June 8th event re-cap and results

Hey everybody, I just wanted to start out with a big thankyou to all of the participants, crew, and sponsors of yesterday’s So CalChallenge event held at Adam’s Motorsports Park in Riverside. We saw some familiar faces, as well assome new ones as the series continues to grow. The range of class entries broadenas well as we saw vehicles ranging from the 1930 model years to present day exotics,all from price tags from $2,000.00 to $200,000.00.

The racing of course was the star of the day as here is abreakdown of the final results:

Early Muscle Car :
1^st Car 28 Brian Hobaugh 43.39
2^nd Car 12 Roy Rozelle 46.87
3^rd Car 69 Arron Raymond 47.35

Late Muscle Car:
1^st Car 13 Tom Kamman 46.98
2^nd Car 07 Joy Weaton 47.07
3^rd Car 14 Dannie Pinard 48.35

Truck Class:
1^st truck16 Bill Speed

Hot Rod:
1^st Car 56 Don Chemello 48.03
2^nd Car 02 Harry Hsieh 53.46

Exotic:
1^st Place Car 59 Ceaser Martinez47.10
2^nd placeCar 60 Bill Wood 48.25

Over all:
1. Car 28 Brian Hobaugh 43.61
2. Truck 16 BillSpeed 45.97
3. Car 59 Ceaser Martinez46.44
4. Car 13 Tom Kamman 46.83
5. Car 56 Don Chemello 47.58

Before I sign off here I leave with a special note. At theconclusion to the end of the event, Brian Hobaugh took a shot at Adam’s trackrecord. The track record has been held by Stanley Kowalski for quite sometimeat 43.24 which seemed unbeatable. I’m happy to say that Brian CRUSHED therecord at 41.25 at the So Cal Challenge!

We hope to continueto see all of the competitors as well as more of you at our next event held atthe Orange Countyfairgrounds August 31- September 1^st during the Great Labor Daycruise.

At this time anotherthank you goes out to all of our So Cal Challenge racers/ supporters as well asour sponsors: Total Cost Involved, No Limit Engineering, RideTech, CFRPerformance, Flowmaster exhaust, and Guaranty Chevrolet. Please give back tothese fine people as they give back to support many race series’ such as the SoCal Challenge.

I will update the website with all of the times, as well asthe new points tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest, including photos of theevent on the site as well. www.socalchallenge.com

Be sure to check outfootage of our last event that our friends at JCG Resto held April 27^that Camarillo Airporton you tube at “socalchallengecamarilloevent2013.”

Thanks again, and keep racing!!!

Are those Early Muscle Car stats correct?

Where is Bret, Matt and Sal?

-J

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sales-TCI-Eng

Are those Early Muscle Car stats correct?

Where is Bret, Matt and Sal?

-J

---

I'm also wondering how all of the stats are determined and recorded, especially since we have a running points standing that carries over after each race. I know I'm not the only that is completely confused. Figuring out who finished first in each event is pretty easy, but figuring out every other spot has left me scratching my head.

Matt

What car was Brian Hobaugh driving. What was the motor etc. Very good driving to set the record.

I'll go ahead and answer both questions on both of the topics in one response in hopes to clear things up here a bit. The points system guidelines are made available at all of our events during registration for everyone to look at prior to all of our events.

The system of points goes as follows: 5 points goes to the number on the car that was registered at the first event that a vehicle shows up to. Now I know that some of you are thinking that someone who is chasing points can just go out and hire a professional driver to drive their car and win. Not the case, this has been addressed and is included in the "guidelines" in an order to keep things "fair" for everyone. Now per every class the first 5 finishing places are awarded points beginning with first place being worth 10 points. Second is worth 8, third 6, forth 4, and fifth 2. Bonus points are awarded to So Cal participants who help us promote the series by posting a photo of their car on the So Cal Challenge face book page with the So Cal Number plate visible in the photo at another event. I.E Good guys, or even a local cruise night. Bonus points are worth 3 points and only one post per event is allowed.
As far as the "ladder" eliminations goes here is the concept. Qualifying runs place drivers against each other by their recorded times. Then after two or three recorded times are made,(depending and the amount of entries) drivers are paired together by their fastest recorded qualifying time. When eliminations start, driver are paired to compete against each other by the time, or in the case of a head to head race, by the first person to cross the start/finish line. The winner advances to the next round.

