"Practice & Testing Guidelines
I think a lot of the low budget teams do not even show up to the races, when they know teams are testing all week long??
Since you are asking opinions, I’ll suggest that it does no harm, but also has limited benefit. If you want to test bad enough, run there the week before, rent a similar track, or just stay in town a few more days.
As far as attracting cars that feel out-gunned, well good luck with that one. Racers will race, but the others will just look for excuses.
Practice within the days immediately prior to a race should be open to all or not at all. Its an egregious flaunting of money to allow someone the exclusive opportunity to replicate the atmospheric conditions as it relates to temperature,humidity and the effect it can have on carbs and tire wear to the exclusion of other competitiors. I thought that was why good teams kept note on past experiences at each venue. It is tough enough to try and compete simply from an equipment standpoint without having to fine tune the damn thing.
With very few exceptions, I HATE practice days. There is a lot of expense, for zero dollar return. It makes it almost mandatory for everyone to do it (while many teams can’t), and therefore do not come on race day. Why show up when you’re already behind the 8-ball?
Dirt racers get VERY little practice time, which, in my opinion really balances out the field. It comes down to an educated guess on the proper set-up… some hit it, and some miss. and when you miss it, you can change your driving style to possibly find a line your car DOES like.
Too much practice leads to high speed parades… I’m more interested in RACING than I am into high speeds of follow-the-leader.
Where I grew up, there was ONE (if any at all) practice days per season… the week before the regular season started. Want to get better? Come on race day and work on it.
Thank you frisson, that was,exactly what I was trying to say. The promoters love the extra money, but in reality they are only hurting themselves. No practice at track, the week of race, and car counts will go up. We need to go back to basics, one day shows. Gates open at 10 on sat., 3,4,or even 5 rounds of practice, race at 7. Cra series must know something, to have that in there rules…? And they seem to have a good car count.
I’m torn on this one. I disagree that cars practicing will make other cars not show up, most of the time you wouldn’t even know they were there unless you drove by the track everyday and looked in every couple hours or so, or if someone told you. However I do agree that its unfair that some teams get so much more practice than others…at the same time I think its hard to get the car set up in a one hour practice session on race day, especially if you are inexperienced or if you wrecked the car the week before. I see what you are saying about practice making for high speed parades…but how are the other drivers supposed to keep up with the people who have a million laps around their local track other than practicing and getting as good as they are. Would you rather see a high speed parade or one car a half lap ahead of everyone else the whole race. The guys that are good enough to win big races don’t need the practice…Augie Grill showed up the morning of the Governer’s Cup, never driven the track and won. I think the people that are renting the track are ones who need seat time to get competitive. I know every time I’ve rented the track a couple days before the race it was because the car was wrecked the previous week or two and I just got it back together and want to make sure everything will function ok, or at least get the car halfway back to where it was. If I didn’t have that time at the track to test I wouldn’t go to the race, so there are two sides to it.
And I also didn’t see Erik Jones get a boatload of practice time when HE whipped the Gov Cup field last year either. He showed up when everyone else did, worked out a set up, and outdrove the best racers around.
Every pit pass bought, every set of tires used, every tank of racing fuel, and every lap you put on your equipment in PRACTICE, are all dollars used NOT racing.
Any short track race that requires three days to complete is far too important for its own good.
[B][I]In an article of Dave Moody, there was that phrase. So true.
What he meant by that is that in Saturday Night Short Track Racing, the name explains it, Saturday Night Short Track Racing.
Not arrive Friday for expensive and intensive practice sessions, then run other practices and qualification on Saturday and finally if you survive the 2 previous days without going broke, we’ll run feature on Sunday. THAT is for Na$car, F1, Indy, the richest of the rich.
If everything would have stayed the way it was, the sport would not be in so bad of a condition today.
You wanna have seat time, race more often. There are races all the time everywhere. Just go. You might learn to go fast by practicing alone, but you won’t learn to race for sure. And going fast alone and racing in traffic are 2 different ball games.[/I][/B]
You wanna have seat time, race more often
That is a great way to look at it!
Teams with money will still find a way to buy time however.