NE regionals 4wd and 2wd on the same day??
 

Hi,

Just thought id ask, would it be possible to have the rest of our regionals on one day? With the numbers been quite low this year it might be a good idea to have both 2 and 4wd on the same day, preferably on a Sunday as thats when most people are available.

I know the North West do it this way and there numbers are way up this year, with a lot of North East drivers attending their region instead for this exact reason.

With people doing Nationals and some people working Saturdays it takes up most of your weekends throughout the summer which could be contributing to the low numbers.

Would like to hear peoples opinions on this?

Craig Collinson

I'd like them during the week due to shift work never mind Saturday's & Sunday's ;)

As craig has put I to am doing the north west because they are doing both classes on one day , I work most Saturdays so racing both classes on one day suits me perfectly

I think 2 classes in one day is too much.

With the minimum 1 hour between rounds (which unfortunately was dismissed at Batley for weather reasons), then a track change, and then another class to be run.... it doesnt sound like a relaxing days racing.

Maybe the NW guys can voice the opinion of how their meetings pan out.

It's probably too late to amend the series for this year, as lots of stuff ahs been organised already for two day events.

Hear what your saying Chris, but ive raced as a guest at two of the North West regional series this year and it was very relaxed. They had 12 heats giving you plenty of time to charge lipo's, get your cars ready and even have time to chill out inbetween races.

It is nice to get away for the weekend but if you have other commitments such as work, family etc and doing Nationals along with other meetings, makes for a very busy calendar.

Like ive mentioned we have lost quite a few top drivers from our region to the North West, and after speaking to quite a few of these drivers its mainly down to not having enough time to give up whole weekends. You can still have the fun of getting away for the weekend by camping over on the Saturday night.

Just thinking it might be a way to get numbers back up.

I thought it was cos there is two national tracks in the nw region this year any many ne drivers doing the nw region for practice, which makes sense.

Or may be the numbers are low the ne region cos most of the tracks are too far north for some................ e.g morpeth/south shields/teeside.

Yeh that may have something to do with it aswell, but from what ive heard the main reason is because both classes are on the same day which takes up less of your weekend.

But the year before there was 2 day regionals and there was plenty of people turning up.

I agree in a way and then disagree, just because of time constraints and switching from one class to another. I was glad i didnt enter the non regional class at batley 2wd cos i would of been rushed.
May be we could try it for one and see what happens, we could even try it at batley this year for the 4wd, running 2wd non regional class.

Yeh you would have been rushed as there was only one non regional heat at batley.

If you have both 'regional' classes on the same day there would be around 10 or 11 heats instead of 6 like there was at Batley. This would then give you plenty of time inbetween races.

Oh yeh and we ran both classes at our North East indoor regional series for years and that was never a problem.

When you consider the cost of fuel and traveling now, it makes perfect sense to run both classes in one day, you will always have more people turn up and race, and as stated those doing both classes booking twice so no loses and win win, which is always good for any region.

Fair point, so how about suggesting it for batley this year as a test, do 4wd regional and 2wd non regional? As chris P said its too late to change for this year. We have to try a do somthing if the numbers are going to be low year on year. If i remember one year all the regionals were set on a sunday so there were no 2 day events, how about that one??

Im starting to think it's a really good idea to have both classes on one day.
What are other people's opinions?

It can be a long day
 

Hi Guys

It is nice to have 2 day meets, especially if the travel distance is long as it can be in our region. On the 2 day meets you can get there on Friday after work, be relaxed for Saturday, Sunday can be a bit busy as you race and then have to drive home. l would still like to see 2 day meets, I know that some people work Saturdays and that can be a problem, that's why the 2wd & 4wd days are alternated. But if you have a long day on Sunday with both events and combine that with a long drive in one or both directions their could be a lot tried people for Monday work.

Just my thoughts and am sure everyone has their own.

If numbers are low then it does make sense to run both classes on one day.. Which I presume is why the NW started doing it??
There may be negatives to this i.e
Would some of the clubs be able to hold a one day event?
ie Teesside/Jarrow etc? where they don't have a permanent venue?

There are also a number of people who don't do Nationals so doing 2 days is what they would prefer it makes for a relaxing weekend and better atmosphere.

+/- for both really


Craig I think it's something that you should bring up Peter Ellis

The only problem with trying that is you can't guarantee enough people will want to run in a non regional class (no incentive to do so if your not racing for points towards the series), so this wont give a true reflection as to how much time you have inbetween races etc.

The only way to do it is actually try it for the next regional.

