New start times policy: For sure.
In 2015 in November 17-19 once day races got offered 28 times. In December 32
In 2016 in November it's 20, in December 23
Anyway the days where there is only 4 fields, with morning and early afternoon which can't move it makes only 2 fields for 17:00-24:00.
This of course is an incredible idiocy. Why can't they move??? If not all 5 "main times" (9-11, 14-16, 17-19, 20-22?, 22?-24) get the one day races (I think we should use 5 for one day races as often as possible) then don't always cut in the same place!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Morning and afternoon fix??? Of course then 17-19 will get fucked. IF there's only 4 races, then spread the cutting out, only the main evening, 20-21 or 20-22 should always get something, it's clearly the busiest time, the rest should share the honor of not being offered a race as equally as possible.
Comparison 2016 and 2015
In November: in red 2016, in blue 2015
Morning
30 28
Afternoon
30 29
Early Evening
20 28
Evening til 22:
27 32
Late evening
19 19
I'm never sure how to categorize 22, is it evening or late evening? So just 22:
1311
126 races in 2016, 138 in 2015. In 2015 we had 2 races at 8 in the morning. (with horrible participation, 3+1..) this year only "main times". Actually I kind of like having the occasional "off time", 8 or 12-13, too see if there is a "market" for those times. But ok, last year 8 clearly wasn't good.
In 2016 the late evening was the only time who clearly was at a disadvantage. This year despite offering less races both the morning and the afternoon get MORE races. While the late evening stays put. And early afternoon as noticed by Freude the big loser. Pretty senseless. On so many levels.
Of course Pokemon generally is offering less races than were offered last year too: 138 one day races in 2015, 126 in 2016. Less participation too I think, especially lately.
A short and highly unreliable analysis of October 15 and 16 tells me that 15 was stronger, but not by that much. The difference seems much bigger in November, while it was decent mostly in 2015 it seems down in 2016. Again, not an in depth analysis could be wrong. Most likely Luques and leso have more precise numbers, they should have, would be nice if they could be shared here.
But I think this downturn is in part fueled by the times. In part only. But if you offer the generally weaker morning and afternoon 30 times, while only offering the stronger evening 20-21 14 times, plus 13 times 22... of course participation will be down. If Freude can ride from 17-19 and you're not offering those times, telling him to go to bet later is not helping him and not helping RSF either. He'll just not ride then, you lose up to 10 "participations" in November.
Anyway, with the 126 races we had in November, a better distribution would have been:
Evening 30 , the rest all 24.
December we have 133 one day races planned:
9-11 32 (on the 31st 2, one at 10, one at 11... .somehow 9-11 would be more sensible? If we are still looking for sensible stuff, which doesn't seem to be the case)
14-16 31 (2 on the 31st, none on the 24th)
17-19 23
20-22: 26
23-24: 20
Same problem as in November. The wrong times get everything. 25-25-25-33-25 or something like that would be much more sensible (if we are actually looking to do sensible things, it doesn't really seem so, but...)
The stage races are much better. In the afternoon once 16 instead of only 14-15, morning once 11 instead of only 9-10, but ok, 16+11 generally seem to be less popular than the other times, so ok I guess. No real complaints or problems with the stage races.
Then I miss my 2 pavé races. In November we had 4 of them. all high category as well. In December we're down to 1. Yes, there's 2 (I think) other races with some pavé in it somewhere, that doesn't make them pavé races. Why not just make 2 pavé races a month? Can't be THAT difficult.
Anyway, there is still time to improve December.
