Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

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TimInOhio
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Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by TimInOhio »

Suppose we have enough Unlimited Class cars that we have to run them in heats. We (race committee) are discussing whether to advance the top x from each heat to the finals (risk: leaving a fast car out of the finals if that car races other fast cars, and advancing a slow car that wins a slow heat), or to compare all the cars' times against the entire class, and advance the top x (which would seem redundant, since we already know the fastest x cars).

Thoughts?
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by Darin McGrew »

What system are you using to race the other classes? Why not race the Unlimited Class the same way?

Personally, I prefer a PPN schedule, followed by a PN or CPN final round.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by TimInOhio »

Darin McGrew wrote:What system are you using to race the other classes? Why not race the Unlimited Class the same way?

Personally, I prefer a PPN schedule, followed by a PN or CPN final round.
We use lane rotation, and race all the Tigers against the Tigers, the Wolves against the Wolves, etc. we advance the top 3 from each rank to the finals.
With an Unlimited class, all cars are the same "rank", it just happens that we will have to break up the group into heats.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by Speedster »

Does the crowd know the Elapsed times from Den racing or just the one running the computer? Shut off Elapsed times. Fast, slow, medium. It doesn't matter. Hey, that's racing. Run them in each lane you are using once or twice, add each cars elapsed time and deliver the awards. Some cars might actually be running faster, some slower, then what they did in the Den racing. Do people go home and come back for the last race? When you say "Unlimited" class, does that mean I can add another ounce of tungsten to my car when I go home? Orrrr, did I read that wrong.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by TimInOhio »

Speedster wrote:Does the crowd know the Elapsed times from Den racing or just the one running the computer? Shut off Elapsed times. Fast, slow, medium. It doesn't matter. Hey, that's racing. Run them in each lane you are using once or twice, add each cars elapsed time and deliver the awards. Some cars might actually be running faster, some slower, then what they did in the Den racing. Do people go home and come back for the last race? When you say "Unlimited" class, does that mean I can add another ounce of tungsten to my car when I go home? Orrrr, did I read that wrong.
For the Scouts: The crowd knows the times of the races in each of the Den races, and we announce the top 3 in each Den that get to advance to the finals. The top 3 from each rank then race among themselves in a big heat to determine the Pack overall top 3. Trophies are awarded. End of Scout class of races.

For the Unlimited Class (open to adults, siblings, Scouts, etc.; extended wheelbase permitted, aftermarket wheels/axles permitted): This year, we have so many registered that we want to break up the class into heats. We want to run 1 heat between the Tigers and the Wolves, 1 heat between the Wolves and Bears, etc. If we make 4 distinct subgroups in GPRM, we will know who are the top 3 in each heat, and we can advance them to the finals. With the Scouts, this is not a problem, since each heat will be a different age/rank. With the Unlimited Class, it might be possible that one heat happens to consist of somewhat slower cars, and in the top 3 from that heat that advance, 1 or more of the cars might have a slower time than cars that happen to run in a faster heat, thereby shutting faster cars out of the finals.

Example
Heat 1
Car 1: 2.90
Car 2: 2.91
Car 3: 2.92
Car 4: 2.93
Cars 1, 2, 3 would advance to finals

Heat 2
Car 5: 2.94
Car 6: 2.95
Car 7: 2.96
Car 8: 2.97
Cars 5, 6, 7 would advance to finals, even though they are all slower than Car 4 in Heat 1, that ran a faster time, which got shut out of the finals because it wasn't a top 3 finisher in the heat.

Maybe we just don't show the elapsed times for the Unlimited Class heats and just announce which cars are advancing to the finals? I don't want to end up with unhappy racers if they don't advance to the finals and find out that they had a faster heat time than other cars that DID advance to the finals. And you KNOW that they will be asking for their times after the race. And, I think it's a bad idea to be secretive about their times.

Should we just post that the top 3 in each heat will advance, and tough cookies if a racer doesn't make the top 3 in their heat?

Thanks, Speedster and Darin, for the thoughts so far.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by Speedster »

Too Complicated. Here are our rules for our "OUTLAW" race.

NO Fire, NO Rockets, and any car that I determine is ineligible. Protect the timer or take if off. The creations the scouts and parents come up with are endless. Seems like yesterday a scout built a battery powered, wheel driven car. Today he is a commercial airline pilot. Fond Memories. We used to run Double Elimination. Today we run Elapsed Time.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by birddog »

I had this same concern among my Dens. What if I had a really fast Den and they had the 5 top times of the entire pack. Our rules from last year stated that only the top 2 from each Den advance to the finals round. That would mean that the 3rd fastest car in the pack would not be eligible to compete in the finals (we give out first through third trophies for winning grand finals).

The way I adjusted things this year is that we are advancing the top 2 racers from each den AS WELL AS THE TOP 5 fastest times during round 1 racing.

