No Regional Results in SportsCar

In the September issue of SportsCar, in the letters section, there are a couple of letters wondering where are the regional results?
The editor responds by saying "The internet has changed the way we do many things. Instead of repeating old information that's of interest to a select few, we've chosen to include in Record Book the results that matter to the most people, over the widest area."
Let's see, aren't there more regional racers than national racers?
Isn't IT the SCCA's most popular class?
Where would our regions be without regional racers?
My guess is that they would go broke!
But the editors of SportsCar feel that we do not matter!
Unbelievable.


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Dan Heath

I Agree!!!

I'm with ya! My letter is on the way.

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Chris Ludwig
08 ITS RX7 CenDiv

I could not disagree more. there are 50 tracks that we run scca racing at every year. wasting space in sportscar with a few results that only matter to the 200 people that ran the event in my mind is a waste of paper. If i were king i would not have any results printed in sportscar at all. the space can be better used
dick patullo
ner scca ITA15

I could'nt agree more...either no results or equal treatment for all !!! mike g.

Dick, in this particular case, I don't think it's so much that folks are really interested in seeing Regional results in SportsCar, I believe it's more the inferred attitude of the editor's comment. The implication is that regional races (e.g., Improved Touring) are of little interest to "the most people, over the widest area" (at least that's the way I read it...)

Regardless of if this was intended or not, it's just another blow for the perception that IT is the red-headed stepchild of the club...

well greg if that is the case there is nothing I can do to fix that. I race in a regional class. I do not care that it is a regional class. racing is better in our area in regional classes. my region and the other region i race in to not treat me with less respect because it is a regional class. while it has not always have been so the renvigored ITAC shows the road racing board is now treating IT with importance. reading results is sports car grm or anywhere else make for very boring reading.
dick patullo

Everybody should be listed or nobody. The editor's comments are quite clear to me.

What you should realy look at is the financial statement page F-220.

Of all the racing in the SCCA, Club Racing has the least amount of money spent on it ($426,098). Unfortunatly they do not split up the income statement so you can't see how much Club Racing brings in compared to the others. Enterprises costs alot of money, does the club realy have to be in the racecar business, especially when they lost $123,907 in 9 months.

[This message has been edited by Karl Bocchieri (edited August 13, 2004).]

The next page is what got me(pg. 12)"As the Club Racing Board considers ways to equalize the Improved Touring (IT)classes -SCCA's most popular Club Racing category"........I wonder how much money we bring in to the mix?? mike g.

karl
i would guess that the reason that little money sem to be expended for club racing is that topeka does not run the events, the regions do. your entry fees are collected by the regions and the expences are paid by the regions. topeka'e only role other than the runoff, which then run, is as a anministrator. they collect license fees, sanction fees and insurance.
taking one of our recent events at random, a drivers school regional, NER collected $69,345 in entry fees. the only money that went to topeka was sanction fee of $1045
insurance of $4032 and a calender fee of $25.

regions run races

I don't know if sportscar is the place for it, but I would like to see Regional racing results listed in a central location. For me, it would be ideal if it was an online location.

Because Regional racing is so....regional....the folks in one corner of the country have little idea of what is happening 3000 miles away. For example, ITA, ITS and ITB are really pretty well subscribed in the NE, but I understand thats not the case in other parts of the country. ITC draws big numbers at the MARRS events but little elsewhere, and so on.

Having the car counts, and results available is very important for policy decisions, and is of interest to all racers.

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Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

jake you are right, we really could use that resource but printing 6 races a month does not give us much.
dick