As the ladder gets smaller more drivers are eliminated to where an overall winner is named. This can be a time consuming way to figure a winner, however it gives slower or less experienced drivers more of a chance to advance due to the fact that a driver with a faster recorded time must continue to compete after their qualifying runs. If not for this style of eliminations, the first five drivers with the best recorded times would win every-time without allowing for any less experienced drivers to advance.
Next the top class winners are paired into a solo run against the clock, the person with the best time wins the event. So in the case of last Saturday's winner Brian Hobaugh , here is how his points were determined: 5 points for entering the event, 10 points for his class win, (early Muscle) and 10 points for the overall class win, for a total of 25 points.
As far as the times for last Saturday's event, we are waiting patiently for the results from Adam's Motorsports Park to send over to us. As of today I was told that the times were to be sent over to me by the end of today. This was not the case, and I will call again in the morning ASAP. The times will then be posted on www.socalchallenge.com where I will then update this forum with the results. I kept notes on the top finishers of the ladder eliminations on a notepad, which I posted those results of the top finishes last night, but to answer one of the threads on where Car 21, 03, and 20 finished here is what I had written down. Car 21, lost to car 03 in the first elimination round. Car 03 lost to car 28 in the quarter final round. and car 20 lost to car 28 in the semi final round. I only recorded the times of the winners in my notes, however all of times for every car were recorded and will be posted as soon as I receive them. If you have any further questions, please feel free to post again as I will address any and all questions regrading the series. I'm very open to any new ideas to make the series as fun and exciting to compete in. Thank you all again for competing and or supporting the event, and I hope to see everybody again August 31- September 1st at the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, for the Great Labor Day Cruise event where we have been invited to join in hosting another So Cal Challenge event...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 69MSA

I'm also wondering how all of the stats are determined and recorded, especially since we have a running points standing that carries over after each race. I know I'm not the only that is completely confused. Figuring out who finished first in each event is pretty easy, but figuring out every other spot has left me scratching my head.

Matt

---

me also since we both were running 45 second times?

Thanks for taking the time to explain the points system. I really like having bracket style eliminations as it adds some excitement to the event. I just think that the way the bracket has been set up has been really weird. At Camarillo there was a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket. I ran off against Mike Maier in the finals and Mike won, so he finished first, but then the winning car from the loser's bracket finished second, and I finished third. I don't quite get that. Last week at Adams, Brian was clearly in a class of his own. Rod, Brett, Sal and I were fighting it out for the second and third spots behind him, but the ladder was set up so that the fastest cars ran against the fastest cars and the slowest cars ran against the slowest cars. Brian got a by in the first round Sal (03) beat Brett (21) and I (20) beat Rod (18), but then both Sal and I had to run off against Brian (28) without facing any other cars. Either Brian ran twice in one round, or I got a by, which just doesn't make sense to me either.

If I sound like I'm just grumpy and complaining I apologize, I probably am a little. Without a doubt, I go to these events because they're fun and I get a chance to hang out, bs and catch up with the usual suspects, Brett, Rod, Gregg, Tom, Rich, Caesar, Roy, Jake, Arron, Don, Dannie, you name it. I think these guys have been to all of the events thus far. That said, trophies and points are awarded, so we are competing for something. I don't think I'm alone in feeling like qualifying, not to mention the points system in general, is completely pointless when four out of the five fastest cars aren't listed in either their respective classes, or the overall. Furthermore, four of the five fastest cars lost without running against any of the other cars that placed in their class, or overall. I was roughly a full second ahead of the second place overall finisher, and almost two second ahead of the second place finisher in my class.

