2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

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Miata22
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2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Miata22 »

**Please Read and give input.**
Awards will be donated.
Want to make corrections before start of season.

East Tennessee Region Novice Class Championship
The ETR Novice Class Championship will be held during our last autocross event of the year.
Novice Championship Eligibility: We will have a total of 8 Drivers qualify for the Novice Class Championship shootout. You can qualify in two ways.
1. The two-win method. By winning the novice class twice during regular season a driver is automatically qualified and guaranteed a spot for the Novice Championship Shootout. (Under ETR Autocross rules once an entrant has won novice class two times during the season he/she is automatically moved to the open class that his/her car is qualified for.)

2. The points method. By accumulating points at each event up to last event of year. Driver must complete in 50% of events and the best 7 events will be counted toward points total. Points are calculated for each event with the winner of class receiving 100 and from there by formula: your time/winning time x 100= your point total.

Example: If we have 3-two time winners then the next five drivers with the most points will qualify. If someone who is qualified for the Championship shootout does not show up the next person in points will be eligible for a total of eight participants for the Shootout.

The Championship Shootout Format
The Novice Championship will be held at the last event of year in the form of a Qualifier and Shootout (bracket competition). The Qualifier will determine starting (seeding) positions for the Shootout and also 5th thru 8th place in the Shootout. The Shootout will determine the Champion and the 2nd thru 4th places.

Qualifier: Each novice competitor will run in the first run group on Championship Day. The fastest PAX-time from the first 3 runs will be used to determine the starting (seeding) lineup for the shootout. 1st place will be paired with 8th place, 2nd with 7th and so on. If a driver DNF’s on every run, they will be seeded last in the Shootout. Ties will be broken by points earned during season or whoever was the first two-time winner if this scenario comes into play. Ride-alongs are allowed during this session.

Shootout: The Championship Shootout will be held during intermission between heats. If we have two heats it will occur between heat one and two. If on this day, we have three heats the Shootout will take place between heat two and three. Each competitor will be added to a bracket and will run head to head with each other. Each driver must drive alone during stage. All 8 qualifiers will line up in grid paired in seeded position 1&8, 2&7, 3&6, 4&5. Round 1 will eliminate 4 of 8 drivers. Round 2 will eliminate 2 of 4 drivers. Round three will determine 3rd and 4th place, and round 4 will determine 2nd place and the Novice Class Champion. 5th-8th will be determined by the 1st heat qualifying runs.

Clarifications: All novices in the championship will still do all of the normal runs like a normal event, PLUS their Shootout runs. The shootout runs will be scored separately from class, PAX and raw for the day. This keeps the event fair and easy to manage. For the two-time winners during season, once you are promoted to an open class you will have a notation in novice class standings stating “qualified”. The Championship is only expected to take 15-30 minutes to complete!

What do you win? The prestige and honor of the East Tennessee Region Novice Class Championship!
Your name engraved on the Novice Class Traveling Trophy! A custom 1st place plaque at Awards banquet. And all 8 championship contenders receive a ETR T-Shirt!
Randy Adkins
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by thrdeye »

Randy,

Thanks for putting the time and effort into coming up with a structure. This is definitely the way to make a proposal. I always like ideas that center around attracting and keeping new folks. However, my public opinion is I'm not a proponent of making novice a championship class.

Here are my thoughts:
1) It looks like a lot of work to keep track of. (Poor Brian)
2) The qualifier and shootout at the last event will be a big change for T&S because we always run novice with their base class. It will also cause a longer day and we're usually running out of daylight at the last event.
3) That brings me to my next point: Since we run novice with base class, weather can have a big impact on results.
4) I don't believe in encouraging anyone to stay in novice class once they have gotten their feet wet. It's PAX based, and therefore inherently flawed (especially for novice prep level) and results can be confusing for new people. I think we should encourage novices to get into a heads up class asap.
5) I don't believe in encouraging "serious" competition in novice. It should be a class where everyone feels comfortable coming in and trying the sport.

That said - if we want to have a novice champ, or do something more for novices to make it mean a little more, here are my suggestions for a few options

Let's just run it like any other championship.
-or-
Have a special award for anyone that "wins out" of novice (3 events). Could have multiple per year. Would require better record keeping.
-or-
Stick to having a "Most Improved Driver" or "Rookie of the Year" Award. It was a plaque, but it could be a jacket. Would also require better record keeping.

