Rationals scheduled in the West

[fvracer27]

The issue out west, is that our Regional classes quite often are running a spec tire. Club Ford, FV both use a spec American Racer tire. A club ford on a spec tire is an issue in the corners for a fast FV on Hoosier/Goodyears.

Please don't start talking now about a spec tire, but when you make that mix on the track, it is going to get frustrating. I would rather have R/N weekends.

Why is there a spec tire in FV in the west?

Mark

[Mystique Racing]

Why is there a spec tire in FV in the west

To promote larger fields and more affordable racing, which it has done quite nicely. To bad the rest of the nation cant figure this out.

12 race season = two sets of tires

I have actually turned my fastest lap ever on a set of tires that the cords were just starting to show in the front.

20-25 heat cycles per set of tires......... priceless

[fvracer27]

Why is there a spec tire in FV in the west

To promote larger fields and more affordable racing, which it has done quite nicely. To bad the rest of the nation cant figure this out.

12 race season = two sets of tires

I have actually turned my fastest lap ever on a set of tires that the cords were just starting to show in the front.

20-25 heat cycles per set of tires......... priceless

This was my first year racing a Vee and everyone keeps talking about making it more affordable. I have race plenty on stuff and I'll tell you a Vee has been the most affordable on a regional level. Even racing a kart is more expensive if you want to run with the field. Maybe it's just my region here but I love this class because it's very affordable and most cars are pretty equal on the regional level.

Maybe a spec FV class should be run for everyone that thinks there needs to be and everyone else run FV.

Even with a spec tire the guys that want to run fast will buy more spec tires or treat the tires which adds cost that's the way it is I have seen it in many forms of racing. Roundy round guys are a perfect example, my buddy runs spec tire and unless he has a new set and treats them every week he is 1 sec off the pace that's 1st to 8th.

Mark

[Ed Womer]

Just like Bill mentioned there are morons everywhere, then even manage to show up at the runoffs. There are plenty of good drivers who only run regionals due to trave etc. that know how to race. Then there are drivers who will probably never get it about how to race within their class let alone with other classes. The class of license really doesn't mean anything other than you have a few more races. Even the top pro series have problems with certain drivers and you can see it on track by how they drive and listen to the comentators talk about them.

After having road raced for over 30 years the constant increase in cost and the diminishing fun factor are starting to cause me to actually think about stopping racing which is something I thought I would never do. Of course other activities are looking better because they don't cost as much and you can do them more often.

Ed

[Speedsport]

I have no problem being on the track with regional drivers at the same time, as long as we are all racing for the same trophy. Trying to have two different 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd placee, ect., races going on at the same time is stupid. If we are going to combine regional and national on track sessions then eliminate the distinction.

However, with that being said, I STRONGLY oppose this idea for one reason...TOO MANY CLASSES. National weekend schedules are bad enough due to the 27 classes on a given weekend. But throw in an additional 25 or so, and no way would I want to have anything to do with it.

[smsazzy]

If the regions need more entries, then they should run the N/N with a restricted regional. Whatever the biggest class is, give them (or two of them) a seperate session and cram it into a three day double national.

Out here, it is the SRF's and SM's. Give them a regional race as well.

[fvracer27]

I have no problem being on the track with regional drivers at the same time, as long as we are all racing for the same trophy. Trying to have two different 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd placee, ect., races going on at the same time is stupid. If we are going to combine regional and national on track sessions then eliminate the distinction.

However, with that being said, I STRONGLY oppose this idea for one reason...TOO MANY CLASSES. National weekend schedules are bad enough due to the 27 classes on a given weekend. But throw in an additional 25 or so, and no way would I want to have anything to do with it.

I agree
If your a regional driver and want to race a rational weekend plan to step up and run like national racers do well most as been pointed out "there are moroons everywhere". I think For most regional drivers this will only happen once per year in your region? Unfortunalty national driver will have to deal with it much more.

[DanRemmers]

After having road raced for over 30 years the constant increase in cost and the diminishing fun factor are starting to cause me to actually think about stopping racing which is something I thought I would never do. Of course other activities are looking better because they don't cost as much and you can do them more often.

Ed, you should build a killer solo vee! Low entry fees and travel costs. Of course, you would need a co-driver...

