....the immortal words of the commentary legend Bill Dalley I hear in my head, everytime I go stock car never mind what track, or what surroundings. Voices stay in, and especially if you can mimick it too - but can you do the handover for the final winner interview, "it's over to our Trevor, Treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevor Redmond" "Thank you Bill"!
So we are underway, the squeal of a pinto or a duratec rings out across the land and the satisfying sigh of a junkie getting their fix after a long period of cold turkey is the equivalent to how a lot of people felt after the first weekend in March.
So everything is rosey in the stox based world of J-ho. Well the racing has been good, but not yet set the world alight. In fact in the Westcountry, it was very much as you were, follow the Bradbury with Super Hoops a worthy bridesmaid. The usual plethora of plucky white tops with all the gear, and the talent to match - will we see a driver who started at white finish the grading period at red, after visiting yellow and blue in between. I don't think anyone has - I can think of Scott Williams (ex812), however I beleive he started that season at yellow, so perhaps not, I stand corrected!
Our good old friend and foe in equal measure, is back to raise its head, Inconsistency!
Now the rule book is set up with tens in mind, places run from 1-10, bar the consolation which is 1-6. Now this appears to be at sixes and sevens, or rather eights and twelves! When it should have been top 10, it has been 8 or the baffling 12 that Wheels seems to use. Now we know that Birmingham is enourmous, and Taunton is a tiddler, but a 30 car final round Taunton is good, so why are they denying a 30 car final with a 26 car final? The promoters argument is that makes the consolation a non event if there are no cars in it. The consolation is a non event, its "have another go". Ask yourself this, when was the last earth shatteringly good consolation you seen. It's usually a go throught the motions. Take away some laps and perhaps some places, and watch the urgency on the unfortunate reds, who only have 10 laps to get to the front, bumpers flying in, trying to get on with it. Sounds more exciting doesn't it. Also, if you've battled through your heat
Now I am not so fussed about the 12 cars as I am the 8, it seems the imperial format seems to suit Brum, rather than the metric decimals. They could have 20 cars qualify in the heat if they all got points! However I was a little baffled when on both Saturday and Sunday, Incarace decided to put the 2/3rds format into action, with a line up of 50 cars at Brum and 46 at NIR. It works for championship meetings like the British Championship, when its packed to the rafters, and of course, with a 2/3rds format you'd think it would be all in for the final. Even these enormoudomes would struggle with that so a "local format" was introduced, which confused the drivers and even a dictat from the Official Grader was required, to clear up the "local method" of final qualification. What this method included remains a closely guarded secret, however Incarcae's race format supervisor, Ian Meanieminnymo was unable for comment. Surely 2 heats and a consolation would have been better all round, especially for Bobby G(866) who followed up his win with Bucks Fizz at the 1981 Eurovision, with the final win at Northampton, but only got 10 points for his troubles, and this could end up with him missing out on a blue roof, instead of the deserved 20 he would have got!
Perhaps the promoters need a set of guidelines of what constituents what format. My proposal that the all in format should only be used as an absolute last resort - if there are less than 20 cars present. It is like having steak and chips 4 times in one sitting, not even my svelt self could manage that. It's not fair on the lower graders having to race with every big nasty red top in every race. It does turn into follow the leader very quickly.
Above 20 cars, we are looking at the 2 out of 3 heats format. Now there are two formats, the split grade and the traditonal 2 out of 3. Now the split grades works if there are around two thirds whites and yellows. It can be a little unfair on the blues, so unless there is a significant amount of whites and yellows, stick to the 3 group format, and the all in final.
Anything above 30 cars should be full format, and if there are over 60 cars, a 3 heat format should be in place. For meetings like the UK Speedweekend and/or domestic meeting that attract over 80 cars, why not split the cars into a "super format". Instead of a 100 car consolation with only 1 going thru, why not split the cars into 2 groups, group a and group b, and give each group 2 heats, a consolation, which then qualify for a semi final. Top 15/20 whatever qualify for the super final, with 40 national points on it....
Something to think about, will make the National Points look a little better eh....I shall be keeping an eye, rubbish formats often equals rubbish racing!
Ta ta fer now
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