Again Randy, very well thought out format and it makes sense. I just disagree that we need it. Others can offer their input. If we do this, I think it would be awesome to implement some version that could be used for all classes and run a Champion of Champions event similar to Atlanta.

If you are a first timer or a novice and read this post, please don't think that I don't personally value the effort that you make to run with us. That's not the case at all. I just think that you will grow as a driver and get faster faster the sooner you are out of novice class.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by John Brown »

Is there any way (currently,now that the season is over), to see how last season would have panned out?

And I dont even know why I ask... just curious. (and to see how complicated it may be to calculate)

Im not against the program.. I just know "simple" works best.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Gen52SS »

2016 no driver won more then 1 time ...8 drivers attended (50%) of the events and would have qualified.


2015 .....1 driver would advance because of 3 wins how he was able to be in novice with 3 wins? Then there were 3 that qualified (50%) events entered with points ...total 4 drivers in 2015.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by John Brown »

well, thats good trends! doubled qualified drivers from 15 to 16..
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Challenger »

Would it be possible to just keep track of all the Novice PAX times throughout the year and do a separate point ranking for them whether they've won out or not? For instance if someone wins out after 4 races in the season we still take their PAX times throughout the year and compare them to the other Novices who are eligible. That way we aren't running longer at the end of the year and are still recognizing them. Maybe we have one person who keeps track of those points separately that way it's not more of a burden on our normal T&S people?

On a separate thought if we want to do something special for the Novices we could pick an event in the summer where the days are longer and do a shootout at the end of normal competition for them.

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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Gen52SS »

John Brown wrote:well, thats good trends! doubled qualified drivers from 15 to 16..
Last year we averaged 19 novice drivers per event.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Miata22 »

Thank you for the Replys
Just wanted to get it out so discussion could happen at ETR meeting.
Im down with easy also.

As far as tracking novice points they are already tracked. Only thing that would change would be to just put the word "qualified" by there name once they won twice. To do the shootout it would take exactly 16 more runs (cars) during the day to complete this. Weather is usually not a issue (except at nationals). As far as messing with numbers within the day. When those "16" runs are finished you simply mark all of them as reruns and it pulls them back out of the stats for the day. The reason I'm looking at doing this is because during the last two years while I'm out walking around talking with new members I get asked "why" all the time. Why we don't have something for them. They are new to the sport and excited about being there. I know when I started two tears ago I realized the point quickly about getting out of the class but some do not and towards the end of year the attendance slow a bit. I will help with points and also with organizing Bracket shootout.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by thrdeye »

Yeah, 16 runs, but that's going cause two additional run/work changeovers.

edit: If you always did it after the first run group, then you could go right into it and add no extra changeovers.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by MARKP »

I have always liked elimination events. Lots of good thoughts here. Other than that, I have no real opinion.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Gen52SS »

•You may compete as a Novice for 2 years, or until you win Novice class 3 times.

This is how the rules read right now 2017. I don't want to have peeps registering as a novice in 2017 and really not be eligible to compete for novice class championship do to this 2 year rule. Example some people attended 1 event late in the season (November) in 2015 and multiple events in 2016. Is that 2 years? If someone comes to 1 event in 2015 and 1 event in 2016 is that 2 years? Should this be reworded? Two years means 24 months. If a novice has 1 win in 2016 and wins another 2 in 2017 that is considered the 3 wins? I want to be clear on this. I have one already signed up as a novice for our 1st event this year 2017 who attended the last event in 2015 and 5 in 2016.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by djrogers1 »

I certainly took the policy as two seasons, no matter how few I ran, when I decided my time was up in novice.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by thrdeye »

Yep time for that example to move into open class, Paul.
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by Gen52SS »

thrdeye wrote:Yep time for that example to move into open class, Paul.
Thanks...I'll send him an email
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Re: 2017 ETR NOVICE CLASS CHAMPIONSHIP

Post by EyeAmL8 »

I would like to see some clarification on who is considered a novice.

There is a large difference in experience between someone who has just run a few events over a 2 yr period of time vs someone who has run two full seasons (~22 events).

A beginning driver who has only run a few events over a 2 yr period of time would be put into an open class where they would struggle to be competitive.

Personally, I have only autocrossed 9 events over a 3 yr period of time. That less than 1 full season but more than the 24 mo novice limit.

I would think that the number of events a driver as participated in should matter more than the time frame.
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