[brian]

Adding classes, regional or otherwise, will increase the group count unless the incremental classes are combined with existing groups. Most weekend time schedules are filled up and booking additional days of track rental will only increase costs. Combining regional and national cars within the existing groups will help in improving the bottom line without creating scheduling nightmares.

I agree with Ed, in 1977 we paid $45 entry fee for 1.5 hours of track time. Now a regional entry will cost nearly $300. That's over a 600% increase. The CPI for the same period was 341%.. Answer why fees have risen at twice the rate of the price index and you will disclose opportunities for improvement. Yea, we all know that track rental has risen, but if you look at the costs of national staff attending the Runoffs, the upcoming convention in LAS VEGAS, that virtually no driver attends but pays for, and paying travel expense for divisional execs and board members to attend events, you'll see that we're paying for a lot of things that weren't paid for by drivers years ago.

Topeka and the workers are trying to run a champagne club on a beer budget. They don't really care, it's not their money it's the drivers. It's time to change and it's time for the drivers to demand it. Get involved, get some current drivers on boards and committees, let's get our voices heard.

[hardingfv32-1]

If we look at a Nat or Reg race weekend, how due fees make their way to the National office? How much are the sanction fees? Per car?

Where does the Club get its revenue from by percentage?

Brian

[brian]

Due are paid directly to the Topeka office via renewals. The fees collected on behalf of the national office from races are paid via check to Topeka. The national office receives funds in the form of a sanction fee and the insurance fees. I think it's safe to assume the insurance fees are pass through and don't effect the bottom line. If it is a national, $15 per entry goes to the tow fund, another pass through. Sanction fees are $700 for a national, $1400 for a double. Regional is $450 with a double costing $750. See any difference? No one has ever answered my question about why national sanction and insurance fees are higher than regionals. The closest thing I have ever been told is that it is a philosophical issue. Like that double talk?

While they post a required financial statement, SCCA, like most enterprises, holds the details very close to their vest. Publicly, they state that the Runoffs is not a profit center and it barely breaks even. I'm not convinced. In addition to membership fees, the home office retains all driver's license fees. My requests regarding details from my home region have been met with challenging vagueness.

I do not have as much of an issue with how Topeka gets it's revenue but how it spends it. Frankly, I feel that every function in SCCA should be self sufficient. That includes Sports Car magazine, and conventions. Topeka pays for travel expenses for employees, and board members and they might pay for DIvisional heads, like exec stewards. Regions often pay for folks to attend the convention and Runoffs. I don't really want to go into legal fees that have been paid since that's another entire issue.

[Ed Womer]

Dan,

Build a killer solo vee? Well that means spending as much for a vee just that it is only usable for solo. So I have another $15-20K vehicle that I get to spend $30-40 for an entry to drive the car for maybe 3 minutes and have to spend all day at the event chasing cones so the club doesn't have to. I don't think so.

Just so eveyone knows Dan ask me to share his solo vee a couple of years ago at the Manassas Bup Out event and it was the first time I had run a solo event for probably 15 years. It was fun to do since it was mainly VW based cars of many different styles and more of a fun thing to do. I actually started in SCCA doing solo but after I got into road racing I only did a few solo's and really haven't gone back. Solo has such a different rules structure that you can't run cars in road racing or vise verse and be competitive and I think they have been wrong about the approach so there is no crossover between solo and road racing. Solo was something I was very involved in when I lived in HBG. PA for many years but road racing is faster and you get to do wheel to wheel which for me is more satisfying that racing a clock.

Ed

[DanRemmers]

The rumor I heard many years ago was that the club racing side of SCCA helped pay for the (unprofitable) pro racing side. Is there any truth to that?


@Ed: If I win the lottery (or similar), I'll pay you to build a solo car. Then you can run a few more races. :)

[problemchild]

Why are they being called Rationals instead of Negionals?

[brian]

The club floated loans to both pro and enterprises. They are now being paid back with interest. As long as those two components make money, everything is good. AMA, the motorcycle equivalent of SCCA, makes a lot of money in their pro series and it really reduces costs on the club side. Factories provide a lot of resources to their racing.

What most members don't know is their membership is allocated based on the survey in our renewal. If you say you follow pro some of your membership fees go there. I always respond by saying 100% club road racing.

[Matt King]

Why are they being called Rationals instead of Negionals?

