We had a drivers meeting prior to our monthly NASCAR race yesterday to go over some items for our upcoming Enduro in June.
1. First of all, it was discussed and then decided to change the date of our enduro so it does not conflict with Father's Day.
A show of hands for either June 29th or June 22nd was taken. Only June 22nd had "no" issues, so the day of our hardbody enduro will be changed immediately to
Sunday June 22nd. This also means that our regular monthly races for June (June 15th) will be held. Although it's Father's Day, hopefully we get enough racers to show
on June 15th to have our regular monthly races as well as get ready for the enduro on June 22nd.
2. Another enduro topic was about how teams will be formed. Originally, I thought having a random selection of racers for each team as well as a designated team leader (based
on the 8 fastest racers signed up for the enduro) would tend to level the playing field. I did receive a couple of comments at the time that they would prefer to form teams of
their choosing. Since we will have two podiums, a regular podium and a racer handicap podium, random team formation is not required.
With this in mind, it was decided to allow racers to form their own teams, but each team must have 2 racers each before acquiring a 3rd member. We do have enough racers at this
time to form 8 teams of 2, but our goal is to have teams of 3 each (24 racers total). This would provide enough racers, turn marshalls and pit crew to easily handle the 4 hour enduro.
Some racers have health concerns and therefore we need to make sure their teams have a minimum of 3 members to allow flexibility as far as how much driving will be needed
by team members.
3. Car body selection was also discussed and all bodies were chosen by all 8 teams. Originally, car bodies were to be a random selection but some racers wanted to choose a body of their choice and so I decided to let teams select their own car body. We had no problems in choosing car bodies. All teams were told to be sure they paint their cars in the same "livery" as shown on the model kit box. This will make it easier during tech inspection to verify that each team is using the correct body.
4. Lastly, I brought up a proposal to change the chassis width of the 1980-present NASCAR class from 2 7/8" to 3" wide. This change would be made so that the larger/heavier late model car bodies (roughly 1998 and newer) would not be a significant handicap compared to many of the very thin/lightweight mid 80's NASCARs. The 80's cars for the most part have curved side body panels whereas the newer NASCARs have vertical body side panels. Widening the chassis width will help level the playing field somewhat between the newer NASCARs and the mid-80's NASCARs.
I will change the current 1980-Present NASCAR rules to allow chassis width up to 3.00" wide. This change does not affect the rule for front and rear tire width which allows the tires to go as wide as the body as long as the tire is not visible when viewing from above the car body.
Remember, the goal for each enduro team is to have 3 members minimum. Up to 4 team members per team is allowed, but try to fill up all of the teams with 3 members before pursuing a 4th team member.
Keith