SCCA, it makes sense to have double schools...

[Flyinglizard]

That what I do ,on a personal basis . You really need one on one to get the racecraft down . The best way is to do some track days with a good racer , swap cars or whatever it takes to get observed while on track. The incar vids are pretty usefull. Really hard to do with more than one student, IMHO.

 

[JIgou]

What class for the Chumpcars??. What rules. Great idea. We run our Chumper @ Roebling Road a lot, about the same as the ITB cars.
Way to adjust to the market.
MM

I've heard of other regions (Land O'Lakes to name one) with the same idea.

The general concept is "make the car meet SCCA safety standards" which isn't much of a stretch for MOST of the cars. The regional class then makes it legit for the other random stuff....from window removal to cars that most certainly aren't classed anywhere else in SCCA.

http://forums.dmvrscca.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2303 has the "official" rules for the class, called E11 (for Enduro 2011). It ended up split into three classes, based on number of engine cylinders; I probably wouldn't have gone that route until we had an established user base, but that's minor.

 

[jjjanos]

Why require two schools at all? We could require only single school to get these people on track quicker. We could even drop the weekend format and run them through the school in one day and have a race the next. Or if we really want to get them on track as fast as possible, we could just abolish the school requirement entirely and put the new racer out there immediately.

In terms of preparing people to in a racing environment, two two-day schools trumps everything. One weekend wonders, on average, are less prepared to be in a racing environment because double schools, as a rule, cannot offer the same amount of track time and instruction as two two-day schools.

In the old days, there was no lack of schools. I believe that a region was required to host a school for each national the region hosted. Things changed when SCCA started accepting professional schools for licensing requirements and dropped the requirement for 1 school = 1 national. Suddenly, regions were no longer required to hold a school plus they weren't even covering the nut on entry fees.

 

[Mseiler]

I understand the comment about "one weekend wonders" and to some extent I agree. But, I don't think any school or number of schools, can adequately prepare someone for an actual race environment. What school provides the experience of being lapped by much faster cars racing for position? What school offers bump drafting as part of the curriculum? You may get a taste of door-to-door, nose-to-tail at speed but, in a school everyone is being a bit more cautious than what goes on during a race. We had about 15 cars in our school group, compared to 67 cars in our first race.

With 5 years of Time Trials and some F&C experience I felt like I had a fair background going into the double school but, road racing is a whole world apart and until you do it, it's nearly impossible to understand. Even though I've been signed off for a full RR license I still view myself as very much a newb and probably will for a while.

 

[Flyinglizard]

I put Michael in a Ministock round pounder, to get him ready for SM. He was ready for the road racing right away. He went from 25 cars on a 3/8 mile to 20 cars on 2.0 miles.
The roundy round racing was/is a lot nicer than the SM guys. .

 

[Matt93SE]

You may get a taste of door-to-door, nose-to-tail at speed but, in a school everyone is being a bit more cautious than what goes on during a race. We had about 15 cars in our school group, compared to 67 cars in our first race.

OMFG 67?!?!
we had 67 entries... TOTAL.. this weekend for our R/N at Eagle's Canyon. of course most of the fast guys went to Hallett for the BFG Super Tour. Still have a couple quick guys in every class, but some of the run groups were just stupid small. Prod/SS/IT only had 8 cars at the regional on Sat, and they split the group to two run groups on Sun for the Nat/Rest Regional. 7 in one group, 8 in the other. It was like watching a DE except for the SSB cars that raced each other like an SM race. 3 cars nose to tail for about 10 laps, occasionaly trading places. awesome to watch!

 

[Speed Raycer]

The SCCA's going to need to figure out something QUICK. To the joe average racer, what's the easiest way on track right now?

About 100 guys just raced at Road America with CHUMP last weekend. I'd hazard to guess that less then 1/2 of them had prior race experience. No major contact, very few offs and very slick conditions for about 7 of the 14 hours of racing. All for about $200-300 per head.