You can easily do this with a little "manual audit" of the standings. In GPRM, you select the top 2 to advance from each Den, they you go to the standings page and ensure that the top 5 fastest times made it into the finals. If somebody is missing from the finals, you simply go into the registration page and click on the checkbox to advance them into the grand finals. Easy peasy.

You could adopt this same approach for your unlimited heats by putting each "heat" in its own group and ensuring the 5 fastest from all the heats make it through via your own "manual audit".

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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by TimInOhio »

birddog wrote:I had this same concern among my Dens. What if I had a really fast Den and they had the 5 top times of the entire pack. Our rules from last year stated that only the top 2 from each Den advance to the finals round. That would mean that the 3rd fastest car in the pack would not be eligible to compete in the finals (we give out first through third trophies for winning grand finals).

The way I adjusted things this year is that we are advancing the top 2 racers from each den AS WELL AS THE TOP 5 fastest times during round 1 racing.

You can easily do this with a little "manual audit" of the standings. In GPRM, you select the top 2 to advance from each Den, they you go to the standings page and ensure that the top 5 fastest times made it into the finals. If somebody is missing from the finals, you simply go into the registration page and click on the checkbox to advance them into the grand finals. Easy peasy.

You could adopt this same approach for your unlimited heats by putting each "heat" in its own group and ensuring the 5 fastest from all the heats make it through via your own "manual audit".

birddog
Sometimes, the simplest solution is staring you right in the face! I think this is a great idea. Thanks, birddog.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by Rukkian »

Our new pack (we moved to a new state last year) had a a setup where they only took 1 from each rank to the finals, and since there were only 8 total between tigers and wolves, they were only going to take 1 of them. Since my sons were a wolf and a web2, and we came from much stiffer competition, they easily won the whole pack by quite a margin (which I figured), but I lobbied to have a tiger go to the finals as well, cause I did not think it was fair to them. The people running the derby didn't like it cause "They only had 4 trophies for the finals". I told them that more would love to race, especially since they already got a trophey for winning their den, so they did it.

Now this year they actually let me run (like I tried to do last year, but was told they did not need any help). I am changing a lot this year, and one of the items was allowing the top 3 from each rank into the finals, and since there are 3 pack trophies, it is possible for one rank to get them all, which to me is the way it should be. If you are one of the top 3 in the pack, you should get recognized, it should not be based luck that you were in a slow division to get in.

You could do something along the wildcard rules in the NFL - the winner of each class goes, and then grab the next 3 fastest cars that did not win across all of the classes. This lets those that won their class know they are moving on, and can keep a little bit of suspense at who else gets in.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by TimInOhio »

Rukkian wrote:... and can keep a little bit of suspense at who else gets in.
I think that is an important element of the whole thing. Too often, we see people leaving an event (be it PWD or Pack meeting or whatever - but that is a discussion for a whole other forum), once they are done with activities that they are involved with: the "Johnny got his awards, so let's go" attitude, even though there are others still being recognized.

I think I will push for this method at our upcoming PWD.

Thanks to all that chimed in.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by dna1990 »

Echo what was said above. Advance the top 1 or 2 from each rank, so that every rank has a rep in the final. But also advance the next top x fastest of the whole pack regardles of rank. In case say the 2nd place Bear is way faster than the 1st place Wolf, etc.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by TimInOhio »

TimInOhio wrote:
Rukkian wrote:... and can keep a little bit of suspense at who else gets in.
I think that is an important element of the whole thing. Too often, we see people leaving an event (be it PWD or Pack meeting or whatever - but that is a discussion for a whole other forum), once they are done with activities that they are involved with: the "Johnny got his awards, so let's go" attitude, even though there are others still being recognized.

I think I will push for this method at our upcoming PWD.
dna1990 wrote:Echo what was said above. Advance the top 1 or 2 from each rank, so that every rank has a rep in the final. But also advance the next top x fastest of the whole pack regardles of rank. In case say the 2nd place Bear is way faster than the 1st place Wolf, etc.
I pitched this idea to the Committee and was successful in getting an agreement that the top 3 cars in each Den, and the top 5 fastest overall will advance to the finals, in addition to applying this method to our Unlimited Class. Thanks to all for the input.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by rpcarpe »

Stan's usual advice of 'Advance 2x the number of trophies' would apply nicely here.

One recent Pack race had 3 Wolves take the #1, #2 & #3 slots!

We also keep everyone involved and excited by doing small individual awards, and then the biggest trophy (Big Wrench) for the overall fastest Den. Everyone stays 'til the end because they're all in the running until the last trip down the track.
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Re: Unlimited class in heats: how/who to advance

Post by Stan Pope »

rpcarpe wrote:Stan's usual advice of 'Advance 2x the number of trophies' would apply nicely here.
The theoretical basis for that advice applies to the transition from preliminary racing to finals within the same group and derives from the accuracy of the preliminary race method in selecting finalists. It applies mainly to points racing and similar "sorting procedures."

It may apply in this case, but the reasoning is different!
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