I'm fully aware of how many start in a ht and a feature . How did that have anything to do with what I said ? Are heats n TTs the same ?

You know the answer to your question.

There's plenty of room for 6 cars to spread out during hot laps/qualifying. It's the drivers responsibility to give each other enough space. If they don't it's not the tracks fault.

Here's my point . This is only an observation and not in any way a suggestion that someone is doing something wrong or that I know more than someone else . My thought on group TT that the cars r to b spread out far enough as to not inhibit each other from running ANY line they so choose . At knoxville they group qualify 4 410s at a time. Obviously this is a much bigger track . When I watched cars running up on each other at Kokomo (6 at a time) I was curious if this was done because of the chance of rain or this is standard weekly procedure. Sorry for wasting ur time and thanks for the lesson mowerman.

And yes, at Kokomo hotlaps/time trials are grouped according to heats.
Nobody's trying to ruffle your feathers, just laying out the facts...

I am a product of the 50's. That makes me a younger old fart. Things always look better in the past than present because the mind filters out what it doesn't like. I remember 3 lap qualifying for every race. I remember guys with a hand held stop watch clocking each car and knowing to myself that they had to be short timing their favorite driver. I remember inverted starts with the fastest qualifier always starting on the tail of the race. I remember saying that "so and so" was sandbagging just to get a better starting position for the feature.

I also remember some very exciting and hard fought races. Old Elmer Davis once told me that the cars toward the back were easy to pass but as you moved up they became increasing hard to get around and he was very correct.

We are actually selling a product to the people buying tickets and coming in the front gate. Lately racers have taken a "Back Gate" mentality about their racing. By that I mean starting the best on the pole only to walk away with the race and sometime making a very boring show right from the drop of the green flag.

I can't think of anything more exciting than racing and leading the entire field in a race, be it one single lap or 20 laps. I can also think of nothing more satisfying than starting back in the field and fighting your way to the front, you may not get all the way to the winner's spot, but at the end of the race you know that you gave it all you could do.

In turn the fans got a chance to watch a very good race with the same ultra fast "HOT SHOES" fighting against them selves and the other racers on the track for that prized position.

We race in what some feel to be a lower class race car. I call them 1000cc Midgets, while other call them Mini-Lightning Sprints. I call them something I can afford to race (most of the time) that are probably on of the fastest cars racing at whatever particular track we are racing.

I have heard racers talking about the problems of how the invert starting of the heat race winners is not fair to the heat race winners. I like the idea of inverting the whole race and drawing for the starting positions of the last two rows instead of the first two rows.

I have even thought of the idea of just running two features and leaving the heat races out of the equation all together.

You would still draw pills. I know guys that always draw low pill numbers, they are the same ones that always out qualify us too. I ain't never figured that one out.

The low pill would start on the pole of feature #1. He would then start on the tail of feature #2. You now have the chance for two feature winners for each race. Ain't nothing better than being a feature winner. However the pay out would be figured by passing points for those professional racers out there. It would be possible to win a feature but maybe only finish further back in the passing points, but that's OK I still won a feature and I really like that trophy much more than that money that I will probably put in the gas tank to get home anyhow. And I'll have a lifetime of sanctification listing to the old lady complaining about dusting the dumb thing.

Honest Dad himself

Coming form a dirt karting back ground, this is how most local tracks would figure line ups. Pill draw when you signed in for a class, then run your first heat per class, then invert the entire field and run a second heat. Average finish would set feature line up. However I understand that this is for the most part unfeasible for larger cars which tend to have 3+ heats only running one round. This would make for a very long dragging night, and it would also tear a track to pieces by the end of the final feature. I only bring it up as another possible idea to be considered and interpreted.

9

There are all kinds of way to do things. Maybe the pill draw then heat finish and invert so many cars is the best way. Like I said qualifying for positions and inversion was great, but there was sandbagging going on and that screwed thing up. Then they started DQ ing racers that raced so many tenths faster than they qualified, that caused even bigger fights, then the inversion thing came about and we have been racing that way for more than 30 years or so.

Leaving the racer out of the equation what would make a better race for the fans watching the racing action?

I thought about two way radios for the drivers so that they could do like professional wrestlers do and radio the guy in front and say hey I need to give you a slide job coming out of turn four so slow down a little and I'll let you drive around me on the top of the next lap.

Isn't that what being a professional is?

Honest Dad himself

I don't really understand why or how qualifying was standard operating procedure around here for so long, and they seemed to still put on great races back then.. But now days, it kills the track and kills the racing? Every top tier racing organization still qualifies, and puts on great racing, in front of big crowds. Sprint week and midget week usually puts on the best races of the year, and they qualify. So why did it stop in the first place?

The answer to Caseys question is they went to five classes and took the qualifying and dash's away to allow time for it.

Sad but true.