SCCA IT IS TIME FOR CHANGE NOW

[Guest]

Dear Fellow SCCA Members,

Last November I attended my first NEDIV mini con in Albany. At this event the regions get together and decided who is going to race, where and when. The bottom line and we predicted this then was THERE ARE TOO MANY EVENTS IN THE NE. We are overtaxing our drivers and workers. Now we are well into the year and every event regardless if it is regional or national, we are losing money. There is too much supply and not enough demand plus with the addition of tracks bring more problems. Bottom line is for 2010 we need to cut events and make every event profitable instead of a losing situation. THE REGIONS MUST UNDERSTAND THIS AND MAKE A CHANGE NOW. If not we may see fewer regions next year putting on events or being out of business. This is not fair because we are SCCA, we are members of a organization and not just a region. PLEASE think of everyone, both drivers and workers and the well being of all regions and not just some. Drivers attend events from different regions as do the workers. We need to think down the road about our future and not just today. This is the reason why our competiting clubs are kicking our butts because they are dictatorships and rule in a proper way and this is what is needed at this point in time. We can no longer have regions running autonomously as in the past. We must think of the realities of life today and work with our fellow regions for the good of SCCA and not just one region.

I work extremely hard at trying to grow our sport and club and honestly I am getting tired and worn out. Personally I have put in over $7k into promoting a race series in hopes of growing participants and workers alike. I want to see the regions come together once and for all for the good of the club so that we have a future. If you truly understand what is going on in our country today and our economy and lifestyle of our participants you will see that what I am saying will work. LESS EVENTS but lets make them special and then they will each be profitable. Then with additional competitors per event we can even reduce the entry fees. It is simple. Let's work together and grow SCCA. Topeka is unable to do this for us we must take this upon ourselves to make the change.

Let me know your thoughts.

Yours for the sport,
Bob Zecca
NNJR Secretary

 

[racer_tim]

Bob, I agree. I've been saying "more isn't better" for a long time.

We on the left coast have a different problem than you folks on the east coast. Out problem here in San Francisco Region, is that we have 3 tracks in our region, and typically have between 10 and 11 CLUB weekends, including single and double regionals. Our National program is almost non-existent since the run-offs have been all the way across the country since they rotated between Riverside and Watkins Glen. We loose so much money on Nationals, that we only have 1 Dbl NAtional in March, and we share that with Reno.

So,with that said, our workers also support ALMS, and Grand-Am @ Laguna Seca, but Sears Point has elected to do it themselves with their own workers. Bruton Smith has totally screwed up the facility, as well as the attitude of the local management, and has decided to only really support the high dollar, high exposure events, like NHRA, NASCAR, IRL, and the pro motorcycles events there at the track. How quickly they have forgotten that it was SCCA that has supported the track since it's inception.

Anyway, we also have a different problem with the weather here on the left coast. Our racing season starts in March and goes until October. Just about every weekend between March and October, there is some kind of event at all 3 tracks. This was the entire emphasis as to why we built ThunderHill more than 15 years ago. We were getting squeezed out from Sears and Laguna.

Another issue, is once you give somebody the chance to race 10-11 times a year, and you then cut that back to 8, if they have the budget, they will go someplace else the other 3 weekends, so it's a catch-22.

 

[Guest]

There is no one easy solution. I think for the majority money is an issue at least for this year. I believe it would be prudent to cut events next year by 20% and have them better attended and make money for the regions. This would work for the NE but the larger regions may not go for it but they are being short-sighted. Maybe do a poll and listen to the opinions of both the workers and racers alike. Either way we need to get our club back on track and even build up the National program again but that is another subject. We have much work to do.

The more I travel to different tracks and learn more about our workers and racers the more I have a greater respect for our club. We have many amazing and interesting people with good hearts that would give you the shirt off their back.

Thank you very much for your response.

Sincerely,
Bob Zecca

 

[Guest]

Robert,

You are addressing symptoms and only indirectly exposing the true problem. The EASY solution is less regions not races. The number of races would take care of itself if you didn't have 117 regions, many too small and/or poorly run, fighting to get race weekends, creating competition and diluting the product. The problem you're going to have is that they WANT to be race regions because that's where the money is. Now, even that's running dry through their own greed, economic conditions, competition from other organizations and generally decreased supply of customer base... and you think they'll want to cut races to fix the problem? Ha! Let's see you figure out who gets cut. That should be an interesting meeting. Even more interesting will be the resulting acrimony it will create. THere will be some really angry people at the end of that day... enough so that you'll probably end up with even more division.

Unless you start getting rid of regions or simply consolidating them, you're going to have problems with cutting races. In the current model someone will get the short end of the stick. Maybe some of these regions should go broke and maybe that's the only way to do it because taking races away will certainly do such anyway. But who's to decide?

This is really just an excuse for regions to insure profit outside of delivering better product. Maybe NER shouldn't have spent a ton of dough on a silly pipedream like Palmer and perhaps should have applied that to event improvement? Maybe a few regions should start looking at making less profit versus raising prices to make the same until the economy comes back?

 

[Basil C. Adams]

Is it really about regions or races? I always thought that the folks that run the Club at the local level wanted more social time and more time where they felt needed so they scheduled more events. Isn't it really just that simple?

