Following discussions and a majority vote amonsgt drivers at the recent race meeting at Hednesford Hills Raceway, it has now been agreed to revert back to the grading system used in Classics over the last few years.

Please note that the current POINTS charts will remain as is and are not affected in any way it is purely the grading system that is being revised.

The revolutionary grading system adopted for 2017 so far has raised a few questions along the way and highlighted a couple of areas that do not sit quite right - it simply isn't right for example, for the points leader to be starting anywhere other than at the back of the grid. We should applaud Rob Hughes for trying this new system which was mainly based on recent form rather than a drivers overall points situation, but as noted above, this has given rise to a few 'unusual' situations.

Rob will continue to keep the points chart and gradings and also be responsible for the grids at each meeting, but he will now be adopting the old system of grading which everyone understands. The points awarded for each race will remain as already used in 2017.

So, we will be reverting to the following grades :

.. Silver Roof (Reigning Points Champion)
.. Silver Stripe Current Points Leader
.. Superstar
.. Red
.. Blue
.. Yellow
.. White
.. Novice

The grades will be determined based on a drivers average, which is simply calculated by dividing the total points scored by the number of meetings raced. A meeting is deemed to have been raced when a driver has taken at least one green flag, so for example, if a driver blows up in practice and doesn’t take a green flag as part of a race, then that does NOT count as a meeting.

The number of drivers in each grade will be decided by the grader with an eye on the number of cars in each grade and also like averages.

Drivers will only be allowed to jump two grades upwards per grading period and downwards one grade per grading period.

Drivers that have attained Superstar status cannot drop below Blue Grade
Drivers that have attained Red Grade status cannot drop below Yellow Grade

Overall, there will be 'Graders Discretion' which allows the grader to re-grade a driver that for some reason doesn’t quite fit the criteria above - whilst this doesn’t happen very often, this rule allows for all eventualities.

The above grading system will apply per Classic Hot Rod 'area', so we will continue with points charts and gradings separately for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. In addition, the Internationa Points Series will be kept covering all drivers at all meetings.

We will review the system at the end of the season.

I would like to wish all drivers the very best of luck in their racing for the remainder of the year.

Paul Gerrard
RACE DIRECTOR

Click here to download the new Gradings & Points Tables