Many of you have now seen the Howard Duncan memo that went out last week outlining the changes to the 2011 ProSolo season and Finale points system.  While the system is reasonably straight forward, there are some interesting twists that will likely become key in determining the 2011 Tire Rack SCCA ProSolo Class Champions. The first and biggest change is the introduction of heat bonus points at the Finale event.  This means the class leader at the end of each heat will receive 10 bonus points.  The intention is to give one-eventers, and drivers who may have had a poor showing during the regular season, the opportunity to earn an event worth of points on Saturday of the Finale. There are also 10 bonus points available for leading at the end of heat 3.  That, along with the 40 points available for the Finale win, means that class winners will earn 50 points while second place will only take 32.  All totaled, between the Sunday point differential and Saturday bonus points, a driver who dominates the finale can make up 38 points over the course of the weekend. This begs the question, with so many points available at the Finale, why not just run one event in the regular season and take your chances?  There are a couple of good reasons.  The first is priority registration.  Drivers who win Zone Championships will receive first rights to register for the Finale.  Next will be the drivers with 2 or more events and finally the one-eventers will get a shot at whatever spaces are left.  Additionally, Zone Championships are worth 5 bonus points, which won’t win the whole thing for you, but could be the difference between having to win on Sunday and being able to clinch with a second. The reality is, while it is possible to come into the Finale with as few as 7 points and still win it all, dominating the Finale is a very tall order.  Of the 20 non-indexed classes at the 2010 Finale, 75% of them had at least one lead change over the course of the weekend.  Furthermore, with the potential for 45 regular season points, a Zone Champion who claims the 10 bonus points on Saturday morning effectively eliminates all one-eventers from Championship competition. The motivation behind all of this is simple, participation.  Over the years would-be ProSolo participants who were unable to make two regular season events were left without a good way to participate in the series.  There are also drivers who have chosen to opt out after having one or two bad events.  The goal of this system is to create some opportunities for these drivers to overcome those limiting factors, and keep them in contention for a championship while still rewarding drivers who have had good seasons.  It will not be until season’s end that we can judge the effectiveness of the system, but there is little doubt that it will make for an exciting Finale, start to finish.