Rd Amer practice July4~5

[Court Jester]

True. it is a smart choice by NESBA to retain that date. it's smart for any track day org to get a date just before a race org has a weekend get together. the details of the org in question are still a knife in the kidney. but i think extract0r put it best. 

[xb9racer]

Well, seeing CCS picked those dates(?), maybe they should have tried to get Thursday for practice. Either way, nothing can be done now. Pay and practice or don't. Really that simple.

[fourandsix]

The cost at the thursday at Infineon was $325 for 5 on track sessions. If you want to practice pay if not don't. I don't think NESBA is putting a gun to anyones head. Why should CCS take the risk and not have enough people show up anyway. Should CCS eat the loss? I can't stand how some racers think they are entitled to everything. The way i see it if it wasn't for NESBA you would even have the oppurtunity to practice. Oh sure you can do the solo events in CCS. What does that amount to 7 laps ? Lets see 7 laps or 7 20 min sessions you do the math.

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

As for the cost, imagine what it costs to rent Road America for a day?  I am only guessing but I would say around 20k a day, now imagine you are nesba and you are offering full refunds in case of bad weather...  How much would you have to charge at an event to minimize your possible losses ( the track does not refund nesba, nesba just eats the 20K)?  Nesba is Non-profit business, meaning at the end of the year they claim no profits, all income must be reinvested in the business ( trailers, websites, blah blah).  So, in order to keep this business running, considering some events lose money and some make money, they must treat it as a business.

It may be possible NESBA didn't bring in as much money (to have to blow on equipment and such) as they would have liked to by not selling out absolutely every event (and maybe having a rain-out or 2 or 3), but an actual LOSS over the course of a season - no frikken way! (Do the math for yourself and see!) Today there are alot of people willing to pay alot of money to get on an actual RACE track, on a RACE bike, using RACE tires, while wearing RACE gear, but not actually RACE. I find it difficult to believe that Track Days put on by the big org's that cater to that crowd are anything but lucrative. The fact that some racers use those same days to try and get some additional track time is more out of the fact of there being very limited availablity to get on the majority of race tracks thruout the entire nation. I think almost every racer would rather go out on the track at a racer practice day that had alternating Amateur/Expert sessions than at a track day combined with street riders in any level group.

I also believe that most Track Day org's goal is not to be a stepping stone for riders to progess to racing, that's counter productive to their pocket books. After all, if it were a stepping stone into racing then why don't those same Track Day org's actually offer new racer licensing that's accredited with the major race org's? (To the best of my knowledge they don't)

Track Days have their place, and actual Racing has it's place, but in my opinion their goals are more different than similar and are too often confused as having a common goal. I look at the difference between Track Days and actual Racing the same as I do the difference between driving on the Interstate and Racing on a track - both are operating a vehicle in a restricted environment, but the situations are really quite different.

[251am]

The cost at the thursday at Infineon was $325 for 5 on track sessions. If you want to practice pay if not don't. I don't think NESBA is putting a gun to anyones head.

(holy crap-I agree with Rashid?)  Way to go Jim. Fong was looking good. Where is he now, like in 5th overall?

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

(holy crap-I agree with Rashid?) 

[Cue Golden Earring music]

Help I'm stepping into the twilight zone
Place is a madhouse feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go now that I've gone too far


[/Cue Golden Earring music]

[fourandsix]

I do agree that trackday orgs aren't really a pure stepping stone to racing but there are some riders that do move to racing. In the old days the only way to get on a racetrack was to actually race. I think the trackday thing is good for all the riders that love to go fast on a bike but have no desire to race. Think of all the kids that play stick and ball sports but after high school have no chance to play ever again.

