What Would It Take?

[alan bechard]

What would it take to get our classes across the US the same.

Something interesting (ok, maybe I was a tad aggravated becasue it happens to be a pet peeve of mine) happened at the last trials.

My son was asked what class he normally rode, and told he should ride that class, Makes sense, I will agree with that, EXCEPT, Mr. Bill was putting on the event and he operates under the "California" classes (for lack of a better term. So his classes go like this

EXPERT: Black Plate. White numbers and letters

MASTER; Red Plate. White numbers and letters

ADVANCED: White Plate. Black numbers and letters

INTERMEDIATE: Yellow Plate. Black numbers and letters

SPORTSMAN: Green Plate. White numbers and letters

NOVICE: Blue Plate. Yellow numbers and letters.

Dean rides STRA and we go

Champ

Expert

Advanced

Sportsman

Intermediate

Novice

Was it my responsibility to make sure he was in the right class, absolutely, I am not trying to shuck the responsibility here, or blame anyone, just hopefully using it as a point of reference to show how the problem can come up. Would adults have sorted it out where my 10 year old was a tad confused why the INT lines looked harder to him then the SP lines. Probably.

My point would be though, how much work would it be for someone to give in, and see if we could have standardized names across this country?

The NATC has said in the past that it is something I should tackle if it is something I want changed, that they do not delegate to clubs how they should run their affairs. While I do not totally agree with that position, particularly when the NATC rules say you must be an Advanced or better rider to compete, yet they do not say what an "advanced" rider is, and there is no standardized order to go by. Anyway, I wander, but one side point, I am sure I saw some folks come through my National section last week that were not riding Advanced or higher in their local clubs.

Anyway, back to point.

What would it take to get the major clubs across the US to agree on a class structure? Not trying to take it any further then saying easiest to hardest are these 6 names. (and yes, every club will have some additional classes that they have developed along the way that would be "in addition too" these 6)

Thanks for your consideration.

[sirhc]

That's just the SoCal class structure up in northern Ca. where I started with the P.I.T.S. it is different. The Master and expert are switched and INT is called Amateur up north. They are trying to get them together but I don't know where they are at with it at this point.

I think the NATC should just say this is how it is going to be and be done with it. Some may change a lot and some a little or none at all but in a year or two we would forget our old way altogether.

I must say though when I tell a outsider I ride the Advanced class it makes me sound a lot better than I am

[dabnabit]

May ATA Meeting

We had a very busy board meeting last night. Rule changes, ATA final

awards, 06/07 schedule, and venue issues were discussed.

New rules approved to take affect at the beginning of next season

include:

"Change class structure to parallel that of PITS"

"The current Master class (renamed Expert due to class realignment

above) will have it's own discreet line in the sections. " No more

M=A or M=E. Master= Amature, Master=Expert

Edited May 26, 2006 by Dabnabit

[sirhc]

Thanks Dabnabit I was wondering what was happening.

Did they pass that new funky class between Int. and Adv.?

[dabnabit]

I agree that classes should be named the same nationally.

The section severity would be a different thing tho....

I rode TTC on monday and riding a California sized rock at TTC is a whole different thing all together with the loss of grip.

[alan bechard]

I actually think the severity thing will level out somewhat. We just need to name the classes #1 through #6 in order of severity the same to start.

The really good National level guys will still be riding the top line.

The folks that are "wobblers" or just starting out should be the bottom line.

Would be handy if we could identify them the same way throughout the US.

Of course I find it hilarious that CA had it different from top to bottom of the state. Then again, it is probably a lot longer then several of our states here put together.

[ahamayfrank]

It might be an interesting start to have different competition areas submit their list of the current classes numbered in order of difficulty. 1 difficult to 6 easiest including the names such as:

1. Champ

2. Expert

3. Advanced

4. Sportsman

5. Intermediate

6. Novice

The few so far are confusing to the brainless, like myself, but a list is very clear. It looks like some have started years ago with Expert, Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice, and then added classes to fill the club needs. Maybe STRA added a class between Intermediate and Advanced while others may have added between Novice and Intermediate so the names got messed up between areas. Also Champ got added (?) because of a need for a couple local (or semi-local) Pros.

