I don't know how else to get the word out , so I'll start here. I'm also going to cross post in the Enduro sub forum.
CFR has decided to make the May national/ECR, a Regional/ECR instead. Rick
Balderson, CFR's RE gave a detailed explanation in the August Checker. (online at www.cfrscca.org) Basically, the region wants to try this for a year, and measure the response. The PTB feel that changing this to a regional weekend would free up some time constraints, and allow all competitors to have good track time, and fair scheduling.
As one would figure, some national competitors are not happy. They are VERY vocal. These same guys have been lobbying behind the scenes for years to get the ECR/regional competitors excluded from that same event. They are the guys who are responsible for ECR competitors not having a practice session for the last two years. They are also the same guys responsible for a Schedule which had the large bore IT cars qualify Saturday a.m., yet be the last race on Sunday. This event used to have one enduro group each day.
Now they are citing decreased ECR attendance, and lobbying to pull the ECR, and reinstate it as a National race only. They can't see that some of the decrease in ECR attendance is due to the schedule changes, which were pushed for by the same group of guys.
They are tossing out numbers to support their claims that the national weekend is more profitable, and have even publicly claimed that the national guys are "subsidizing" the regional racers. One of the erroneous claims is the number of regional competitors in CFR. By using the number of registered regional license holders vs. the number of national license holders, they are skewing the numbers. How many IT racers hold a national competition license??? I know many. I bet you do too.
I realize the national program is important to the 50 or so CFR guys who actually pursue national points. We are not being given the same respect. We(IT competitors) recently lost the January event. If we don't speak up, we will lose the May race also. If it is a regional, the national competitors can still race, everybody gets to play. IF they end up getting it reinstated, and continue to squeeze the region to push the IT guys out, then 120-160 competitors DO NOT get to race at Daytona in May.
This group of national competitors, mainly from the SRF camp, will be out with Surveys this weekend at Daytona. They have an audience with the BOG to present some of their version of numbers, and results of this survey. IF you care to continue racing at Daytona, or would like to see the weekend improve, I urge you to chose that you are in favor of the weekend being a regional. I'm not sure of the wording on this survey, so I don't know exactly how the votes will reflect by the time they are interpreted, and sent to the BOG.
I will also be there with a petition. My petition simply states that we support the region and want to try it as a regional weekend, so that ALL competitors will have a place to race. At this point, the only people the BOG has heard from is this small faction of national racers. If they (BOG) doesn't hear from the other side, they can only assume that we don't care. You can figure what will happen if we don't at least let them know that we want to race too, and the regional racers do count. If you are interested in hearing more, or helping support the regional racers in CFR, stop by.
I would hate to see us lose another race date, especially for a reason such as this.
PS....I've managed to stay out of the politics of the club..until now. They finally managed to suck me in!!
(black helicopter mode off)
