Qualifying stuff.

[Unregistered]

Do the Heat races have any bearing on your starting position at all? If not then why run them and risk your motor?
Next Question is: Whats the latest time that your allowed to Qualify for? (This is all regarding the Unlimiteds)

[stuntflyr]

Question 2 answer is, your qualifying run must END by 5:00 PM Wednesday.
Chris...

[The Phantom Samurai]

Heat races...

To answer the first question, yes, the heat races most certainly do determine starting position for the following days; in particular, Saturday's heat races will set positioning for the finals on Sunday, and are therefore considered pretty important. A good example would be the 1999 Gold heat 3A, in which Tiger Destefani and Strega used a strong burst at the start to power past Bruce Lockwood in Dago Red, and proceeded to hold him off for the duration of the race. The Gold final the following day had Tiger on the poll, and had he not blown his motor with 3/4 of a lap to go, would have won Reno for the seventh time. His poll positioning was all important because, try as he might, Lockwood simply couldn't pass him in the finals.

So to summarize, the heat races leading up to Sunday are VERY important, especially in the case of such evenly matched aircraft.

TPS

[Unregistered]

The heat races also sell tickets so Reno is 4 days of racing, not just one.