WMRC 2013 Rule book is posted

[Dean]

Hello Everyone. The WMRC has posted their 2013 rule book. There are MANY MANY changes to their rule book this year to bring them more in line with both Washington and Oregon race clubs, which many of the WMRC members attend.

A copy of the thread and rule book can be found here:
http://www.westwoodracing.com/forums/showthread.php?5967-WMRC-2013-Rulebook

 

[Planepower]

Wow! Reviewed your rule book, I must say EMRA is rather lenient on our novice class. And you must have tailor made your classes to represent the types of riders / bikes in the membership. EMRA again seems a lot more open with our current system or perhaps we are stuck in the past.

 

[Dean]

We brought our novice rules in line with both Oregon OMRRA and Washington WMRRA. Basically, we stole the rules from them. Years ago, the WMRC novice rules were identical to what they are today, so really we are just bringing all back around full circle. The EMRA is so lucky with the facility you have so that you don't really have to implement rules/tasks around setup/teardown, etc.

Our class structure was also "right sized" to make Grids bigger and more exciting. People just do not want to watch a race with 4 or 5 bikes on it. That's good for 2 maybe 3 laps maximum, and then people get bored and leave. Also, with the way that we were splitting classes between intermediate and expert, we were offering 6 podiums per race with sometimes only 8 riders. Sponsors don't like paying for that either. Our class structure also is starting to get similar to our cousin's down south too. It makes it easier for travelling riders to have similar classes.

I won't lie. The WMRC is having challenges getting decent race dates, however, there are two other tracks/clubs 2 to 5 hours away, and they get decent dates. We see this set of rule changes possibly enticing some southern riders to come up north and race with us too, as the rules are now similar.

The biggest change to accommodate that is the elimination of the stock exhaust rule. You still have to meet 88db, which very few aftermarket pipes can do, but it's possible with some of them. We hope that allows more riders to visit our track. We also have to be extremely strict about the sound rules though, so we encourage riders to also come with a spare stock exhaust if needed.

 

[Planepower]

I agree that a low population race for just a few participants AND awarding trophies for just participating is weak. I understand our Exec is trying to come up with ways to change our schedules to promote better grids. There's nothing quite as lame as watching 4 riders on the track and one lapping the others. Things need to change.
As for EMRA have an excellent facility, I concur. We are extremely blessed to have a motorcycle friendly organization allow us full use of their facility. Perhaps once we have to deal with 'car guys' differences will be apparent. (I'm old and remember WAY back dealing with Race City in the 80s and they weren't too bad, it just took several incidents to promote changes).
Best of luck to WMRC in 2013!

 

[Dean]

Ok, I've been fielding questions to people with some confusion over our new rules. There has been concern about making time limits, etc.

Let me hopefully stop some of the confusion.

From a WCC standpoint, all the classes remain the same. We will still score Intermediate and Expert separately in the WCC spreadsheet. Our graduated novices will be designated Intermediates for the WCC, and your intermediates will remain intermediates.

From a WMRC standpoint, you'll score based on our rules, which Intermediates/graduated novices will compete for position in a race. I'll give an example. If you are an intermediate rider, and you enter Superbike. You get gridded with everyone else, as we've never not combined the superbike class. If you come in 14th place, but are the first intermediate to cross the line, you would get 14th place WMRC points in our season, and you'd get 1st place WCC points for being the first intermediate across the line. Does that make sense? Nothing really changes there.

As for time cut-offs. We put those in as more of a safety mechanism. Rain obviously changes things, and we realize that slower paces are a result. Consider those dry cut-offs and we will also be lenient with them too for out of town riders. Here is another example of why those are there. In superbike, being 15 laps, if you cannot run consistent 1:18 laps in the race, you will likely be lapped twice in the same race. During those lapping times, our frontrunners, while competing are likely to split the rider. In the past, we've seen some riders change lines to "get out of the way", and that changes is usually disastrous. We are trying to base the cutoff on 120% of the lead rider, and again, we have discretion as to if you should be out there or not. Common sense will usually tell you if you can compete or not.

I hope that helps to eliminate some concerns. I'm not sure about high vis vests for intermediates during our races yet, but that should not be a deal breaker should it? We provide the vests anyway. We will not require you to changes number plates to yellow/black, etc. You just have to change conflicting numbers with an X or another digit.

 

[Ryno]

So for superbike in the WCC round, will that still be a 15 lap race? Or will it drop to a 12 lap race as stated in the rule book?

 

[Dean]

Sorry, 12 lap race. Formula Ultra is 15 laps.

 

[Fireman]

All great info Dean. I look forward to chatting with you soon about it.

 

[sv-racing-parts]

WMRC 2013 Rule book is posted

For anyone following the WMRC rule changes on the WMRC Forum you already know that there is more than a little dicussion and commenting on the New Rule Changes going on,

WMRC has a meeting on Monday and it can be expected that a number of issues with these New Rules will be coming up,

I will be at the Monday meeting and will be happy to bring all of us here at EMRA up to date with where the rules end up going; Either online or in person at the EMRA booth at the bike show,

See you all soon,

Best regards,
Blair

 

[Ryno]

thanks for the update Blair. The WMRC disscussion has been nothng less than entertaining

 

[Fireman]

Change is always met with resistance. Such is the way of human kind

I am interested to see what changes will be made to the 2013 rule book if any. Good luck my WMRC brothers. There is no doubt you are doing your best to promote your club.

 

[Dean]

We've posted an updated copy of the book. Time cut-offs have been removed for all but Formula Ultra, and novice rules have been clarified quite a bit.

 

[Fireman]

We've posted an updated copy of the book. Time cut-offs have been removed for all but Formula Ultra, and novice rules have been clarified quite a bit.

Looks like some good tweaks. Thank you for the update dean.

 

[sv-racing-parts]

WMRC 2013 Rule book is posted

Last night saw a well attended and lively meeting for WMRC with many contentious issues discussed and a good bit of give and take being exercised.

There will be special presentation and vote at the meeting on the issue of links on the Ducati's as a resolution.

Changes are coming in the rule book to provide clarity and consistency. One of the members who is a technical writer is going to undertake to clean up the language.

It was pointed out that some of the changes affect by-laws in the club charter and need to be corrected,

There will be a 2013 Race season, with a potential of 3 race weekends from April to the end of June. There are no dates for racing from the end of June until late September so this may provide for some added attendance at our EMRA Events in July, August and September,

I did get a confirmation from several SV and Middleweight Twin Riders that they will be joining us for the SV Racing Parts Cup series,

Watch the WMRC Forum for further posting on rule changes and the amendments to the rule changes. It is looking like once the member responses to the rules are factored in the final changes will be workable,

Enjoy the ride, and best regards everyone,
Blair

 

[Ryno]

Was there talk of when their schedule will be released?

 

[sv-racing-parts]

We know the tentative schedule, a weekend toward the end of April; A May date on about the second weekend or so; The last weekend in June and a later weekend in September.

The date cannot be finalized until the car club confirms that they will release those dates to WMRC and that will be just immediately before the Vancouver bike show on the 17th of January,

It is always a last minute tough situation on dates for the WMRC,

Most likely those dates will stand, but the car club did yank our dates last year after the bike show announcement, so stand by:

Best regards,
Blair