Sorry for the rant...

Matt

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 69MSA

Thanks for taking the time to explain the points system. I really like having bracket style eliminations as it adds some excitement to the event. I just think that the way the bracket has been set up has been really weird. At Camarillo there was a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket. I ran off against Mike Maier in the finals and Mike won, so he finished first, but then the winning car from the loser's bracket finished second, and I finished third. I don't quite get that. Last week at Adams, Brian was clearly in a class of his own. Rod, Brett, Sal and I were fighting it out for the second and third spots behind him, but the ladder was set up so that the fastest cars ran against the fastest cars and the slowest cars ran against the slowest cars. Brian got a by in the first round Sal (03) beat Brett (21) and I (20) beat Rod (18), but then both Sal and I had to run off against Brian (28) without facing any other cars. Either Brian ran twice in one round, or I got a by, which just doesn't make sense to me either.

If I sound like I'm just grumpy and complaining I apologize, I probably am a little. Without a doubt, I go to these events because they're fun and I get a chance to hang out, bs and catch up with the usual suspects, Brett, Rod, Gregg, Tom, Rich, Caesar, Roy, Jake, Arron, Don, Dannie, you name it. I think these guys have been to all of the events thus far. That said, trophies and points are awarded, so we are competing for something. I don't think I'm alone in feeling like qualifying, not to mention the points system in general, is completely pointless when four out of the five fastest cars aren't listed in either their respective classes, or the overall. Furthermore, four of the five fastest cars lost without running against any of the other cars that placed in their class, or overall. I was roughly a full second ahead of the second place overall finisher, and almost two second ahead of the second place finisher in my class.

Sorry for the rant...

Matt

---

with you on the post Matt, its tough to come out run the faster times of the event and go home blank on every part of the event, and when it doesn't show up anywhere on the listings, it is a crappy result, I just have to look at it as a 500 dollar practice day for myself(because of travel/hotels) without a result showing its tough to get excited... your rant was accepted Matt

Matt, the issues you raised are valid...the elimination bracket needs a little tweaking and it will better. As you pointed out, all the fastest cars ran against each other and were eliminated from competition in first or second round. I was watching in the stands for the early muscle eliminations and it was clear that many of the slower cars went deeper into the eliminations than the faster cars...the fast cars should be organized so half are on one side of the bracket and the rest on the other side....just like any other tournament in bracket format so you end with the fastest cars meeting in the last rounds, not the first two rounds....Rob in the early events, placed the fastest against the slower cars, so there was some excitment at the end, not the beginning...my two cents, hope it makes sense...Dannie

Question ... if there were 16 cars in a class ... does the current elimination ladder format look like this for round 1?

1st quickest vs 2nd quickest
3rd quickest vs 4th quickest
5th quickest vs 6th quickest
... and so on

?????

I too have struggled with the bracket system even though it has worked out well for us. I was finally able to get my head around it this way. We don't have enough cars to start breaking up the field into classes within early muscle (or maybe we do). Then how to make it fair for the first qualifier and the last when there is such a range of cars in the class? By racing the car with a time close to you it does bracket the car almost like a class system. It gives everyone a chance to win at least one round with a car that is close in time to yours, and that does seem fair. The down side some of the faster cars and drivers can be sent home early and finish lower in the results then a much slower car. So how is that fair?
The good news we have a series and it is growing and with some tweaking it can be improved.
Are we heading to breaking up the class like Good Guys with a pro class? Class for cars that show up on trailers? Need to be careful catering only to the top cars or there wont be enough entries to make the event work for the organizers $.
Thoughts ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ron Sutton

Question ... if there were 16 cars in a class ... does the current elimination ladder format look like this for round 1?

1st quickest vs 2nd quickest
3rd quickest vs 4th quickest
5th quickest vs 6th quickest
... and so on

?????

---

Pretty much the way it was...

