:Caution, impending wall-o'-text:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MicheleAbbate
I can appreciate your point, but at the same time, I feel like you're discrediting our efforts and our championship win.  To each his own, but I'm still proud and humbled to show that winning a championship isn't impossible, even when you don't have close to what is "necessary". Consistency, persistence, passion, and a whole ton of teamwork is what made this seasons championship possible, and there are so many people that are a part of this year's title. |
First and foremost: I'm gonna defend King_Tut and say it's not personal Michele.. it's a "S2k vs FT86" thing that has been a perpetual debate between these two platforms since the inception of this board.
Moving on. This is directed to the audience as a whole, not Michele.
Racing is massively complex and therefore understanding the value of the outcomes of racing is also complex. A lot of time people think that winning a championship means they were the fastest, they were the best of the field. Not only is this rarely true in Amateur racing, it's also rarely true in professional racing. However in Amateur racing what commonly exists is the a "Towing Championship" where you have the ability to finish well in each race but win the championship simply by the fact that you attend more races and accrue more points or are able to drop more events that had unfavorable outcomes.
In grassroots motorsports, I surmise that the most common championship is a "Towing Championship". The reason is that the logistics of transport (especially regarding a national title) is, in many cases, the most expensive aspect of the endeavor. However, a person who has this
does get to claim they have a championship and
so do their sponsors, and this is good, this in itself is a victory. That's the game.. reducing your costs to play, while pleasing the folks who help fund your hobby/habit/addiction/future career. It's one aspect of a "complete driver".
Can a "Towing championship" still have a great deal of meaning, can it still mean the victor was the best, the most consistent, etc etc? YES! But it's more complex because one
has to take into account the prep level of the car, the competency of the driver and individual competition at individual events. Example: that "prepped to the rules" STU S2k didn't beat Michele
everytime and the delta in its victories weren't massive either and we know that Michele's FRS isn't close to maximizing the STU ruleset (as I pointed out regarding lap times) and this data has meaning.
What about the issue of low field counts in relationship to the meaning of a championship? The field count isn't always relevant, in fact it rarely is. The relevancy is in the quality of talent pool. I'm around the PRO3, Spec E46, Spec 944, Spec Pinata guys.. there might be a 25 car field, but many times there's really only 3, maybe 5 really fast guys. So really.. it's a "field of 5", then the entry fillers. Why is this?
Money/Time/Talent. Being upfront takes all three and most people who race with SCCA/NASA/ICSCC are making a compromise between those 3 things. Some of the fastest guys always finish 4th or worse in any given race because they can't "afford to win". Some guys finishing 2nd have spent 3x the money than the guy finishing 1st.. that's always awesome, and all too rare.
Sometimes in the thin fields of a mature class, something neat happens. In cases where the field was popular but then popularity declined, the fast guys may be the ones that remained and so there may only be 3-5 entries but it's a "concentration of talent". That's been the case here in ITA and a few other classes.
Going fast is neat.. sure.. whatever.. I mean it is.. but it's so little of the whole story. What's rarely admired is the commitment from a grassroots racer to "put together a season". It's hard, it's INSANELY HARD.. It's often harder than the logistics of racing. The towing, hotels, schedules, sponsorship dollars, commitments, money... and all of this before you even get into testing, tuning, car prep and driver development. The
logistics is massive talent in and of itself. When I attend the 25 hours of Thunderhill and I have a moment of awe.. It's not at a the cars, it's at the eloquence and scale of the massive logistical hurdles overcome and solved by some of the teams, both well funded and otherwise.
So racing is equal parts car development, operations, complex problem solving, PR, Sales, engineering...and then talent, and I haven't even covered the sacrifices made on the personal and social fronts either. I have 1 closely fought championship that went the whole calendar and my other two were products of attending more races. But even in those other two, I hold dear because I was always competing at every event and I'm "poor" compared to most folks who can afford racing so putting together a championship run for me massive commitment which is a challenge in itself.
So Championships do have varying degrees of meaning, they always have value, but definitely varying degrees of meaning. The reason I was digging through entries, names, cars, prep levels and lap times because I want to assess for myself, as a racer, what it meant to do achieve Michele is achieving especially as a rookie in this, because I've never had the resources do anything on a national level.
I don't care if Michele Abbate wins a championship with deep fields or thin fields, so long as there is a field, or if she attends all the races or not. Anyone (with lots of money) can build a car to the limit of the rules and then only be fast at their local tracks.. big whoop. This isn't that. After looking at logistics of Michele's national endeavor, she has every reason to be proud and we have every reason to admire. From where I'm sitting, with my background in racing, Michele is a
Complete Race Driver as would be defined by Ross Bentley.
That's damn admirable and that's that.