Frank

[dabney footsmore]

Florin tried this years ago, using the old MC Trials as the message carrier. He really gave it a good go, and seemed to hit a lot of resistance, unfortunately. Some people felt they needed a semi stepping stone between 2 classes, and some others did not want to ever change their current class structure to match a continent wide approach.

[alan bechard]

But because it failed in the past does not doom it in the future, maybe the time was not quite right at that point?

OK, Frank has done the STRA

Dabnabit, could you do the two CA ones.

While there are certainly going to be other clubs with "tween" classes, they could still follow along with the basic 6 and add theirs in.

Then of course, there are always those other classes not covered by this, things such as womens, youth, cadets, sr., Vintage.

Just leave those too the side, and clubs will continue to do them, but if we could at least standardize the "core" classes, it would be one more bite of the elephant. (for those that do not know the expression, the question is, how do you eat an elephant? The answer is one bite at a time.)

[spinner]

In the center of the country, Kansas [AVTA] Missouri [MATT] Oklahoma [NEOTT]the class are as follows

1 Master

2 Expert

2A SR Expert

3 Intermediate

4 Amature

4A SR Amature

5 Novice

6 Beginner

Sr classes reqire you to be atleast 40 yrs old to get a score and slightly modified lines {harder]. Sr Expert use Intermediate line, Sr Amature use Amature lines

The Central Regionals run under this class structure and seem to work very well. I'm not sure about all the Texas clubs but I think that they use similar classes.

[copemech]

I kind of liked that idea about moving the "MASTER" line down a notch or two! Gives me something to aim at!

But if the Hard line in the PM is Master, what should my Hard line in the AM be called ?

Yea, I'm ready, DUH!

[spinner]

Pastmaster?

Old enough to know better?

[ridgrunr]

We've tried to do this for years. I can remember Don Williams talking about the need for this clear back when we used to write for FEET UP! magazine.

The sport will always be an "oddity" as described by the rest of the motorcycle community, until we become united and organized as a national group. In reality this needs to be done not only nation wide, but world wide. But I always get the old "this is the way we've always done it, and it works for us so we're not changing" story. Mighty short sighted and self centered if you ask me.

No matter what the class designators would be, they need to have some description of class difficulty. Intermediate needs to be in the middle as "Intermediate" means "middle". That also means an odd number of classes to be able to have one in the middle. 3 is too little with too big of jumps between classes and I think 7 is too many. Seven splits in a secion is way confusing. 5 is about right so that you don't have mass confusion. So say you had 5 basic classes with Intermediate being middle. Could look like this:

5. Expert

4. Advanced

3. Intermediate

2. Sportsman (or whatever you wanted to call it)

1. Novice

I don't think the term "beginner" should be used as an adult dirt bike rider who tries the sport for the first time won't ride "beginger". It's the old "I've been riding Moto-cross for ten years so I'm no Beginner" ego thing. So he rides the second class, gets killed and never comes back. "Amature" should also not be used, because on the club level we are all Amatures and it confuses the issue having two classes that start with "A".

At both ends of the spectrum, if a club had riders to warrant the class, a club could have a "kids" class (kids on small, not full sized bikes) and a Champ class (National Champ class caliber riders). But not every club has Champ riders so here's no sense in making them have a Champ class. BUT they would have the option to do so.

A club could also have subgroups such as "senior" riders (for instance riders over 40), but they would be tied to the 5 basic classes and ride the same line as the basic class, such as Senior Advanced, Senior Intermediate, etc.

This system makes it really easy for a Trials Marshal to designate lines on Split plates too. You simply have a split plate with

E--

A--

--I

--S

--N

lined up on it, then the Trials Marshal marks a thick black line to either side of the letter which designates which side of the split marker the class is supposed to go. If a split marker is not intended for a class at all that class designator is simply blacked out. You get used to looking for your class designator as it's always in the same place on the split card with the same identifier.

Florin

[sendero]

Right on, Ridge. That entire post nails it down perfectly.

Would you consider a run for Trials POTUS?

You got my vote.

[copemech]

As we ride morning/ afternoon here it would be difficult with only 5 classes.

Maybe those sub classes would work, lets see:

S= Sportsman

s= Suck worse than Sportsman!

N= Novice

n= Now you really stink!

Two lines/ four classes for the morning riders should just about do it!