Originally Posted by
Jason Fricke
I'll chime in since I'm someone who is technically affected by someone sandbagging (aka: I'm not real fast). I've been doing track days for about two year. MSRH last month was my first weekend without a yellow jersey. I'm not running the times Bryan Evans does, despite what seems like a roughly similar amount of track experience. I don't consider that sandbagging at all. I don't think that someone should be forced to bump to expert in their first year (or maybe two) of racing just because they are fast. That robs them of their chance to race for a championship win. Maybe it'll be next year, maybe never, but if at some point I worked my way up to being capable of running a dominant novice championship, I would be pissed if I was forced into the expert class instead of having my chance I had worked for. Sitting around for years, always finishing at or near the top shouldn't be allowed but working your way forward, regardless of if that learning curve takes 2 races or 5 years, is what it's about. Clearly lap times should play a notable role in determining who should be in which class, but looking only at that one factor would be a mistake and unfair to the racer.