You could have all the regionals on a Sunday but again this would take up 10 Sundays throughout the summer which impacts smaller clubs wanting to maintain regular cleb meetings, which is essential for the survival of their club and our hobby. Therefore having both classes on one day seems like the ideal solution. I for one would rather have a full days racing rather than drawing it out for a whole weekend with only 5 or 6 heats on each day. Last time at batley we were finished by around 3:30!!

But then again if you had both classes on one day you could get home from work on a Friday, spend time with your friends/family, have a nice sleep in on Saturday morning, set off to teh venue Saturday afternoon/evening, chill out Sat night with everyone and have a great days racing on Sunday!

Im just trying to look at which is the best way to bring the numbers up slightly. Lots of people have family or nagging girlfriends that wont allow them to go away all weekend to race toy cars lol. Racing on the one day might enable a lot of racers to compete in both 2 and 4wd throughout the entire series instead of having to miss certain meetings due to work or other commitments they may have on Saturdays.

Yeah I think running two classes during a regional event has its advantages, would free up time & also money.... Could be worth considering, maybe not this year but going forward into 2011....

Mike P.

I wasn't even aware the north west guys did this.

I think it's a great idea Craig. It'll be a bit like worksop indoors which I think is fantastic.

What if some people were doing 2 and 4 wheel drive and some people were only doing 2 or 4 wd. Wouldn't the people doing 1 class complain as they weren't getting as much track time...?

I thought this was why we always had to run a different track when doing two classes on a regional weekend....?

Guess you cant please everyone, but if everyone has the option of doing both classes there shouldnt really be any complaints.

The North West do it this way and from the two meetings ive attended as a guest there were no comlaints at all.

At the end of the day we do this for fun so does it really matter if your only doing one class. I dont really think you gain much of an advantage anyway as a 2wd handles completely different to 4wd. if anything people doing both classes might be at a slight disadvantage as you have to adapt from one class to the other. When racing both at worksop it takes me a good few laps to get used to going from 4wd to 2 and takes a few laps to realise you cant drive into corners at 100mph! :woot:

You could already argue that they way things are at the moment, you can already race your opposite class in the non regional heat so its no different really.

whether 1 day for both classes or running 2 classes over the 2 days, the people i have talked to at the weekend about morpeth regional said it was to far away, but i can see where your coming from craig to try n get numbers up and im all for that like but year in year out we have always been to far north, unfortunately

Do the NW run 2wd and 4wd at the same time? Or do they run the 2wd in the morning and 4wd in the afternoon with a track change inbetween?

When I started doing regionals, they were pretty much all Sundays, then one full weekend crept in and suddenly the majority of the regionals seemed to be full weekends which caused a lot of problems for me. I do remember a lot of people WANTING the full weekends though... possibly the people who now do NW (don't shoot me if I'm wrong on that).

The only downside I can see is late finishes... I was talking to someone about the NW and they said that one of the regionals didn't finish until 8pm or something? Is that true?

I really wish that wasn't the case... I've spent 10 years travelling down to Teesside, York, Batley, Harrogate and even Bury Metro for regionals (and now Worksop too) and yet a lot of people aren't willing to come north to race on quality tracks. If you look at the Batley regional entries, out of the 43 people racing, at least 19 are from Teesside-area or north of there. Yet we still go to Worksop etc...

I really do find it frustrating... :(

yeah me too em:(

They run both classes on the same track with 2wd first then 4wd. For example if there are 12 heats then heats 1-6 would be 2wd and heats 7-12 4wd.

In regards to late finishes there was a problem with the first regional at Southport but this was down to booking in issues and the meeting not starting until around 12:30.

The second regional at Bury started on time and was finished for around 6 which i dont think is too bad. If we did our regionals in the same way we would prob finish earlier given the numbers at Batley. North West had 12 heats and a guest heat and still managed to finish by 6. We only had 5 heats for our regional at batley so if not everyone does both classes then we would only have around 9 or 10 heats in total meaning if things run the way they should then we should be finished for around 5:30.

This is my personal view not as a representative of the BRCA,

There's a large amount of positives and negatives regarding running both classes on a Sunday,

For me the positives would be less time off work, not having to take the caravan to do an event and hopefully an increase in numbers,

Negatives some people myself included only have 1 charger/pack of lipos, this would then mean going out and buying more gear or only doing one class, my son would be unable to race as it's hard enough doing 2 cars in a day let alone 4,

I'm not entirely sure if you could change it for this year, I would tend to side with the idea that we probably couldn't but it is certainly something to look at for next year.

Peter

Ill lend you some lipo's Peter! lol. :thumbsup:

Suppose with the money thats saved from Travel costs, accommodation if your not camping and food costs for been there the entire weekend it wouldnt take long before youve saved that money to put towards an extra lipo.

