Just like NASCAR has to reinvent itself every year or so to make itself more exciting to the fans in the stands and the fans watching TV also, perhaps support short track classes need to reinvent themselves and racing procedures. Two abreast restarts in stock cars is one approach, I guess it does beat inline restarts.
I ask myself why do we pay for feature performance only? What about the heat races, a lot of racers work hard for the heat position only to be rebuked by drawing a a lousy pill for the feature starting position. With the computers that we have now a better system could be devised for starting scoring and paying out winners.
The fast guys want to start on the pole so they can move out and move on without interference from the slower cars. That makes sense to me, but does it make for good racing for the race fans? I don't think so. When the faster car come up to lapped traffic and they usually do>>> that is when racing problems begin. The slower guy is racing for his position and is probably not anticipating getting lapped, he therefore races hard to hold onto that position (Who is really watching the flagman for a layover flag?) A lot of racing accidents accrue when lapping back markers, Rich Vogler always comes to my mind.
Why not pay heats (divide purse between heats and features), award passing points (for championship purposes) and start features inverted of heat finishes. Give the hard chargers something to race for other than a hard charger award Maybe even pay special bonus for the guy that starts from the back and wins. It would make for great racing for the fan, pay the racer that put forth extraordinary efforts, and help eliminate that dangerous job of passing lapped cars toward the end of an event.
With transponders available to track owners we might even start to qualify again doing so in packs, that would definitely add more excitement to the racing. If qualifying was also payed just as heats and features we could probably even eliminate some "sandbagging".
In the end I think we would end up with more competitive races and maybe also make racing a little safer for the racers.
Honest Dad himself
