Re: Help Me Answer This Parents Question About Points Racing
Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:42 am
I know you have already replied. But there are a few other points you can make here.
1. The verification / validation issue is big (huge). Especially when you have kids staging the cars, or near the track.
If you cannot guarantee that the track has not been bumped, changed, during the race, you can verify the times are correct, but validation of the track / equipment is impossible.
I have seen (have the times to prove it) a track bumped slightly - and the average times for a certain lane go up by .008 sec for the following heats.
If this happens in a timed race (track bump) - the only "fair" thing to do is start over.
Let's say (as happened to my daughter) your car had only run 2 heats, and another car had run 3 pre-bump.
Now your car has to run twice more on the "slower" track conditions, and the other car 1. Throwing out the slowest time actually makes this situation worse (as the car with 3 good runs gets NO penalty), and the car with 2 clean runs gets the penalty of a bad heat in the average).
And most times, you cannot tell the track has been bumped (I only noticed the day after because we were using race replay, and the camera was rolling).
If this happens in a points race, the bump has much less affect on the race results.
And I have seen timer errors (especially with cars with more "pointed" front ends).
My daughter's car won one race, but registered an incorrect (slower) time because the timer didn't register the finish until the wider part of the car body crossed the line.
Didn't catch this until reviewing the next day's video as well.
Bottom line is, most tracks / equipment are NOT set up properly, and are NOT protected from mishaps during the race, and are really NOT monitored by experienced track judges (who have experienced all the things that can and do go wrong).
Points scoring makes this much less of an impact.
2. There is an excitement factor to the final round with points. More exciting for the kids and the observers.
So - whenever we have the time to do a finals round (based on the scheduled length of the race and # of cars) we have elected to run points for the verification / validation issues, and the excitement factor.
When we are pressed for time - we run average times (keep all times - don't throw one out).
1. The verification / validation issue is big (huge). Especially when you have kids staging the cars, or near the track.
If you cannot guarantee that the track has not been bumped, changed, during the race, you can verify the times are correct, but validation of the track / equipment is impossible.
I have seen (have the times to prove it) a track bumped slightly - and the average times for a certain lane go up by .008 sec for the following heats.
If this happens in a timed race (track bump) - the only "fair" thing to do is start over.
Let's say (as happened to my daughter) your car had only run 2 heats, and another car had run 3 pre-bump.
Now your car has to run twice more on the "slower" track conditions, and the other car 1. Throwing out the slowest time actually makes this situation worse (as the car with 3 good runs gets NO penalty), and the car with 2 clean runs gets the penalty of a bad heat in the average).
And most times, you cannot tell the track has been bumped (I only noticed the day after because we were using race replay, and the camera was rolling).
If this happens in a points race, the bump has much less affect on the race results.
And I have seen timer errors (especially with cars with more "pointed" front ends).
My daughter's car won one race, but registered an incorrect (slower) time because the timer didn't register the finish until the wider part of the car body crossed the line.
Didn't catch this until reviewing the next day's video as well.
Bottom line is, most tracks / equipment are NOT set up properly, and are NOT protected from mishaps during the race, and are really NOT monitored by experienced track judges (who have experienced all the things that can and do go wrong).
Points scoring makes this much less of an impact.
2. There is an excitement factor to the final round with points. More exciting for the kids and the observers.
So - whenever we have the time to do a finals round (based on the scheduled length of the race and # of cars) we have elected to run points for the verification / validation issues, and the excitement factor.
When we are pressed for time - we run average times (keep all times - don't throw one out).