I only ever take one charger and one lipo per car to all meetings and as long as you put them on charge straight after your race you should have no problems

I think what we need to do, is get David Cameron to investigate the problem and to highlight the fact that anything north of Northallerton should be considered to be the slums of Britain and to build a big wall and not let anyone out or to enter it. Then you guys could have your own series and leave the upper class to have our own.














Runs and hides:woot:

At least that way we could keep that tw**t out!! :D

I wish we could have the Regionals all on one day and have a full compliment rather than have 2 days of half full heats.
I used to really look forward to Regional weekends but they arent busy enough anymore for the need to be run on seperate days.
We need to do something positive to get the numbers and racers back again, they are deffo still there and racing but have went to another region.

We will always struggle in the N East for Regional numbers until we get a national track apart from RHR to run on.

I can understand why some people have went MW as there are 2 tracks on the National calender to practice on and we only have 1 but its after the National there so really we dont have any.:(

Im hoping to go this weekend at Stannington which is an awesome venue so hope a few turn up and give it a try.

Cant we run both classes this Saturday/Sunday for more race fees anyway? Is there a written rule to say we cant?

Can't run 4WD non regional this Saturday, if you're doing 4WD the day after, that is the rule as far as I know.

From a Club organisation viewpoint I think that 2 classes on 1 day would definitely benefit clubs as it would leave more dates free on the calendar for running club meetings, which are essential to the survival of any club.

When we first started racing a number of years ago this was always the format for the meetings - 2WD run first and then 4WD in each round and we even had 3-leg finals for the A finals which were staggered into the other finals and this was with 100+ drivers but the heats/finals were only 4 minutes long then and 3-leg finals were stopped when race time became longer as the meetings were too long.

I would agree with reverting back to this format of 2WD and 4WD at the same meetings and maybe alternate which class starts first at each of the meetings so that it is not the 2WD finishing early each time. It would also give sufficient time for a flowing meeting as we woud not have to keep giving a break between each round.

I do think that number of entries could also increase as drivers would appreciate the amount of racing they could have in one day. I understand that it could mean additional equipment for some but as Craig has pointed out the money saved on weekend events should soon amount to the cost of another lipo.

Definitely something to think about from a Club perspective.:thumbsup:

Whilst I agree with DH's post above, from the Club perspective, I feel there is one strong negative point.
The age old issue of mileage, the time to travel to the far north and far south of our regions, would raise its ugly face once again as some/many of the travellers have already said that travelling that far for just one days racing is probably not on. They currently make a weekend of it and take the tents/caravans for a family weekend away.

So the outcome may not be all positive re numbers. I think we need to bare this in mind when considering the future.

ba

Surely one day with twice the ammount of racing would suit the majority.

Put it to a poll to see what people think.

You could still have camping on though. If the regional was on a Saturday then you can travel down Friday as normal, sleep overnight and race all day. Then either go home Sat night or camp over again and drive home in the morning.

If the regional was on a Sunday you could travel down Saturday, camp over and go home Sunday night. Problem solved.

I personally prefer sat and sunday racing but Im coming under more and more pressure from the wife and a 1 day even would suit me better.

:thumbsup:

A couple of thoughts

How Many Clubs are there in the NE that could run just 1 day meetings?
What happens to the clubs that possibly can't? There would then be less rounds?
What happens when numbers start to increase? ie do we change back to 2 days etc mid way through the year?
Would numbers actually increase or is it a case of the same drivers turning up but running both classes?

It's definatly something that should be considered at the next consortium meeting as there are pro's and cons to making the change

Not sure what you mean Kash when you say that some clubs would not be able to run a 1-day meeting - what would be the reasons for not being able to?:confused:

What i mean is places like Teesside, Jarrow would they be able to hire/have use of the grounds for a day meeting? Would club members be willing to help out for a days racing?

Clubs without own venues it costs them usually to put these events on by the time you pay for van hire, trophies, toilets and other facilities. Being a weekend we have to hire them for the full weekend regardless of how long they are used for, so one day or 2 day it will cost the clubs the same who don't have their own venue.

Jarrow doesn't run a club day when regionals are on to encourage members to attend regionals, unsure if anywhere else does the same :confused:

If less people want to attend regionals, like this weekends entry are booked in at 32/34 and 5-10 people usually don't turn up.....I do wonder if clubs will want to continue doing them at all if it's going to cost them every time they put one on. It's a shame but if the interest isn't there, is it worth people grafting their backsides off? Maybe some don't realise the amount of work that goes into putting these events on but I see it, help out with it and it takes a lot of work.

As a parent of a child just starting I would prefer one days for several reasons but he would not be able to do 2 classes. I'm also aware as a parent some could not do Sundays all the time, would it need to be alternated? Kids after all are needed to ensure RC continues
M