So my new bike has a tiny, tiny tail. I am told by a dude that I cannot fit 6 inch numbers on it, and he also told me that many clubs have gone to a four inch number standard to reflect the shrinking fairing on many new bikes. What should I do? He tells me he can get 4.5 inch numbers on my plate, can I run with that, or rather, what hoops do I need to jump through to run with that? Or other options?
There's no room on the side of the bike? Usually, there is a large area on your lowers, each side that can take 8" or larger numbers. Toward the back would be best. There is also the whole side of the bike like Nikola did too. His tail didn't have any numbers, because it was too small, so he use the whole side of the bike. Short of that, you can get number plates and then zap strap them on, like Nick Defago did too. But seriously, you will not pass tech without some sort of large easy to read from a distance numbers on the side. The distance with which to judge should be from where the corner workers stand on turn 1, to the grass run off at the end of turn 1, or about 150 feet.
So be it, but we should look at this rule. I am guessing that bike fairings are only going to be smaller. The dude I talked to makes number decals to custom fit many bikes for many clubs, and his comment was that even the most conservative US clubs have gone to 4.5 inches.
Bring it up at next years rule book committee meeting. However, our head corner marshal is the one that we have to get that past. If they can't see the numbers to call them out during an incident, they get upset. That's the only reason why we want highly visible and easy to read numbers. We also use them for manual scoring, and if you spent some time in the scoring building, you'd see how hard it is to ID bikes as they go past on the front straight with smaller numbers. Besides, we are who we are, and we like to differentiate ourselves from other clubs. Our club has the highest rated corner marshals in both US and Canada. It's due to our strict safety rules. We aren't like other clubs. We're better.
You know, us Formula Classic guys take a bit of offense to that. We simply don't like the future - that's why we elected to stay back in the day. I wonder if that GPZ is still around tucked in someone's workshop? I'd sure like to add that to my stable of bikes...
Actually that is a for real 1983 Lawson Replica. #0000215 Sadly I was not smart enough to hang onto it. Not to mention race something else and keep it pristine.:behead
I'm sure the bike was a whole lot happier being raced and thrashed around as opposed to pristine with low mileage on the clock Yes - I'm one of the crazies that actually think that bikes have a soul and on occasion even talk to me. To illustrate - this frame was begging me to save it, and I did! Not that I am lacking in the project department... One day soon it will happily race in Formula Classic, with those big square UNI number plates and the number 414 !
