Quote Originally Posted by Pranav View Post
I was pretty frustrated with dealing with out of class BS all weekend. The slow legends car was on the top of the list, I believe it was the same one that caused me to blow a really good lap 2 during qual, was deep into the 1:25s and was on track for my best lap ever before Mason and I had to shut it down for him towards the end. Pissed me off to no end.

Even after all of the hooplah in R3 and the repeated discussions we've had about out of class racing, I again caught him in rattlesnake, staying in line with not a care in the world that 6500lbs of car (Josh and I) was hurtling towards him.

Wasn't happy about stuff that happened with an AI car or two during races but that was more or less resolved.

What ever happened to the 4th race group (Autobahn) and being able to spread out the racing classes so we aren't cramming so much into one group and running over tiny cars? The RX-7 guys and most of the front half of the legends group were great to work with and I felt bad that we have such a huge speed delta on the straights while they're trying to race too, the faster legends cars would catch up and pass the tail end of CMC as well...
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