Agreed Matt and Rod. As some of our times are the fastest out at the events, we are not getting awarded and/or recognized for our efforts. It becomes more of a personal reward knowing how fast we ran. With that said, I have noticed that I did feel left out at the last two events even know I put down some fast times. This has lead me to believe that any future events that I attend may be just for testing and tuning only. It appears that If you run fast then you have a chance of getting paired with another fast driver, and the end result is you have a greater chance of being eliminated quicker. I think I will start driving slow so I can get in the bottom of the bracket, That way I will work my way up the eliminations to at least get some better points for my efforts.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 69MSA

Thanks for taking the time to explain the points system. I really like having bracket style eliminations as it adds some excitement to the event. I just think that the way the bracket has been set up has been really weird. At Camarillo there was a winner's bracket and a loser's bracket. I ran off against Mike Maier in the finals and Mike won, so he finished first, but then the winning car from the loser's bracket finished second, and I finished third. I don't quite get that. Last week at Adams, Brian was clearly in a class of his own. Rod, Brett, Sal and I were fighting it out for the second and third spots behind him, but the ladder was set up so that the fastest cars ran against the fastest cars and the slowest cars ran against the slowest cars. Brian got a by in the first round Sal (03) beat Brett (21) and I (20) beat Rod (18), but then both Sal and I had to run off against Brian (28) without facing any other cars. Either Brian ran twice in one round, or I got a by, which just doesn't make sense to me either.

If I sound like I'm just grumpy and complaining I apologize, I probably am a little. Without a doubt, I go to these events because they're fun and I get a chance to hang out, bs and catch up with the usual suspects, Brett, Rod, Gregg, Tom, Rich, Caesar, Roy, Jake, Arron, Don, Dannie, you name it. I think these guys have been to all of the events thus far. That said, trophies and points are awarded, so we are competing for something. I don't think I'm alone in feeling like qualifying, not to mention the points system in general, is completely pointless when four out of the five fastest cars aren't listed in either their respective classes, or the overall. Furthermore, four of the five fastest cars lost without running against any of the other cars that placed in their class, or overall. I was roughly a full second ahead of the second place overall finisher, and almost two second ahead of the second place finisher in my class.

Sorry for the rant...

Matt

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rod

with you on the post Matt, its tough to come out run the faster times of the event and go home blank on every part of the event, and when it doesn't show up anywhere on the listings, it is a crappy result, I just have to look at it as a 500 dollar practice day for myself(because of travel/hotels) without a result showing its tough to get excited... your rant was accepted Matt

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roy69RS

I too have struggled with the bracket system even though it has worked out well for us. I was finally able to get my head around it this way. We don't have enough cars to start breaking up the field into classes within early muscle (or maybe we do). Then how to make it fair for the first qualifier and the last when there is such a range of cars in the class? By racing the car with a time close to you it does bracket the car almost like a class system. It gives everyone a chance to win at least one round with a car that is close in time to yours, and that does seem fair. The down side some of the faster cars and drivers can be sent home early and finish lower in the results then a much slower car. So how is that fair?
The good news we have a series and it is growing and with some tweaking it can be improved.
Are we heading to breaking up the class like Good Guys with a pro class? Class for cars that show up on trailers? Need to be careful catering only to the top cars or there wont be enough entries to make the event work for the organizers $.
Thoughts ...

---

Bottom line is if the fastest cars are going to be knocked out by each other in the first or second round using this format allowing a slower car to place higher in final standings, then why would anyone run their best times in the qualifying, they can sandbag and wait to be placed lower in the field and have a better shot at knocking out the slower cars that way they will place higher in standings...I am sure the guys running 45's have more than enough practice at Adam's to know they can hit those numbers at will when they want to...

Just something to consider ... not even a suggestion from me, because I don't have a dog in this hunt "just yet" ... but something to consider ...

Drag racing went through this problem years ago ... and IHRA came up with a solution that the majority of participants embraced? ... then NHRA followed suit several years later.

