2016 New Expert List

[Jim Dugger]

We should start another club.

Never. Running a race series is a crappy, low-margin business. And, I love the CMRA, anyway, and know I could not do better.

[Brandon Orr]

Never. Running a race series is a crappy, low-margin business. And, I love the CMRA, anyway, and know I could not do better.

Someone comments on how dumb you make them feel and this is what flies right over your head.
Not another race club. The, "Jim Dugger makes me feel stupid" club.

[robert duncan]

I'm in!!

[Rab McNaught]

So my questions are as follows.
1. It's my first year racing as a Novice sprinting with the exception of 2 rain races at the last round of 2015. So since I just got my yellow shirt off and won in SBBNV, SBCNV, and F40 MWNV and run 40's and 39's at MSRH does that makes me a Sandbagger???
2. If I'm asked to voluntarily move up to Expert and I decline due to I feel the need to work on my racecraft to be a safer racer for my self and other experts before I move up, I am a Sandbagger???
3. If I were to move up during my first year to expert if asked, do my points go with me? Do I start at very back of grids due to not having started in the expert races?
4. So being a talented rider/racer in my classes is a bad thing? I started riding just over 1.5 years ago, so wining in my novice classes makes me a Sandbagger?

Maybe the Expert's not meeting the criteria for expert status, or running sub standard expert class times, need to be bumped down or you know "practice makes perfect"? I practice and get as much seat time I can manage. I have a goal to WIN WIN WIN! It is a mind set I have, and with this I work hard to meet my goals. I'm just trying to shed some light on this.

No...nobody is saying you are a sandbagger here. I hope you continue to have good results and do well - you are clearly very fast and naturally talented being able to run those times so quickly. I look forward to seeing you race more throughout the year. The difference would be if you had previously been automatically promoted for expert-level performance, then protested and then demoted back down to novice, then dominated again. That's a totally different thing.

[Rab McNaught]

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.

This is different to protesting a promotion, then coming back and winning everything in novice. If it's your first year racing and you are very very fast, I don't think it's fair to promote people to expert, just because they are fast in their first season. As folks have mentioned, this is your first year, and you have every right to stay in Novice and try and win your Novice championship. Protesting an automatic promotion and coming back and winning as a novice...that's the problem we are trying to address here.

I'll say it again...banning protests from automatically promoted riders is the only fair solution to everyone here.

[Jason Fricke]

This is different to protesting a promotion, then coming back and winning everything in novice. If it's your first year racing and you are very very fast, I don't think it's fair to promote people to expert, just because they are fast in their first season. As folks have mentioned, this is your first year, and you have every right to stay in Novice and try and win your Novice championship. Protesting an automatic promotion and coming back and winning as a novice...that's the problem we are trying to address here.

I'll say it again...banning protests from automatically promoted riders is the only fair solution to everyone here.

I totally agree. I didn't really feel like the general comments were talking about riders in Bryan's position, but he seemed concerned that maybe they were. A lot of the comments are from expert racers so I figured I would share my not expert/not winning novice races perspective.

[David Proler]

I want to protest this trophy. Certainly I've made it into the top 10 by now. What's the process for that?

[Rab McNaught]

LOL. David, you must've been sandbagging to get that. Saving up all your posts and thoughts during 2014 to go on a posting spree in 2015. I gotta ask tho...where's my participation trophy? BoD? How come he gets a trophy and I don't?

Back home when I played golf as a kid, we would use the term "bandit" to refer to someone with a handicap of 25 and would then come to a big tournament and run a scratch round, making a net score of 45 for 18 holes. I prefer the term bandit.

Now, I'm going to lower the tone of this thread by posting a funny meme:

[Michael McGehee]

Can I get a keyboard cowboy trophy??? I like what Joe says about thumb thuggin'.

[David Proler]

This is only my 1,664th post since March of 2013. 1.52 per day average. Time to raise the bar.