First, thanks for a great weekend to all! 250 entries at Cresson going as smooth as it did (overall) is a win in my book as an event operator. Was really cool to see the big AI group!
In regards to Pranav's questions;
1) Out of class racing. In club racing, especially with the overall size of the NASA program, it's going to have to happen and it's something that we're all going to have to work through together. The issue with the Legends car that Pranav mentions isn't because it's not a V8 American car, it's a driver training issue. Driver's in mixed car groups need to develop the rapport to be able to walk into each other's pit space and talk about these things like adults, not just complain about them on the forums after the event. Even World Challenge, IMSA, LeMans, Nurburgring, and Daytona 24 hour have multiple classes on the track at the same time of very different speeds. It works and there are challenges, but it is what it is and we all take the good with the bad.
2) Why Lightning/Autobahn groups disappeared. Basically, for the last 3 years there hasn't been a consistent enough group of regulars in either Lightning or Thunder to justify either of them getting their own run group. So we gave a try to splitting what was a combined 3/4 group into their own groups. This has consistently given us more entries than Thunder and Lighting/Autobahn having their own group and then there's only so much time in the day to build a schedule so that's why it came to this.
Having participated in every single 25 Hour and growing up in NASA's home region where literally every single race group is a mixed class group, I think it's a very fun dynamic of amatuer racing that you can choose to either love or hate, either way you'll get both the good and the bad dealings from time to time. Sometimes you benefit from a pick maneuver, sometimes you lose a position from someone else setting up a pick, and every once in a while the pick takes out all 3 cars. This happens even with only one class on track. It's all about being able to have the conversation with the driver's creating an inappropriate challenge, or addressing it with a NASA official at the event so we can get the driver conduct issue corrected to minimize the bad that comes with mixed group racing.
I hope this helps with understanding the reasons these challenges exist. Thanks for a great weekend, everybody!
-WF
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