Originally, their elimination bracket format was ...
1 vs 9
2 vs 10
3 vs 11
4 vs 12
5 vs 13
6 vs 14
7 vs 15
8 vs 16
* Obviously for a 16 car field.

The problem was, unless there was a mistake by the top 8 cars, the bottom 8 were OUT in round 1. They wanted a way to give more cars a shot. IHRA came up with this format ... and it has cons too.

1 vs 16
2 vs 15
3 vs 14
4 vs 13
5 vs 12
6 vs 11
7 vs 10
8 vs 9

Regardless, unless the fast cars made a mistake the slowest 3-5 cars were going out in round 1. But with this format, cars 9-12 weren't that far off from cars 5-8, and there were more "upsets" ... and cars that may have qualified 9-12 had a better shot of going farther in the eliminations. With this format, you wouldn't automatically eliminate 1/2 of your fastest cars in round 1, like happens now ... while still giving the mid-pack opportunities to win.

Just something to discuss.


I'll have a car in the competitions down the road & see you guys then. Best wishes.

I run these same events with the guys here. My gripe is never about how much it costs or the condition of the track or the pits. Its always about having access to your time. Why is it so difficult to get you time? I think its BS. Im not as good as a lot of these guys but I still try. And they will all help you. I went out first round. Granted, had I drove better. I would have progressed. But not knowing your time till later in the day wont help you tune on the car or adjust your driving to improve. I feel the morning was just track familiarity and going round and round without feedback. It didnt effect Brian and he is one hell of a driver. I know I'll never catch him but it would be nice to have all the tools to try............Mike

Guys, I have to say that this is a great thing, as we are all sharing our differences. Believe me there is no easy way out. The slow guys complain that its not fair to run against the fast guys, and the fast guys don't want to run against the slow guys. True be said that nobody will ever be fully happy. (that's why they call them rules) I've struggled to keep everyone happy by attempting to look at both sides and put myself in the racers shoes more than in the promotors shoes, and here is the deal, we're growing and that's a good thing. People are coming out to race their cars, and meet new people and have a good time.
I started out doing this whole thing with a few friends that wanted to drive their cars/trucks as much as we could, and we thought that it would be fun to have others join in on the fun. We did a few events and people seemed to like it so the idea for this year was to have a few of them in a row. One of the mistakes is that we made it a competition, and that has brought out the worst in people as we are all concerned with who won, and where do I stand in points, and why isn't it this way or that.
I will be the first to say that there is no solution to this problem. What many of you don't see when the ladders are made is how the numbers of cars NEVER work out. Someone is always going to get paired against someone that can beat them, that's why its called competition. In many cases, cars break, or people are tried, or there even isn't enough vehicles to field class. These variables all come into play when the ladders for each class are made.
It seems that the one that is really in question is the "Early Muscle" class, as it always seems to have a broad range of times that don't really fit into a "Fair" race between competitors. For that matter the "ladder- system" seems unpopular with just this class. Well here are my thoughts on the ladder system: we can just have you guys run all day and get times and the fastest guy wins. To me that sounds boring, unfair, and counter-protuctive. I have hopes that the so cal challenge becomes a place where people come to see the fastest cars and trucks on the west coast and think, "hey I can do that too", plus I hope that the people competing at the event can say, "you sure can, let me show you."
To the people who are upset about the ladder system, I say I'm sorry. To the people who are new to the sport and want to learn, or have a slow, or fast car and are frustrated, I'm sorry. We are not perfect, and we are trying to make something perfect, which is going to take time. Yes I to would like to have our own timing equipment, and I to would like to have information to give to the drivers a moments notice, but it's going to take time to get there.
In a perfect world, the fast guys should show up on Tuesday night and Qualify for their starting position on the ladder. Then half of the day we could let the slow guys run to place them in there brackets right. Well that's only going to work at Adam's, plus how is that fair for the slow guys who get fewer runs and nothing to watch and learn from the fast guys. It reminds me of some other events, where most people complain that they didn't get enough runs in for their money.
Truth be told, this is OUR event. Where nobody has told us what to do yet. The only thing that really matter's is that we have a good time. I'm the first guy to be democratic about the way the event is going. I'm the guy who will ASK how to you guys want to run. I guess I'm too nice of a guy, and shouldn't really care what you people think, that's what most racing leagues, clubs and organizations free about their contestants. I raced for a profession for 7 years and dealt with it on a daily basis, and I'll tell you what, the driver or team NEVER won an argument.
The times from the event just came over from Adam's and I've tallied all of your points up. I'll post them later tonight after I think about things for a bit. Until them I wish you the best...

