Flat track has a shape of problem almost nothing else has: the same club races the same classes forty times a year. An award decision made once is made for the season, and an award decision made every Friday is a job nobody has time for.
It also names its classes after the ground. Short track, TT, half-mile and mile are four different races, and a rider who wins one has not shown they can win another. Seven ideas built on both of those facts.
1. One design, forty race nights
Approve the artwork once. After that every run is a date change and a class change, printed on the plate. The design decision leaves the weekly routine entirely and never comes back.
It is also what makes week forty look like week one, which is the whole argument for a house design over ordering whatever is available each month.
2. Put the track length on the plate
Short track, TT, half-mile, mile. Naming the format on the award is the cheapest way to make a season of results legible years later, and it costs nothing because the plate is being printed anyway.
For a club running more than one format it also stops the season looking like four unrelated championships under one banner.
3. The oval itself
An oval is the most recognisable shape in the sport and almost no award uses it. Cut as the outer shape, or as a clear layer over a printed face, it says flat track before anyone reads a word on it.
A TT award can use the same idea with the right-hander and the jump in the outline, which gives that format its own piece without leaving the family.
4. The steel shoe and the number plate
Two motifs that belong to flat track and nothing else. A steel shoe silhouette works particularly well as a cut layer because the outline is distinctive at small sizes; a number plate works as the award shape itself for a champion piece.
Both are better than a generic bike graphic, which any discipline could have used.
5. A perpetual with room for the years that have not happened
The award at the top of this page is one: a printed face above a base carrying nine name plates, the first filled in and the rest waiting. That is what a perpetual is for — an object that accumulates rather than one that gets replaced.
Decide how long you want it to run before it is built. Allowing for fifteen years costs a slightly larger base; discovering in year six that you allowed for five costs the object.
6. Fast time and track records
A weekly programme produces one result nobody else awards: the fastest lap of the night, and occasionally a track record. Both are cheap to recognise and neither depends on winning a race.
A track record award is also the one piece in a flat track programme that a rider is most likely to keep on a wall rather than a shelf, because it is a claim about the venue rather than about a night.
7. The promoter's crew
Flaggers, corner workers, the water truck driver, the person who preps the surface between heats. A weekly programme runs on the same handful of people forty times.
A small set of plaques at the end of the season, on the same design as the race awards, is the least expensive part of the whole order.
Putting it together for a season
One approved design, track length and class on the plate, an oval or plate motif, a perpetual with room in it, fast-time recognition and a set for the crew.
The useful conversation for a weekly club is about the season, not the next meeting. That is the order that makes the design decision once.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can one design cover short track, TT, half-mile and mile?
Yes, and for a club running more than one format it is usually the right answer. The track length goes on the base plate under a shared design, so the season reads as one championship instead of four.
Can we order a whole season at once?
Yes, and most weekly clubs do. One approved artwork, then each run changes only the date and class. It is what removes the weekly design decision.
How many blank plates should a perpetual have?
More than you expect to need. A perpetual that fills up has to be replaced, and a replacement carries none of the history of the original. Tell us how many years you want it to run for and we will size the base for it.
Ready to design your flat track awards?
Tell us how many nights you run and which classes carry the programme, and we will build the season rather than the next meeting.
See flat track trophies
