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Is Your Vintage Iron Steed Ready?
Not long now until the first hare scramble of the year. If you’re in a similar situation to me (Nigel), then there’s still a lot of work to be done before your “vintage iron” steed is ready.
Recently, I’ve been busy working on my son’s 1993 Kawasaki, which now qualifies for the NSORRA Vintage class. One evening he commented that really, it isn’t any different from a modern bike and he’s going to annihilate me on my 1977 twin-shock machine.
So I took the opportunity to remind him that the plan was for older bikes to have a one-minute per year advantage, and that would mean I’d get a 13-minute allowance. He wasn’t too impressed upon hearing this and correctly pointed out he’d have to ride a full “extra” lap (basically, un-lap himself) before catching me up.
I have to admit, I wouldn’t be too impressed either, if the situation was reversed. An hour is a pretty short race period to get that done. On the other hand, he’s never ridden such an old bike, much less tried to race one. And he’s young!
With the one class now accommodating such a wide scope and including “Evo” and “Super Evo” spec machines, the performance gap from older to newer machines is huge. As mentioned in previous discussions, the later bikes are perfectly capable of competing successfully in the modern classes.
Leveling the Playing Field
So that brings us back to the issue of leveling up the playing field. Having given this considerable thought, my initial suggestion of a time advantage for the older bikes would be extremely complicated and confusing to determine final positions, unless all the riders who passed the finish line on the same lap (and their final lap before the 1-hour mark) had that lap deleted.
Like I said, it gets complicated. Again, that seems unfair as who knows what could happen regarding changes of position, breakdowns, tip overs, passes, etc.
Big group, two classes?
So in the interests of simplicity, if there are enough riders in the class, I suggest splitting the class into A and B categories. Likely there will be quicker riders on older bikes and slower riders on more modern bikes. Who fits into which class can be determined after the first Round.
As always, any ideas, suggestions and further discussion on the topic is most welcome. Contact Nigel Brooks at nigebrooks@yahoo.com to provide your input.
Nigel Brooks, a former British racer and a NSORRA hare scramble competitor, is NSORRA’s subject matter expert on Vintage racing.
