Speed Series Competitors

[Terry Everall]

Robbo informed us of great entry this year but I have looked at the stats which make interesting reading

Total Entrants 139

Not done an event 42

Only done one so far 28

So 30% haven't taken part at all yet

and 50% have done 1 event or less.

[cast iron]

       

[GuyH]

It certainly doesn't seem as hotly contested as it was last year...  but that could be down to me having been a newbie last season.. or down to us having been in Class A last year.

C'mon Tel, give us a comparison with last years stats, and the year before.

[Martin Keene]

Robbo informed us of great entry this year but I have looked at the stats which make interesting reading

Total Entrants 139

Not done an event 42

Only done one so far 28

So 30% haven't taken part at all yet

and 50% have done 1 event or less.

That'll be because I broke the car... But, 'd probably have only done Curborough anyway.

[Bananaman]

They just wanted the T-Shirt.......    

[davidgh]

Terry's point is interesting, but it's not the only feature of the Speed Series which raises questions  --  and where we might constructively apply a little thought.

My analysis of the 2006 series to date (first 18 events, up to Hethel) shows the following. (Some figures very slightly different from Terry's, but directionally identical).

A - Competitor numbers are fairly stable.

i - 99 entrants have competed so far this year (vs. a magnificent 118 in 2005, but only 96 in 2004)

ii - Forty registered competitors have failed to show up yet this year;

iii - Twenty-seven have been out just once (sixteen of them at Curborough).

B - Our classes at individual events tend to be small (even in the popular classes), and are slightly smaller than last season.

i - Less than 40% of all SS classes at events in 2006 to date have featured three or more competitors (i.e. yielding 17 points for the class winner).

a - In Class A, 61% of events to date have had three or more competitors.

By comparison, 93% of events over the whole 2005 season had three or more Class A competitors,

b - Class C, 50% this year vs. 68% for last season,

c - Class F, 61% vs. 71% last year

d - Class H, 56% vs. 68% in 2005.

e - All other classes lie well below 50% so far this year.

C - Only about 20% of Speed Series entrants compete for the ten championship and class wins.

i - 27 competitors (spread over eight classes) have so far competed in 6 or more events (pretty indicative of the number which might make the “magic 10” scores by end of season), versus 32 last year.

ii - The maximum in any class is six (Class F).

iii - No Class B competitor has competed six times so far this year, nor did any complete ten rounds last year.

iv - Only three competitors in Class A have been out six times so far this year  --  compared to twelve (including all eight drivers subsequently promoted) in 2005.

D - By corollary: 80% of Speed Series participants are “social” sprinters. (Question: could, or should, they be motivated to attend more events?)

E - The transition from “novice” to “expert” may cause losses to the series.

i - The five 2005 Class A promotees who moved to Class C for 2006 have sprinted (in the Speed Series) a total of 11 times so far this year, compared to 40 times in the first 18 events of 2005.

ii - By comparison, the non-promotees from last year’s Class A, who had made a total of 43 appearances by this time last year, have so far been out 39 times in 2006. This ratio is effectively a slight improvement, as the 2005 number includes six events by Alec Ambrose, who wrote his car off at Harewood and has consequently not registered for the Series this year.

iii - Interestingly, the three promotees from Class A last year who have chosen to move into Classes E and F for 2006 have competed a total of 32 times so far this year in comparison with 27 times in the first eighteen events last year.

iv - The three promotees from Class B to Class D have competed a total of 8 times this year against 14 last.

F - The points-scoring system is simple, but anomalous.

i - Being 1% slower than a competitor round Curborough (a ca. 35 second run) yields a time difference of 0.35s, which translates in our scoring system to a difference of 0.35 points (assuming positions below class winner). The same 1% speed difference at Pembrey (long circuit) can produce a deficit of 1.4 points.

This effect can be seen in the points gained for fourth place in the classes at two popular short and long events this year.

Curborough (A: 15.37, B: 15.81, D: 14.67, E: 15.48, F: 15.72, H: 15.25  --  an average of 15.38);

Croft            (A: 14.74, B: 13.00, D: 13.00, E: 13.13, F: 13.00, H: 13.00  --  an average of 13.31).

It seems questionable whether a fourth place at Curborough should be worth two points more in our series than the same placing at Croft.

G - There is a reasonably high probability of a tie for the overall championship.

i - Only three points separated the top 5 positions in the championship last year. Arguably it was only by luck that a tie was avoided, as Guy, Ash and Barry all scored more than ten class wins; the outcome was decided by the greater average class size in Class A.

ii - Despite the dearth of “17 point events” this year, three competitors (Mark Leybourne, Terry Everall and Mark Smith) have a serious chance of amassing 170 points. (In fact, it looks as though Terry and Mark S are turning out only to more popular events to do just that).

iii - The club runs the risk that a tie-break system has to called upon to determine the overall champion. Whilst this system may be both defined and equitable, it is not immediately transparent to the competitors.

.

[Terry Everall]

From 2005 spreadsheet apparently 143 registered and 23 did 1 event only and this is 15% :

22 did no events at all which is 15%

[Bananaman]

I think that the TOYO deal had an adverse effect on some more seasoned competitors. I know of at least one that decided to enter another championship for this very reason. However that does not account for all the otheres, some i know have entred and then had issues getting there cars finished, i can think of at least 4 in the situation.....

Others i assume had/have financial/matrimonial issues  

[cast iron]

a - In Class A, 61% of events to date have had three or more competitors.

By comparison, 93% of events over the whole 2005 season had three or more Class A competitors

Dont I bl**** know it

but there is a clear tie break system in the regs - the biggest overall time difference wins          

[scott beeland]

Others i assume had/have financial/matrimonial issues  

Some of us have both...And inability to afford trailer replacement.

I'll be back at some point hopefully but probably not to the 10+ events a year bracket

[V 8]

Wow, David that's alot of work, and shows some real "holes" in the system. Particularly interested in the points difference between long and short curcuits, something I hadn't really considered. Perhaps we could adopt a %age system to overcome this where 2nd gets 16 points and first gets additional point as a percentage difference to 2nd, the rest a deduction as a %age. Would certainly eradicate the long/short curcuit anomoly and the probability of a tie for the SS championship.

What time tomorrow?

JT

[adhawkins]

I imagine there will be a few who registered this year just to get cheap road tyres...

Andy

[davidgh]

Wow, David that's alot of work, and shows some real "holes" in the system. Particularly interested in the points difference between long and short curcuits, something I hadn't really considered. Perhaps we could adopt a %age system to overcome this where 2nd gets 16 points and first gets additional point as a percentage difference to 2nd, the rest a deduction as a %age. Would certainly eradicate the long/short curcuit anomoly and the probability of a tie for the SS championship.

What time tomorrow?

JT

John

Those (I think) are the facts.

I've also got some ideas for improvement, but there are so many countervailing influences that there is no simple answer (otherwise I'm sure we would have it). I therefore intend to send my suggestions for change  formally to the SSOT.

190 ok?

David

[adhawkins]

I therefore intend to send my suggestions for change  formally to the SSOT.

It'll never catch on

Andy

[John Loudon - Sponsorship Liaison]

Back to the issue raised with regards to points.

If say for example an event class consisted of 10 cars on the day and one of our competitors won that class but he was the only competitor from a WSCC class to be there on the day, he would only get 16 points. This seems grossly unfair after having beaten everyone else on the day. Perhaps a fairer mechanism would be to count the total number of cars in a class on the day and use that as the measure of what maximun points can be scored eg - 17, 16.5 or 16

John