8 riders

[ripken]

I require the formula to run a speedway type of event.(four riders to a heat)involving 8 riders.
All riders are to race against one another only once

[Ian Wakeling]

As stated, I don't believe that a solution is possible.  If you always want to have 4 riders to a heat then I think the best solution would be to have six heats as follows:

(1 5 2 6)
(3 7 4 8)
(1 5 3 7)
(2 6 4 8)
(1 5 4 8)
(2 6 3 7)

Everyone does race against each other at least once, however the pairs (1 5) (2 6) (3 7) (4 8) race together three times each.  So if you go for this schedule it would make sense to assign the best two riders to numbers 1 and 5, the next best to 2 and 6, etc.

[ripken]

Ian

The format I am looking for would only involve the riders meeting each other once.Unlike your suggestion which would have riders meeting each other more than once.

[wbport]

If you follow just one racer,you'll see what you want to do is impossible.  If racer 1 is in a heat against 2, 3, & 4 and is against 5, 6, 7 in the 2^nd heat, havn't 2, 3, 4 already raced against each other?  Haven't 5, 6, 7 also met in the previous round?

The only way it could work is for you to ignore the other two racers on the track.  If 1 was racing 2 and 3 was racing 4, ignore all results except how 1 and 2 finished by themselves and 3 & 4 by themselves; i.e., you care if 1 finished ahead of 2 (or vice versa) but not against 3 or 4 at that time.  Perhaps only have two racers on the track at one time and use standard RR tables on this website.