Hi,
Over on the Classical Gas "Rough Guide" I have rated events 1 to 3, both for their Roughness and Toughness.
I would appreciate your comments either on the system itself or in the way I have rated the events. I believe this will be useful information for people when choosing their program, especially for beginners.
Michael
I'm grateful to Michael for re-starting this debate as, probably unknown to him, the ACTC Council was considering the grading of trials on the same day as Michael was up-dating his site. This, of course, follows my article in the last Restart which has generated only ONE reply so far. So please contribute your comments ASAP as the ACTC Officers wish to debate this issue again in July.If the grading system is to become 'official' the Officers need to come up with their views in July, circulate their proposals to all the Club Delegates in August, and agree the gradings at the AGM in August.Thanks in anticipation,Andrew
ReplyDeleteI like your 'Rough Guide' and am in favour of the roughness and toughness rating, especially to help newcommers.A few comments on your list. Ebworth, not much chance for the motor to cool down as the hills are all close together.Exmoor Clouds and Tamar Classic, agree with your descrption and roughness grade.Now to the trial closest to my heart, the Ross Kyrle Classic. This should be 3 on toughness but 1 on roughness.Lets hope ACTC will adopt this type of grading.Stuart Harrold,
ReplyDeleteYes I like the idea of this. Something to take into account is that although some Trials follow a similar format each year, others vary the sections used. For example this years Exmoor Trial in January had around 6 or 7 sections from the previous year with the remaining being different. The Axe Valley of '98 was totally different from that of '97. MCC events on the other hand are usually pretty much the same.Would be interesting to have a rating for all the popular sections but this would be quite a task !
ReplyDeleteHi,A couple of points to add to my first message. The first is that I got (stole!) the rough, tough idea from Andrew. I intended to say that originally but forgot.The second is that I do plan a "guide to sections" including a rating for each! Like everything it may take time but it's something that I can do in the summer. My ambition is to have something new to read over on the Classical Gas Web site every week!Michael
ReplyDeleteI'd like to keep this debate going but can I be bold enough to suggest that grading individual sections is not only extremely difficult but also more open to accusations of personal bias and interpretation, to say nothing of being dependant on the weather and what Class you run in! The ACTC Council has been trying to assemble a 'definitive' list of sections that are generally considered 'too rough' for all classes. So far there are only two in regular use which have been mentioned by more than two competitors. I have spoken to the organisers of the event that includes one of them and they agree whole-heartedly. The section in question had been getting steadily worse and they agree that its condition on the last event was unacceptable. The other section is Bamford Clough and no one wants to see that dropped however rough it gets!To return to grading the trials themselves, what we are trying to acheive is a universally-accepted relative grading system with which all the organisers are happy. The ACTC Officers would also like to see at least one Championship event in every one of the nine rough/tough boxes on the 3x3 matrix I published in Restart. What we are absolutely not trying to do is to change the character of any of the events. We accept that some events may change from year-to-year but, by and large, these changes are gradual rather than radical. Some organisers know that they get a good entry by running 1/1 events, others by running 3/3 events.The background agenda to all this is to try and provide more guidance for novices to encourage them to enter more events and, more particularly, to get more competitors to cross-over from MCC events to ACTC events. But it's up to the individual to study the matrix and decide what events to enter. Stuarts' example of the Kyrle is absolutely spot-on (and I agree with his Rough-1/Tough-3 grading). To tackle the Kyrle in one's first season, as I did, can be an acutely depressing experience. It's only when you've seen the results over several years that you realise that the Trial is (almost) never won with a clean sheet and it's quite likely that a significant number of sections will be cleaned by no one. In contrast the Edinburgh, rated Rough-3 by many, is also acknowledged to be one of the easiest trials if you have a suitable car that can be 'driven purposefully', to use the well-worn cliche.I welcome everyone's views - let's just hope we can get some sort of consensus.Andrew
ReplyDeleteWhen it was first mooted I understood that the 3 x 3 matrix for Rough/Tough was meant as a broad overall guide to the event; not a definition of each and every hill.I also agree that the rating of each hill will depend to a large extent on the class of vehicle being used.That said, it's relatively easy to compile a list of the hills that are met on the various trials and use that as a memory jogger for the next time.I started this when Stuart Harrold and I did the LE for the first time in 1997 and its proved an invaluable aide (particularly for tyre pressures ever since.However, the comments we make for each hill in the Troll would probably be very little use for, say, a Golf or beetle crew.Carry on with the 3 x 3 matrix scheme.Chris
ReplyDeleteAttached is my take on the rough versus tough debate. Hopefully by doing it as an XL sheet that can be downloaded it will encourage other Gassers to put something together in the same format that way we can all compare notes, and the Gassers can make a major contribution to the ACTC Council debate.
