Rookie Question

[Mangold]

Am I understanding the El Mirage rookie orientation booklet correctly that a rookie is a rookie for an entire meet (rather than for a specified number of runs), and therefore can't run against records until their second meet? 

[mtiberio]

I had a great deal of road racing experience (18 years, 4 years as AMA Pro), and thought I could run a record pace during my rookie weekend (2 day). I was told I could get "special" consideration by having a yellow sticker on my bike (put there at tech inspection) and mentioning it to the starting official. What I didn't know was that this was going to make the race director follow me down the track in his car. Add to that I had "issues" during my first run. After my run, a clearly annoyed race director climbed out of his car, came over to my bike and ripped the sticker off my fender while mumbling something about how I took too long to turn out. No non-rookie license for me. 8^)) As it is I ended up coming .7 MPH short of the record (minimum actually) the next day and I knew I could get the record during the next meet which I did.

What did I learn,
1) my road racing experience did nothing to prepare me for racing on dried mud.
2) most SCTA procedures are distilled over time and there are reasons for them.

Now maybe if you have Bonneville experience you may not find El Mirage daunting.
What my first run was like:

I was racing a bike I had run in AMA Pro-Twins 25 years earlier, but in the ensuing 25 years I had broken my left ankle.
Not having run the bike in anger, I didn't realize that my injury made it tough to shift.
I missed the shift into fifth, and then proceeded to lift my entire leg to upshift, missing 5th again.
Having time to over think my conversion of my old road racer into an LSR weapon, I removed seat foam to shift my weight back for more "traction". Stupid in hindsight as it made it even harder to shift.
The leg angle issue together with the fact that now I was hanging onto the clipons with all my weight rather than having the seat foam support my weight meant that every motion of my leg to try to get the bike into 5th caused a mini-speed wobble/tank slapper.
Add to that my inexperience, which had me looking down at big black lines (rubber laid by cars) and thinking "I'm going at a low angle to ruts, I'm going to get into a tank slapper and die".
In reality they were not ruts (as revealed by a track walk), I survived, but i really didn't deserve a license at that point.

Maybe you do, no harm in trying. YMMV

[Mangold]

Thanks for your reply.  I've thankfully worked through some of those early issues through 9 runs at Speed Week this year, but still have plenty of learning to do!  I don't know if I'm worthy of "special consideration" and was really asking more from the perspective of planning the race season.  Though, I certainly wouldn't complain if the powers that be let me run against a record (minimum) in May  .   

[mtiberio]

Well my experience is that El Mirage HorsePower (ie, tail wind) is highest during the first 3 event, and the prevailing wind can turn around into a headwind or completely go away for the last 3 events of the year.

[John Noonan]

Well my experience is that El Mirage HorsePower (ie, tail wind) is highest during the first 3 event, and the prevailing wind can turn around into a headwind or completely go away for the last 3 events of the year.

I guess you never heard of November Horsepower?

[Glen]

You will have to License up at Elmo as well.

[Mangold]

You will have to License up at Elmo as well.

I understand that I'll need to license up, just wondering about when I'll be able to run against a record.

[mtiberio]

Well my experience is that El Mirage HorsePower (ie, tail wind) is highest during the first 3 event, and the prevailing wind can turn around into a headwind or completely go away for the last 3 events of the year.

I guess you never heard of November Horsepower?

I will defer to he of greater experience, but in my humble 2 Novembers at Elmo, tailwind was not something I experienced. Now we had a bad side wind this last November, enough to cause cancellation. But it wasn't a tail.

[deepindebt]

Confirming that entries are purchased at the event?

[Dynoroom]

Confirming that entries are purchased at the event?

Yes

[deepindebt]

Thank you sir

[WOODY@DDLLC]

Looking at your avatar - wouldn't you prefer spins around the vertical axis? 

[Stainless1]

Aussies?     

[dw230]

Must be.

DW

[deepindebt]

  I tried over and over to get the pic right side up with no luck :xLeft it up just for this reason,open door for ribbing.But hey,I am a roadster driver so that could be part of the problem