 

[Guest]

Some friends were running a NASA race at Pueblo this weekend so I hopped on the M/C and went down Sunday. The head guy came and found me and introduced himself and introduced me to some of the other people around, said he would create a "GT" class for me to run in and I could run in whatever group I wanted, thanked me for coming out to take a look at their race and asked what else he could help me with if I wanted to come and run their event.

Wow, an interesting approach. That and they were on schedule, to the minute, no if, ands, or buts, on schedule. On top of that it was $260 for 2 days, a local double regional is $390 for 2 days and $350 for 1 day.

Looks like 2 double nationals to get qualified and run with them for some fun.

 

[Guest]

Is it really about regions or races? I always thought that the folks that run the Club at the local level wanted more social time and more time where they felt needed so they scheduled more events. Isn't it really just that simple?

Although I'm sure there's some truth to that Basil, I don't think it's the major factor but a byproduct. What it comes down to in regards to regions putting on events is generating revenue for the region's overall annual operation which encompasses much more (too much more) than road racing. One road racing event can and is many times, the cash cow for the whole year for a region, funding every damn regional welfare program from trophies for solo, subsidies for officials to attend the convention to every last little bit of party/banquet/entertainment expense that can be squeezed out of it for the benefit of non-road racers. There's your "social" aspect but I see it as a convenient result of the situation, not necessarily the motivating factor.

Anywho... you start talking about cutting events and you're basically going to be putting some regions out of business. Forget about the parties and banquets... You'd be just plain shutting down their whole operation. I can tell you right now that with no ammunition other than needing less races it will prove to be quite the fart in the elevator and will go nowhere. But, maybe there is a solution... :think:

What if regions were required under regular audit by National to reserve a large portion of road racing revenue STRICTLY for road racing event reinvestment/programs? In other words, no more running the region's OTHER activities on the back of road racers financial support? There'll be plenty of folks ready to fight this proposal/policy in their greedy over-indulged wet dream minded approach to using other people's money for their own purposes outside of road racing, but what argument would they really have?... "We want you to give us your money and we'll be using it anyway we want to without regard for your input or benefit..."? And to any and all non-road racing regional execs out there... good luck with that one. Let me know how it works out. :lol:

So, the policy would require them to give up either the race or a large portion of the money. Conversely, they could fight it all with the only possible argument there is which would be, that they want to use road racing dollars for purposes outside of road racing and without benefit to those providing the support. That's going to be a very tough argument to win let alone doing it among a room full of road racers at a divisional meeting. Love to see someone try it though. :applause: The government doing crap like this is unavoidable, inevitable and without option, but not here my friends. :wink: I gotta' pay taxes but I do not have to pay increased fees so some bozo who drives his street car around in a high school parking lot can have a chicken dinner every December.

Bottom line is to present them with a solution where their only argument is a continued exploitation of the road racer. That's a pretty strong bargaining position to be in, especially in light of the only too transparent non-defensible position defending the other side of the argument. You might just effect change without an argument. They'll be put in a position of little possible response without looking like total money grubbing dicks out to rape road racers financially. Who's going to risk the ridicule and embarassment of being labeled a self serving leech supporting or defending such a blatantly "wrong" stance? :snooty:

 

[Basil C. Adams]

Is it really about regions or races? I always thought that the folks that run the Club at the local level wanted more social time and more time where they felt needed so they scheduled more events. Isn't it really just that simple?

Who's going to risk the ridicule and embarassment of being labeled a self serving leech supporting or defending such a blatantly "wrong" stance? :snooty:

They don't get called blood-sucking leeches." They get called "elected officials."

 

[Karl McColl]

In Colorado region each program maintains their own "account" and is expected to be self-sufficient. Solo, Rallycross,and Club racing/TT all operate separately and profitably. Region dues are received into the main account, but essentially earmarked by participation %age for the separate programs.
This doesn't mean if there is a need for a large expense in one or another program that funds won't be allocated, all programs are committed to the overall success of COSCCA.
A few years ago I instituted a monthly (unless nothing was going on) meeting of the program leadership and RE so that I knew what was cooking with programs I wasn't participating in so I wouldn't be surprised by issues I was unaware of.
Aside from sending the RE to the convention (flight, room, convention cost only) some auto show marketing stuff, and the RMDiv convention every other year, we really don't spend much money on items that cannot be directly related to the support and operation of one program or another. That doesn't mean we don't waste money, we just do it within our event budgets!
FYI I haven't been RE for a year and my run on the region BoD ends in October.

I agree with Matt regarding region consolidation but don't really see it happening. Blanket national solutions to region and division issues won't work, CoSCCA problems are not the same as in NoCal or SoEast. Example; We struggle for entries at regionals, while Nationals are our biggest and most successful (profitable) events.

 

[Guest]

Karl your region is run similar to ours. However our Solo program returns to the general fund on average about $10,000/year while leaving them enough working capital to hold three events at a loss. All areas are run like the subsidaries they are. Annual budgets for review by the Region Board of Directors and each with their own operating committees. The ARE of the discipline is on the Region Board.

Regions that aren't run in a similar manner should. If your region isn't you can do two things, run for RE or Treasurer and demand the board operate in a fiduciary manner in all aspects or get someone else to do the dirty work and support them with your vote and continued support.

James
Houston Region RE