New classes discussion before the AGM

If I could just chip in here: my background is dinghy racing (sort of wind assisted HPVs? - except if you use too much 'H' power it's deemed 'naughty' and you get penalised) and the 'problem' of how to score long series has been a continuing debate amongst those who are worried about such things.
The folk at Chipstead Sailing Club fall into the later category, and perhaps their system might be of interest to those here who also worry about such things?
Enjoy

Andrew S wrote: I'm with gNick on this (sorry Neil!). The machine classes should be independent, not sub-classes of each other (with the exception of 'Open', which is why it exists). Racing involves many elements and skills, not just the ability to go fast. The ability to simply stay upright for the duration of the race is sometimes more important, as those who experienced Fowlmead found. Machine reliability and turning up to a lot of events are also inportant if you are interested in table positions. If your bike breaks then you shouldn't be able to fake the results as if it didn't. Voluntarily opting for a higher class, as the NoComs have done this season, is a special case and is for the whole season. Anticipating an upgrade or wanting to compete in a higher class are possible/admissible reasons, but there aren't many others I can think of.

I don't believe that most people attend races primarily to gain points. Judith and I turn up regularly because we enjoy race meetings!

It was a hard decision weather to race hog hill or go to the internatinal velomobile meeting. As I will now have missed 4 races. In the end I decided on the latter as I'm not that bothered about points and only have open class points as I did 2 races unfaired.

Neil F wrote: So can I race for the rest of the season as "fully faired" as I have done more races this year as "fully faired" as anything else? Now ,as I've raced the NoCom as "part faired", even though it is actually "unfaired", does this mean that I can't race it as "fully faired"? How is a bike allocated to classes? Is it on the bike itself or what the rider decides to call it?

First the classes.
It is the bike that decides the class, with The Inspectre or one of his underlings deciding on grey areas. If you ride in more than one machine class you should have separate numbers for each machine.
This has some exceptions:-
1. If you are unable to ride in your preferred class, say for example you have just had an altercation with an expansion joint in your faired machine and your only other bike is unfaired, you will be allowed to race the unfaired bike in the faired class.
2. Similarly if you are building a faired bike and you haven't finished it yet you would be allowed to start in the class of which your machine isn't yet a member.
3. If you feel that you would prefer to compete against people who nominally are in a class above you then you can opt in to that class and opt out of the one you should be in.
All of these exceptions should be sorted out when you sign on or before so that people know about it. It may be possible to change your class afterwards BUT this is at the discretion of The Keeper Of Thee Records since they are the one who will have to be doing the work. Don't count on it.

If you want to have all your results adjusted so that you count in Faired you are welcome to ask but the upping class issue is not really there to cover changes in this way, it is to help those who may have machine or travel problems or haven't quite finished a project not to cover a change of plan part way through a season.
Ask The Keeper Of Thee Records though, requests might even be accepted!