In regard to the late muscle standings in the first post, my Mustang and I ran a 48.09 in the final elimination round. Or do only the qualifying times count?

Ok people, brackets aren't complicated.

In a traditional seeded bracket, you want it to be advantageous to be ranked highly. For both incentive and drama, you want the top 2 in the final, the top 4 in the semi-final, and the top 8 in the quarter final etc. This means the brackets have to be arranged accordingly. Picture the NCAA March madness bracket. Each of the top four teams gets a "corner" of the bracket so that they cannot face each other until the semi-finals. However, I understand why this isn't perfect for our SoCal challenge events.

With how we've been doing it, 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th, top cars are eliminated right off the bat. Also, the type of bracket we last used creates what I call a bang for the buck spot. If you're the fastest car/driver combination on the bottom half of the bracket, you will get the most track time for the least speed and end up in the final race where you will get obliterated by Hobaugh/Maier/Crosby/Pozzi or whomever. This format doesn't work well and I do not like it.



I HAVE A POTENTIAL SOLUTION.


Please read the following description of my ladder alternative. While this is a variation of how I used to race my toy cars back when I was in 2nd grade, it is still effective. For the sake of description, imagine a 10 car bracket. Normally, this would necessitate awkward bye runs which create and unfair advantage for some while using the track time inefficiently.

So, in my ladder, all of the cars still run qualifying times and are ranked. The quickest car is first, and the slowest last, or 10th in this case. Imagine all of the cars lined up from last to first. This is their order that running the ladder will alter slightly.

Things start by having the car 10 challenge car 9 for the 9th position. The winning car will move on to challenge car 8. The winner of that round will move on to challenge car 7. This happens until you get to the top of the ladder where the top seed car will defend its position from whichever challenger.

For 10 cars, there will be 9 runs with 2 cars in each run. For 16 cars, there would be 15 runs, just like a normal elimination bracket, but with a more fair distribution of runs per car.

If you have a typical 16 car elimination bracket, half the cars get only one run. Four or a fourth of the cars get 2 runs. Two cars, or an eighth of the field get three runs. With more cars, it gets even more uneven.

With my bracket, cars are most likely to get 2 runs each. That is, if there are no "upsets" and the higher seeded car always wins, every single car will get two runs except the top and bottom seed. The bottom seeded car may lose in the first round and only get one run while the top seeded car will only get one run . . . but if he wins, he'll get to run again anyway against the winners of the other classes. The advantage of this is that it keeps each round close with nearby seeds running against one another. If someone happens to be getting the hang of the track or his car, he can even move up a couple/few spots.


So, feel free to ask questions and state concerns, but I think my format has the following advantages over a typical bracket:
- similar speed cars running against one another
- more even distribution of track time
- no inefficient bye runs that waste everybody's time



I also see the following downsides:
- this could be difficult to organize, but not more so than our bracket messes
- if someone was quick and really bent on track time, they could sandbag so they could use more rounds to move up the ladder
- the outright position ranks could be intimidating or discouraging for some. That is, there will be an official last place, rather than just the slowest car that happened to lose in the first round like half of the other cars

One perk from my proposed method above is that it incentivizes running well during qualifying. If you qualify first, the worst you can finish is second. You can only lose on position in the shootout, though you can potentially gain many more