equation was that Indy had the biggest payout of any race of the season by a lot. Now, that is not the case, especially since class win payout has dwindled. I won $1000+ for class wins in the 1970s, which would be lots more than that in today's dollars, so there was real incentive to go to Indy to win class legitimately. All of those factors made up an atmosphere that gave glory to Indy class wins. So many of the changes that have been made to "enhance" the race experience (including qualifiers in the eliminator race, restrictions on the definition of a class win, added events, limited tear downs, etc.) have actually eroded class racing as a result. It has been a gradual change, like the frog in the pot of water on a stove. Leadership has missed the point all along.

There is a lot of call for the 128 low qualifiers as an equitable answer. That has a performance element attached to it, it seems, so many would agree that is the "right" way. However, since qualifying is based upon a performance against a mostly arbitrary standard, the performances are more politically defined than actual. At least a class winner has won a contest to qualify. If no one chooses to participate in a given class, it is not the competitor's responsibility to bear; it is the organization that hosts the contest who should bear that responsibility. If the PGA was controlled by a rule set that allowed handicap or scratch golfers to participate in their tournaments, would it then make sense to disqualify a participant who won the tournament playing off his handicap because his score was too low?? No. But that is analgous to what is happening now. Participation in the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament is not determined by who has the best stats; it is about winning games. If they prevent class winners from racing in a class eliminator, it makes more sense to me to qualify purely based on raw ET and run a bracket race rather than claim classes.

Where is the USCN when you want it???

07-24-2008, 01:52 PM	#9
Dwight Southerland VIP Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Arkansas - In the middle of everything. Posts: 1,996 Likes: 63 Liked 756 Times in 189 Posts	Re: Some random thoughts Excellent post, Mike. You addressed the "rightness" rationale of the way Indy was run originally. kudos!! Another reality that most people would not be aware of is part of the point you made about all the class winners being torn down. Only the winner or runner-up in class earned a spot in the eliminator. The winner had to be torn down. If he failed, the runner-up was then torn down. If neither were found legal, then no one from that class was in the eliminator. This was a way to keep pressure on racers to be legal. The other factor in that equation was that Indy had the biggest payout of any race of the season by a lot. Now, that is not the case, especially since class win payout has dwindled. I won $1000+ for class wins in the 1970s, which would be lots more than that in today's dollars, so there was real incentive to go to Indy to win class legitimately. All of those factors made up an atmosphere that gave glory to Indy class wins. So many of the changes that have been made to "enhance" the race experience (including qualifiers in the eliminator race, restrictions on the definition of a class win, added events, limited tear downs, etc.) have actually eroded class racing as a result. It has been a gradual change, like the frog in the pot of water on a stove. Leadership has missed the point all along. There is a lot of call for the 128 low qualifiers as an equitable answer. That has a performance element attached to it, it seems, so many would agree that is the "right" way. However, since qualifying is based upon a performance against a mostly arbitrary standard, the performances are more politically defined than actual. At least a class winner has won a contest to qualify. If no one chooses to participate in a given class, it is not the competitor's responsibility to bear; it is the organization that hosts the contest who should bear that responsibility. If the PGA was controlled by a rule set that allowed handicap or scratch golfers to participate in their tournaments, would it then make sense to disqualify a participant who won the tournament playing off his handicap because his score was too low?? No. But that is analgous to what is happening now. Participation in the March Madness NCAA basketball tournament is not determined by who has the best stats; it is about winning games. If they prevent class winners from racing in a class eliminator, it makes more sense to me to qualify purely based on raw ET and run a bracket race rather than claim classes. Where is the USCN when you want it???