ReplyDeleteI base my judgement on a couple of simple guidelines - A trial is tougher if the award winners all end up with cricket scores, and the majority of hills are not climbed. A trial is easier if the majority of hills are climbed and the awards are sorted out on just one or two "names". This has a caveat attached that if all the points are scored by failing restarts then the trial is actually easy and the organisers have had to tough it up artificially.
Rough to me means car damaging. The size of a rock is only relative to the cars ability to drive over it. Rough is where trees jump out and rip your wings off.
David Haizelden made a very astute point in conversation with Andrew Brown - When you start in this game, you don't climb far up the hills so you do not see the roughest bits. When you have been doing it for a thousand years and know your machine, your ability allows you to drive carefully over almost anything so nothing is too rough. In the middle you have those going through the learning curve who have to approach things with a little more speed "just in case" and it is this harsh treatment of the car that make things seem rough. The problem arises only because 90% of us, and I do include myself, are in the middle group. - The trials equivalent of the Golgafrinchan 'B' Ark from the Hitch Hickers Guide to the Galaxy (a Sci-Fi reference for those that don't understand)
Attachment: Rough Ratings.xls
The server's up and running again!Can I please encourage contributions on this issue. If you don't want to go public in the Community, you can find my e-mail address under my entry in the 'Member List'. Just rate the events you know, every little bit helps, and please use the convention */* for Rough/Tough.I have put all the contributions so far on a spreadsheet (different from Simon's!) which keeps a running calculation of the latest 'scores'. Although there is a high degree of consensus on some scores there is less on others and we don't have a big enough sample yet to be meaningful.Many thanksAndrew
ReplyDeleteAndrew,Sorry to hear about your server. As one who is intrerested in these things what was the matter with it?Back on the subject of rough/tough. I don't know if your spreadsheet is public domain. If it is could you try posting it on the "Files" section here on the community. I haven't really tested this feature so we may have problems but it's worth trying.Same for Simon - perhaps you could try uploading your spreadsheet there.I have thought about security, macro virus etc. As possibly someone could download, change and re-post with a virus. If you are using a new version of excel it may be possible to password protect as "read only".btw - I intend to maintain my rough/tough guide over on the site which will basically be my own opinion. I see no problem in having several different guides even if they say slightly different things! There will never be one definitive view of an event or hill. Also as a class 4 driver I am going to have a different view of a section than say Dudley or Stuart in class 8!MichaelPS - Sorry there haven't been updates to the Web Site recently - The day job has been interefering with my time schedule!
ReplyDelete1 - The Server - I got a 'Sorry the Server is down' message several times when trying to 'post' a reply earlier this week but everything else was working OK so only those trying to send replies would have been affected.2 - The Rough/Tough Spreadsheet - I want to keep this private in order not to bias the views of others. I'm very happy for Michael to maintain his personal views, and I'd very much like to see his ratings for the trials in the first half of the year. I believe that it is possible to get a fair degree of consensus which is why we we've kept the gradings simple. Remember, the whole point of the exercise is to provide some sort of impartial advice to the novice who is not part of trialling's charmed inner circle and hasn't got the faintest idea what he might be letting himself in for.Andrew
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