After reading this thread about the technical side of esk8 racing I thought one should be created to discuss the logistics as well.
I’m hoping this thread could become a guide for anyone thinking of hosting their own race, no matter how small. Here are few of the questions I thought of to start things off:
How do you fund it? Sponsors?
How do you pick a venue?
How do you get enough people to show up?
What kind of safety gear do you require?
What kind of hardware classes should exist, if any?
Have you organized a race before? How did it go?
What would you change if you had another chance?
Also, please link any related threads, skatan forbid we repeat ourselves
full disclosure I made this thread because im butthurt about the lack of east coast race events
@MoeStooge is the head of esk8 racing as far as I’m concerned he can answer you questions. And @Arzamenable is humble but he’s the most consistent racer I’ve seen.
Multiple heats is always helpful to establish pole positions so we aren’t killing each other on the start. (Barrett junction was kind of a cluster F start)
I really wanted to do the San Francisco Cannonball run. Location helps and unique racing conditions are enticing.
Basically, you do a lap for time, either by your self or staggered. You are just racing clock.
Then based on times, you line up in order with quickest first, staggered Mario go cart style.
A few prelims helps shake out the quickest riders.
It sucks for bad luck or a fall or broken gear to be the reason you didn’t get to have a shot at winning. Multiple heats with gives you a chance to recover if something happened.
“ Short” courses with many turns put an emphasis on technical skating ability, and help to level the playing field gear wise. This makes the races open to a several commercial boards as well as conservative diy builds.
Well, some people wanna go fast. The point of having the course shape limit speed was To make it viable to more racers. It’s not so much safety. You can break a collar bone going 10mph or 50mph.
Ask a potential racer from Portland why they didn’t show up to your race. How am I going to get my batteries there? True, ground shipping, ughhhhh …post office and planning .
Some folks drive, our overlord, @longhairedboy drives up, I drove an RV to Colorado With multiple boards from other racers in it. I am not an RV driver apparently, but @Bobby is . That was rough.
Some one rent us batteries already! Alternatively, maybe u put out an address people can ship to and then you get to babysit their diy IEDs.
Edit for specific shoutout to @Hoyt’s modular packs and the nesse packs (@s5300
Seemed to think dissembling and reassembling nesse was viable. But imagine bringing 84 21700s on your carry on)
you drive to races. You tour in a land based vehicle. You have to take at least half your shop with you. Spares, tools, gear, way too much shit to fly around or ship. If I was going to get into racing i’d have a small trailer with enough parts and tools to build three boards right there on the track if I needed to.
That’s how its done.
Who knows, maybe i’ll get jake and matt on a track this year or next. But that’s how i’ll do it if I do.
also fat high current cells. and target a top speed around 25-27 because its all about torque and turns unless you’re drag racing or doing some huge grandprix track
.
. That was rough.