Kind of depending on what type of event you are holding... here are a few examples:Stan Pope wrote:Does CMA have a set of competition methods from which local organizers are encouraged or required to select for sanctioned events? Or does each local organizer get to "do his own thing" in selecting or concocting a scheme?
A national flat track event will have up to 15 or so classes with 100-200 riders some entering more than one class... before the event is added to the schedule the promoter has to guaranty a certain amount of prize money for each class and pay back a certain number of positions... a JR class may only have to pay back 3 positions and the promoter may only have to give out trophies... where the 500cc Expert class is required to pay back 15 places and 60% of the prize money goes to this single class... now as for rules we have how many paces we have to score back, sometimes it states that the rider gets more than one chance to make the final event... but the methods are dictated by the head CMA official on race day... it generally follows the same theme week after week... I can ask the official how many bikes he will let on the track for the final race and make a complete program from that information, show him what we have laid out, have it approved by him and posted in the pits in no time at all. Lets say for this National event the track was only a short track (1/4 mile), it's a clay track that is a little wet with rain a strong possibility later in the race program... there are 32 riders in the 500 expert class and the ref only wants 10 bikes on the track at a time for this class... 4 heat races (we know the riders so we try to spread them out and not get all the faster bikes in the same heat race), 1st and 2nd place transfers directly to the front row of the finals, 3rd-7th go to the semi-finals, 2 semi-final races with 1st and 2 place transferring to the back row of the final, 3rd-6th to the consolation race... then we take the top two finishers from the consolation race an put them in the 3rd row of the final... (now the ref only wanted 10 in each race but since this is the premier class and these guys now what they are doing and not likely to run each other over, plus we have started them on 3 different rows which makes for less congestion going into the first turn, the ref will OK the 14 riders which makes the promoter happy because it makes for a more exciting race for the crowd)... now as the evening draws to a close, by the looks of the clouds rolling in, it looks like we will not get all the races in... so we scrap the consolation race and run the 500 experts first in the final and save the JR classes for last... the rain comes and the last few races are not run. Now the top 15 riders for the 500 Experts are 1-10 as they finished in the final race... 11-14 are the top 2 riders from each of the semis (the semis are timed and the fastest race winner would get 11th and then the slower race winner would get 12th and so on), 15th place goes to the 3rd place finisher in the faster of the 2 semis... the JR class only had 4 riders and they where paid from their finishing order in the heat race. Next week then number of riders, track conditions, weather... is all different, so is the program.
Now Speedway racing on an average night in Canada is run with the flat track bikes and scored in much the same way... However Speedway National events have a rigid structure where the top riders move up a ladder and the slower riders move down the ladder and the whole event is score on a points system where you get say 4 points for a win, 3 for 2nd, 2 for 3rd... you get the idea. Now this would be a great way to do a PWD cars but with only a few dozen riders you are looking at 30 some odd races and it's a pain to keep track off... run 4 races, post the results, calculate who is racing who in the next 4 races and post that, repeat 6 or 7 times... it makes for lots of little intermissions.