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

I agree it's better to have street riders going fast in a controlled environment, but my major complaint is with those that plan on or do progress to racing from Track Days. I have seen SOOOOOO many guys who planned on "just doing a few track days to get familiar with being on the track before I go racing" never end up going racing ever or get all freaked out once they do try it. Last season was a prime example, a couple of track day regulars showed up to BFR to get their race license and race the next day and proceeded to do just that, except what happened is they got so freaked out by actual racing that they decided not to race again because they needed to "do more track days to get better prepared for actual racing". To me doing more track days to better prepare for racing is a contradiction, the reason they were all freaked out is because they had never experienced close passing situations and bikes swapping paint due to the safety restraints in place at Track Days which require certain passing distances between bikes. That might be great for keeping crashes to a minimum at Track Days, but it also trains riders that there is going to be this 'buffer' around them that no one is supposed to enter. What those guys actually need is to do more RACING, and less Track Days to break those developed comfort zones.

I'm one of those that started racing when Track Days didn't exist, I went straight to racing from the street, that's what the AMATEUR class is supposed to be used for - learning (not for people who have literally put 1000's of miles on the track at Track Days and can finally run Top 10 Expert lap times). I think it's kind of sad that RACE tracks have departed from catering to true RACING org's 1st and now going to a mentality that it's all about the $$$$$$ and letting anyone have prime weekend dates that will pay the most money for them. The mentality shift by street riders that they "have just as much of a right to be on the RACE track on the weekends as racers do" is sad as well, I have heard them even go as far as saying that racers should have to race during the week because it's too expensive for the TRACK DAY RIDERS to miss work during the week and have to pay for the Track Day as well. WOW! Though I don't like 1 day race formats, I do like what Dean is doing at Track Addix to try and pull Track Day riders into racing by using the format that he does, I applaud that effort.

Overall, It's a tough situation. Cater to people who don't want to race but want to play on a race track, while at the same time allowing racers to still have the weekend dates needed so badly just to make it possible to have enough racers show up to make events competative. But on the other hand I also strongly believe that Track Days can act as a passifier to those who may have been thinking about getting into racing, in those cases I believe that many who would have raced will never make that step and will never know what they could have achieved in actual racing - when I see Track Day regulars who were just preparing to go racing with literally 100+ Track Days under their belt I see people who obviously missed out - it's too bad they never made the jump to actual racing!

[251am]

I do agree that trackday orgs aren't really a pure stepping stone to racing but there are some riders that do move to racing. In the old days the only way to get on a racetrack was to actually race. I think the trackday thing is good for all the riders that love to go fast on a bike but have no desire to race. Think of all the kids that play stick and ball sports but after high school have no chance to play ever again.

  Come on now Jim, you're being modest here eh? If I remember right Fong is #5 for '07 overall  in which AMA class? Don't you have somethin to do with that success?











(i know this ain't no anti-NESBA string along here, but let's help kevin out a little bit, ah?) 

[251am]

[Cue Golden Earring music]

Help I'm stepping into the twilight zone
Place is a madhouse feels like being cloned
My beacon's been moved under moon and star
Where am I to go now that I've gone too far


[/Cue Golden Earring music]

  Rob, you're right on the money there. The Twilight Zone of 20 or 30 years ago when folks could have a disagreement one day, and maybe actually agree on something a different day, the weeks or months later.   

  It's another fine day to be a motorcycle racer. All my aches and pains are gone by turn 1.

[HAWK]

Mike, I think if you look really hard at the situation you will find that the tracks catering to the trackday orgs is a good thing. I don't see any of the race orgs complaining that they can't get enough weekends and if you take away the income from the trackday orgs then the tracks would have to raise the rent to the race orgs.

I would like to see a little more cooperation between the trackday orgs and the race orgs though. In a situation like the RA dates maybe there could be a reduced membership fee for a racer that has no intention of riding with the trackday org the rest of the season. Also, making it easier to get into the A group so that you can actually practice, or making a racer group for these specific weekends that is open only to licensed racers (and yes we amateurs are actually racers). All just wild ideas without much thought to viability (as I don't run a trackday org and don't know the logistics involved) but the idea is a little more cooperation and I think that we could all just get along.

[backMARKr]

                                                 WABBIT SEASON!!.......DUCK SEASON!!