National / Club whats the difference?

[ss_collins]

Ian I disagree with you there...

Zip is for drivers wanting to make a career out of it...
VW Cup is not.....

Euroboss is again not career drivers...

So I'm basing them on the way the drivers seee themselves... I doubt the VW cup lot see themselves as the next Garthy Howeel

[Ian Sowman]

Yeah, but we fundamentally disagree as to what constitutes National and Club Sam. I think we can agree that the division is grey...

[Bob Pearson]

Zip is as much of an oddball as Euroboss for totally different reasons. It was originally billed (and I presume still is) as an interim stage between karts and cars, a learning formula. However the driver who moves from karts to zip leaves it still with the job of learning slicks (on a car) and wings to be mastered if he is to go on to greater things. I guess he can learn in FR, but the learning curve would be too steep for many. I can't see how it can be called a National status, any young driver at the end of a year in FPA, BARC Renault, Mono or ARP would be in possesion of far greater experience than a ZIP graduate. It really is in a field of it's own and is difficult to see how it is going to fit into the MSA's proposed formal structure. In fact will the MSA structure really work at all? Each year we have a number of young lads straight from karts use BARC Renault as a slicks and wings and how to race without contact year before passing on to greater things. Nothing the MSA system proposes will change that.

[JimW]

Zip is as much of an oddball as Euroboss for totally different reasons. It was originally billed (and I presume still is) as an interim stage between karts and cars, a learning formula. However the driver who moves from karts to zip leaves it still with the job of learning slicks (on a car) and wings to be mastered . . .

Bob, maybe I am missing your point, but the MSA schedule for promoted championships has Zip as a level 3 for single seater one-make. The level 2 equivalent is F Renault. So there is a progression there?

This seems to me to make some sort of sense. It does not stop anyone going direct into FR (or F3 if they can manage it ). (I am sure that there are other series with what they may argue are equally good claims to have been selected for National championship status but the MSA need to choose.)

And the distinction between promoted and club which is implicitly being made seems a reasonable fit to what we see on the ground. Zip is a promoted series with tightly defined aims and a target market. Euroboss has very little in common in the way it has been put together. Zip clearly is not what I think of a club racing while EuroBoss fits well into a club definition.

Regards

Jim

[Bob Pearson]

Jim, I realise what the MSA says and how it is layed out on paper, what I am questioning is does it achieve what it is meant to. Rightly or wrongly I assume that each rung acts as a term of education for the driver right through to F1 or however far his funds and ability can take him.
My experience of karts ( short and a couple of years old admittedly) seem to show lads leaving that world extremely competitive but with little idea of set-up requirements and no idea how to avoid contact while racing competitively because the vehicles don't require it.
The same lads appear to me to leave ZIP with similar qualifications. Now I may be wrong here, and if so I will be glad to hear, but dampers springs and general car set up I think doesn't feature much in ZIP and with the treaded tyres probably would make no difference anyway.
If all that is the case regardless of how the MSA write their little charts the poor guy leaves ZIP about £30k worse off and little or no wiser.
I don't want to appear to be knocking anything or anybody, I just don't understand the logic of it.

[JimW]

I see what you mean Bob. Teaching a driver to set up their car would clearly not seem to be one of their objectives.

from the Zip Formula website. . . drivers should compete in identical cars with equal technical specification. They should be without the worries caused by rival chassis constructors, warring engine suppliers, performance-enhanced works entrants or cash-enriched testing advantages.

But I still think they will get much the same practice in avoiding each other as they would in any other car.

At National and British championship levels how much input does a driver have to have to the setup process? Given that they are less likely to be spannering the car and it will be more arrive and drive, I had thought that your mechanic would be a key element in translating your driver feedback into adjustment or change of the car.

Thinking about it, perhaps that side of things is likely to be tied up with the National and British championship versus club debate anyway?

Regards

Jim