Solo 1 Scoring & Classification Proposal

[James Mewett]

Re: Solo 1 Scoring & Classification Proposal

A scoring system must be clear and concise but it must also represent the fundamental aims of the motor sport organization in question. I believe the goal of Solo 1 should be to combine both speed and overall consistency.

SoloSprint results are based on best lap time (speed) and consistency is used to break ties.

I believe, at present, we would be hard pressed to find a dozen people from the Solo 1 community who could accurately convey how the existing calculations are derived, what they really mean, and how they might affect the drivers. This is a major problem. Anyone of us should be able to give another person a quick breakdown of the championship points scoring system within two minutes or less.

The winner of your class gets 100 points. Your points are 100 x his best time / your best time.

If your best time is 5% slower than his, you get a score of 95%.

Actually, only a dozen people in SoloSprint don't know this.

Secondly, if we are looking to measure both consistency of lap times and the fastest single lap for any given driver, I believe I have a simple and fair solution:

Actually, I think you overestimate the interest in consistency. I think most SoloSprint competitors would say that the fastest car in a class should win - period. The backup score is only a necessary evil to break ties.

We all know how hard organizers work to help out with our Solo 1 events. Every participant is grateful and thankful for those efforts and we are all fortunate to have had individuals step up to the plate to help carry the load. That said, I would like to propose that ‘org’ points be handed out to organizers as an average of their best 6 results throughout the season and not as simple victories. In this way we are allowing organizers to drop their worst or ‘sixth’ score and giving them the opportunity to replace that lesser score with an average which will still be superior but will not reflect poorly upon the drivers who actually drove in the event throughout the day.

I don't know who invented organizer points, but they were brilliant. What better way to encourage the keeners to get involved with the running of events. They don't reflect poorly on the drivers because they don't get scored in the days results, only in the overall.

There should be two main groups of classifications: Street Legal vehicles and Non-Street Legal vehicles. The primary sub-groups within both of these two main groups should be AWD and 2WD. After that, vehicles should be placed into classification by power to weight ratios only. Every competitor should have his or her car dyno-tested and weighed at the beginning of every season. There should be no need for ‘pips’ for suspension mods or anything else. Every car will be determined to be either street legal or not, four-wheel drive or not, and weighed and dyno-tested for placing into classification.

These distinctions are completely arbitrary with no relationship with performance potential. How would this be interesting or fair? Suspension tuning has more to do with lap times than power, but is completely ignored by your proposal.

[lowrider]

Re: Solo 1 Scoring & Classification Proposal

I believe the goal of Solo1 should be a competition of speed. We're running time trials aren't we?

Either way, the scoring mechanism is sound and much simpler than the existing method.

[MazdaMatt]

Re: Solo 1 Scoring & Classification Proposal

I believe the goal of Solo 1 should be to combine both speed and overall consistency.

I believe the goal of Solo1 should be a competition of speed. We're running time trials aren't we?

[ScotcH]

Re: Solo 1 Scoring & Classification Proposal

comment 1: Averaging is not a good measure of consitency. For that you need to use standard deviation or something.

comment 2: The current classification system works pretty well ... I don't think anyone is talking about completely replacing it, just meybe tweaking it a bit.

[lowrider]

I have given quite a bit of thought to our current scoring mechanism and here are a few of the notions I have come up with so far:

A scoring system must be clear and concise but it must also represent the fundamental aims of the motor sport organization in question. I believe the goal of Solo 1 should be to combine both speed and overall consistency.

Firstly then, every participant involved in Solo 1 should have a clear understanding of the ‘points’ system and its implications for the outcome of any event and/or the season overall. I believe, at present, we would be hard pressed to find a dozen people from the Solo 1 community who could accurately convey how the existing calculations are derived, what they really mean, and how they might affect the drivers. This is a major problem. Anyone of us should be able to give another person a quick breakdown of the championship points scoring system within two minutes or less. It shouldn’t have to be ‘rocket science’.

Secondly, if we are looking to measure both consistency of lap times and the fastest single lap for any given driver, I believe I have a simple and fair solution:

In the ‘one hot lap’ scenario our calculations are quite simple; we use the best time of the day for any given competitor in their respective class.

Scoring:

Competitors will receive points for their respective finishes according to their best lap times of the day within their various classes as follows:

1st Place 10 points
2nd Place 8 points
3rd Place 6 points
4th Place 5 points
5th Place 4 points
6th Place 3 points
7th Place 2 points
8th Place 1 point

If you are in a class with more than 8 competitors and you do not finish within the top 8 you do not receive any points towards the overall championship.

We are, however, as a racing organization also looking for ‘consistency’. Hence, we should also give points to the top eight competitors in each class for smoothness as follows: We simply take the average time of each competitor’s best six laps and place the drivers in accordance from fastest average lap time to slowest within each class. If for some reason a driver cannot complete at least six laps throughout the course of the day, that driver should not be eligible for consistency points on that day. Again, placing points for consistency should be handed out as follows:

1st Place 10 points
2nd Place 8 points
3rd Place 6 points
4th Place 5 points
5th Place 4 points
6th Place 3 points
7th Place 2 points
8th Place 1 point

Therefore, it should be possible for a competitor to achieve a maximum of 20 points at any given Solo 1 event; 10 points for having the fastest single lap in their respective class, and, 10 points for obtaining the fastest average time in that same class by way of calculating the average of that driver’s 6 best laps.

In theory then, a driver who accidentally comes up with one amazing lap will not necessarily benefit by accumulating many ‘consistency’ points towards the overall championship.

At the end of the year each driver’s six best results from both ‘hot lap’ and ‘consistency’ points totals will be used to calculate the overall scores and rankings. This system will clearly determine how a driver places within his or her specific class and it will also give the Solo 1 community a very clear and understandable points system with which to calculate the rankings of all of the participants overall.

If at any given event several drivers from different classes have the same points totals, the overall placing can be determined by calculating which driver’s 6 ‘consistency’ laps are closest to his or her actual ‘fastest’ lap. The competitor whose average of 6 laps is closest in time to their actual fastest lap of the day places first overall and so on. This calculation can easily be determined by dividing a driver’s 6 lap average time by his or her fastest lap time of the day.

I believe this would be a fair and equitable way of scoring the Solo 1 Championships.

Some additional issues:

We all know how hard organizers work to help out with our Solo 1 events. Every participant is grateful and thankful for those efforts and we are all fortunate to have had individuals step up to the plate to help carry the load. That said, I would like to propose that ‘org’ points be handed out to organizers as an average of their best 6 results throughout the season and not as simple victories. In this way we are allowing organizers to drop their worst or ‘sixth’ score and giving them the opportunity to replace that lesser score with an average which will still be superior but will not reflect poorly upon the drivers who actually drove in the event throughout the day.

Classifications:

There should be two main groups of classifications: Street Legal vehicles and Non-Street Legal vehicles. The primary sub-groups within both of these two main groups should be AWD and 2WD. After that, vehicles should be placed into classification by power to weight ratios only. Every competitor should have his or her car dyno-tested and weighed at the beginning of every season. There should be no need for ‘pips’ for suspension mods or anything else. Every car will be determined to be either street legal or not, four-wheel drive or not, and weighed and dyno-tested for placing into classification.

Thank you for reading.

Please understand that these are just thoughts. I am interested in everyone’s feedback. I am really only looking to make Solo 1 better in a fair and competitive manner for all of its participants.

Thanks again.