This was a conversation my team were having getting ready to start our N24.
We were in Split 4 of the first timeslot and had 14 P Cups and all the rest were GT3,
Split 3 had a single TCR
Only split 1 and 2 had GT4's
At the same time there is another issue that continues to annoy us, being from Australia it is typical for us to run the first time slot for special events as usually that starts at 8am for us, but what we find is the DC rate in the first few hours is extremely high, cars will make a mistake 30 mins into a 24 hour race and they just leave and sign up for the next event and go again.
I hate the my timeslot gets used as a trial run and it sucks when you drive something like a GT4 and after 2 hours half your competition has left, leaving you just lapping for hours.
Our solution to this is to create a dedicated enduro license and it work something like this
- Car class eligibility tied to your enduro license
- Effectively makes it so that before you can do an enduro in the top class, you have to do some in lower classes. Currently there is 0 incentive to drive the lower classes, and why would you when you can just blast around in a GTP for example
- This not only will help spread out the classes, but also gives much more of an accomplishment to be driving and winning in the top class
- It may also promote people to continue to use a lower class as a lot of people may want to repeat it as it is what they are now familiar with
- You and your team can only enter a single event and penalties applied if you disconnect
- Racing isn't always about winning and honestly bailing out early makes you and your team a sore loser, it also subsequently makes the experience worse for everyone as there are less and less people to race
- This problem is exacerbated with the class participation issue, If I'm racing LMP2 there may only be 12 of us in the race, if there is only 5 by hour 4 the fun dies pretty quickly
- Too many early disconnects can find you temporarily banned from enduro's or at the very least a reduction of your license so you wont be able to use the top class anymore until you finish more races
- Racing isn't always about winning and honestly bailing out early makes you and your team a sore loser, it also subsequently makes the experience worse for everyone as there are less and less people to race
- All Enduro's add to your license, but special events give close to instant promotion
- Doing things like the prod car enduro or IMSA enduro series can add towards this, but finishing a 12 hour or 24 hour should result in an instant promotion
Curious to what you guys think or if you've had any ideas to make participation better across all classes, maybe for Enduro's it doesnt even follow the standard licensing format and has its own system for example.