Because it's one of the few "rational" new ideas that's gained any momentum in the club in many years? Just a guess...

[Matt King]

AMA, the motorcycle equivalent of SCCA, makes a lot of money in their pro series and it really reduces costs on the club side. Factories provide a lot of resources to their racing.

Actually, the AMA sold off the pro racing business to the Daytona Motorsports Group (Jim France and family) about three years ago. And wIth the motorcycle business in the toilet for the last couple of years, most of the American distribution arms of the Japanese companies have pulled out of AMA Pro. Last year only American Suzuki had a true manufacturer-funded team of the big 4 jap companies. So motorcycle road racing has been struggling in the US recently, but hopefully things are on the upswing. Part of my day job is managing AMA road and flat track racing teams at Harley Davidson, so I pay some attention to what's going on over there.

[hardingfv32-1]

First, I'm all for a very simple Club Racing Only type of organization. Someone to take care of insurance, licenses and rules.

That said I'm not sure that we are looking at a large savings on our entry fees. If we use the $700 Nat sanction fee number, that is $7 per car for a 100 car field. Take your membership and licenses fees, say $140 for a 7 race season, that is another $20 per race. $27 per race doesn't sound like that is where the cost escalation is coming from. I'm not sure it is worth the effort to reduce those costs. It is not going to be easy to change the SCCA structure.

I am afraid the track rental costs are the big driver. Even the two club owned tracks out West have not helped that much with keeping entry fees down.

Brian

[smsazzy]

I am afraid the track rental costs are the big driver. Even the two club owned tracks out West have not helped that much with keeping entry fees down.

Brian

Those two statements contradict each other. If the track rental was the problem, the club owned tracks would have figured out how to make it cheap.

[tiagosantos]

Unless the club figured that instead of lower entry fees, they'd just rather charge the same but have higher profits?

[smsazzy]

The clubs are a non-profit. At least they are supposed to be....

[hardingfv32-1]

I'm not sure the Club owned tracks are non-profit.

I would say they are still putting earned income back into the facilities. Cash flow back to the Clubs might be limited.

Brian

[Matt King]

I saw a stat in a similar discussion on Apexspeed that the insurance fee is about $30 per car. If that's per race sanction number, then insurance alone is more than 10 percent of the entry fee for a typical double regional or national, so that's got to be a big increase over what it was "back in the day." Add in higher track rental fees, emergency and ambulance service fees, and other inflated costs and it's not a surprise that entry fees have gone way up compared to 20 or 30 years ago, and I doubt anything will change to make them go down any time soon.

Since it's unlikely that costs will go down, it would make sense to focus on making sure the most possible value is being delivered for the money. The problem is, everyone wants something different!

[Fos]

Healthy discussion I've stumbled upon.

Something I'll try to raise again is 'less' race weekends. I seem to recall a thread about 3 regionals in the same division(NEDiv) in the same weekend. Talk about your profit killer.

I think the regions and divisions are too worried about giving up weekends and that is rapidly becoming self defeating.

If only 4 nationals are required, there should only be 4 nationals per division. Regions can swap/take turns across the years until they repeal that derogatory rule. Or, we can still have only 4 races, just points should count.

I had a friend that referred to reduced calorie as less taste. Well, we could have high fat races but fewer of them with the same calorie count. I'll stop with the bad analogies.
Happy Holidays gang!

TTFN
Fos

[brian]

I've done a lot of research in the race cost areas and while track fees are really high, and have grown a lot, a faster growing portion of entry fees is going to paying for non track items. Many regions are providing incentives and rewards to workers via paid memberships, travel expenses and discounts on clothing all of which are funded by entries. Please don't think I'm anti worker and start a rant, I'm identifying the areas of cost growth. Entry fees are now supporting a larger portion of office administration, banquets, publications, regional travel, meals and equipment replacement and improvements.

In the SF region, our publication looses money, the banquet does not break even, and we have purchased and maintain quite a large fleet of vehicles. In 2007, when I last looked at what they were willing to show me, these kinds of offsets represented over $50 per entry fee.

In order to maintain a not for profit status with the IRS, the club separates the for profit activities. Pro, Enterprises and track ownership are examples of spin offs. When profits do occur, the club sometimes receives payments on loans, and entry rebates.