Thread: Longer Sprint Races and Mandatory Pit Stops in Club Races?

Let me ask the racers and racers-to-be out there. What do you guys think of longer sprints with or without a mandatory pit stop for club race events?

The reason I ask is that I was recently asked in to help set up a race series on the east coast, and they're playing with a bunch of different ideas for race formats. One of the ideas on the table is a sprint race - feature race format, like what they do in GP2. We're envisioning the schedule would look something like this:

• Practice Session
• Qualifying Session
• 25 min Sprint Race
• 45 min Feature Race w/ Mandatory Stop
  

The starting order for the Feature Race would be based on the finishing order for the Sprint. The mandatory stop would be long enough to give the guys in bigger cars to take on a few gallons of fuel, rotaries to take on oil, and give drivers a chance to stretch their legs a bit.

Question is - Is this something that would interest you guys?

If we canned the mandatory stop, this is something you'd think about?

I am not against mandatory pit stops. I just think that 45 min. is not long enough to require a mandatory pit stop.
I run numerous 1.5hr enduros. Fields as large as 83 cars. Most teams aim for the 45 min. target to pit. Mainly for even track time for their second driver. A strategy to avoid the 45 min. pit lane rush is to come in early at 40 or later at 50min. I have run to 50 min. in an SE-R with a stock tank. I have also run to 1hr in a second gen rx-7 with a large fuel cell.

When you guys decide on a race length. That will determne if a mandatory pit stop is needed.
Then determint the length of the mandatory pit stop.
The next thing is will the series allow a second driver or not?

Yes, if Florida is included.

Gotcha. With the series I currently help run, we have mandatory stops during any race longer than 1.25 hrs. We were wondering if that could work for shorter races as well. Sounds like that doesn't seem particularly popular though.

Schedule wise, the series director is talking with tracks now. We're based in the Mid-Atlantic, so I'm not sure how far a reach we'll have in our first year. We're definitely going to go as far north as CT (Lime Rock Park), as far west as Pittsburgh (BeaveRun), and include venues like Summit Point in WV. I'll suggest going further Southeast and see what we can do. : )

Thanks for the input! Keep it coming guys.

Agreed here too. NASA Nats races were all 45 mins, and IT-Fest features were 40 mins.

The value of mandatory pit stops comes when your race length starts to tickle the timeframe where any car *has* to stop.

Let's say, for example, of all the cars that enter, one of them can only go 1:15 on a stop, but everyone else can go 1:45 or more. If you make the race 1:30 then you hobble that one car, as they'll be forced to stop where the others don't, and they probably won't enter. At that point, you'll want to require a stop for everyone to level the playing field.

In general, most cars can go 1:15-1:30; anyone should be able to go 0:45 with ease. I suggest you review your market and decide on pit stops based on race length and cars you expect to attract. - GA