The feature handicap system used is a great way to help level the playing field and give everyone a shot at finishing up front. Only one problem. Cars that are WAY off the pace have NO buissiness starting UP FRONT, PERIOD. With the current scoring systems track officials have lap times right in front of them. They know who is and who is not up to speed. A car that regularly finishes multiple laps down will not benefit from a front row starting spot. It is dangerous and frustrating. This needs to be addressed and rectified. I am not a driver therefore dont have a voice at a drivers meeting. Speak up and get this changed. To those racers that arent up to speed, dont take this personally. Its harder than ever to be competitive, it will come.
When Brian Bassett was running Kawartha, this same topic was brought up at the driver's meeting for the modified class, we'd get 3 or 4 cars that would generally get lapped twice in an 8 lap heat race. Brian asked the driver's to opt to start at the back instead of starting them at the back. It ended up costing us a race car and the speedway a new fence post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VlFeJR6imw ]death of a race car[/url]
I agree that its something that needs to be addressed as yes, you don't need to have drivers put in situatuons like the above where their car could be wrecked due to more of a safety issue. Maybe they should take the top lap time and then say that if you're X amount of seconds off the pace, you start to the rear as a safety precaution.
Though with all this said, even with the slower drivers starting at the front, everybody is smart with how they race as I noticed on Saturday night how well everybody raced each other so no wrecks happened, espically in the Mini Stock division. That type of respect and clean racing is something thats definately nice to see.