BAS Round 5 Debate!!

Well BAS Round 5 due to take place this weekend at St Neots has been cancelled due to the weather conditions but who knew the cancellation could spark off such a heated debate!! The whole debate stems around the proposal to reschedule the round for a fortnights time.

Reasons to reschedule the event for a later date:

• Those class titles that are undecided will have a chance to be decided on the track

Reasons not to reschedule the event for a later date:

• People have commited to the series based on the dates set before they entered and will have made other commitments around these dates such as work and holidays. Some people will not be able to attend the final round as a result of a date change therefore they do not get to fairly complete their BAS challenge. It's not their fault the date changed!
• Other clubs have meetings scheduled to avoid the BAS and these might now clash with the revised date thus putting clubs and their members in an awkward position. Do they support their club and the club points scheme or abandon their club for the BAS?
• BAS rules state that if a meeting is cancelled the results are taken over the best 3 of 4 rounds. It does not state the cancelled meeting will be rescheduled!
• What president does it set for the future? How many rounds next year can be rescheduled when the time comes because the weather has been poor? What is the point in setting the dates if this can be done!

I think my opinion is clear to see from the above!! Some will win and some will lose from not having a last round but at least everyone is in the same boat. If you lose because you haven't collected enough points at other rounds then that's your own fault/bad luck really, harsh i know!! If you lose because you can't make the rescheduled date due to other commitments then that is certainly not your fault and it's unfair! And if you can't make the last round then all the money and time spent on the last 4 rounds was a waste!

From what i gather today, NASA and BAS are both in favour of rescheduling the event and so now it's up to St Neots to make the decision. How wrong is that!! Surely NASA should have the best interests of all clubs in mind (particularly those running on the rescheduled weekend) and BAS should have the best interests of it's members in mind, therefore St Neots have no decision to make as it should have been made by BAS and NASA.

In reality, the only ones to really lose out from this are St Neots. They have invested time and money to put on the event and it's not their fault it has had to be cancelled. But surely the better way for St neots to recoup some of their costs is to reschedule their East Anglia Open meeting as planned on 27/28 September and encourage people to support this. There is just no need for it to be a BAS round though. As Helen Richards has pointed out on the forum perhaps it needs to be looked at as the needs of the many (clubs and members) agains the needs of the few (St Neots). Well said Helen!