mmacquee":37mcklgu said:
we have 5 ports and two tiny carbs, and they won't give us 12:1? in addition to the club trying to drive us out why does everyone else want to crap on us? Have had some experiences with Volvos running F, they don't see us and regard our bodywork as fungible assets. Yes, I am old, and remember the days of 40 car H/G fields filled with spridgets and spits, but we're not dead yet!
This is a terrible way for anyone in any of our classes to end up feeling. Yes it is harder to see a smaller car, but we need to.
I feel like in some areas we see a good collective camaraderie and culture, and in others it’s a group of individuals on track. We are pretty fortunate in CenDiv to have, in my opinion a strong class culture in H, and a decent category culture in Prod with a few bumpy moments to be sure.
There is no easy answer to establishing a desirable dynamic, but the obvious first step is, on some level, to know each other as a person. The Olsen brothers actually do a great job of fostering the right kind of culture with the way they create a nice forum to get together at the track. Dayle Frame has done a great job of this with the category at runoffs events. Chuck and Tammie Mathis did the same for VW racers at runoffs past. Obviously it’s hard to do in a c19 world, but this is what sets our group apart from the ones with higher percentages of arrive and drive and rental drivers.
I know not everyone falls into the “social media” trap, but Facebook does have some groups that make it easier to get to know one another, and support those that need it to get going in racing. The SCCA Production Racers group that Jesse Prather started last year is a more engaging platform that can support many of the conversations held here, the SCCA H Production Racers group that Jason Stone started does the same at a class specific level.
Me personally, I like what forums used to be, because they are structured better, and theoretically remain more consistent over time, but with FB no one needs to set up, manage, maintain or pay for the infrastructure supporting the group like some great people do for us here.
I’d highly recommend that we all take a little time to find our racing communities on social media and join them. Interact, share progress, share challenges, teach newcomers, get to know the faces and names of the racers you are on track with. The SCCA is the most legitimate club racing organization on the continent, but one of its strongest attributes is the community that makes it up. We can strengthen that and improve our racing experience simply by fostering and reinforcing the community we race in. What we do here helps, but honestly it’s not going to live forever, and we get very little ability to get to know each other in this format due to its “transactional” interaction style.
Sorry for derailing the gnashing of teeth and head asploding related to big block HP cars and delicate long developed small bore foundations of the class. Back to your regularly scheduled “Prod Foruming”.
