I'm sorry, but my dues are subsidizing this??

[Chris Eastwood]

Being a kid myself (18) and active in SCCA, I have many friends who have "tricked out" honda's who like to drag race. Not one of them likes road racing or Autox. It takes to much work for them or so they say. I think their big bore exhauste had messed up their minds perosonally.

I also have noticed that if a younger person is going to join they either (A) really really like road racing and have money/or do it with parent(S) like me, Or ("grew-up" in the club. outside of that it's old the older folks. Sure I meet kids and my racing comes up, and the typical responces is," oh cool, so anyways..."
I hope that was useful, for what it's worth
Take care,
Chris

[Joe Murray]

Sometimes popularity takes the piss out of good things.

(excuse the language)

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ahondafor?

[kthomas]

Does Drifting remind anyone else besides me of Pro Wrestling? All show. Kinda fun to watch once but you don't want any of your friends to see you leaving the arena, and you can't believe their real fans get the same vote in elections that you do.

Uh, call me old fashioned, but if the same chicks show up for events that garnish the pages of the import mags, then I'm all for it.

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katman

[oanglade]

"It's different than us, so we don't want it..." that's what I read here.

Heck, SCCA should be sanctioning drag racing too!

Good job!

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Ony

[Joe Murray]

I Don't think its because: "it's different than us", but just lame. I feel it's a little sensualize like the WWF. Bad design is, bad design.

Maybe we should have wet Tee shirt contests in the run offs.



------------------
ahondafor?

[Geo]

Originally posted by oanglade:
"It's different than us, so we don't want it..." that's what I read here.

I don't see it that way. I'd rather the SCCA stay focused on the things it's already involved in (pro racing, club racing, pro rally, club rally, auto-x, etc.). Why dilute the already thin resources it has?


------------------
George Roffe
Houston, TX
84 944 ITS car under construction
92 ITS Sentra SE-R occasionally borrowed
http://www.nissport.com

[7racing]

I think of this as expanding the SCCA. There is a HUGE amount of younger generation kids spending TONS of cash on this. There is probably a good possibility (although it will never come to fruition) of cross-over appeal to Autocross/Rally/Racing. It can all work together.

I'm not totally for this idea, but I'm not against it either. A problem with SCCA in the minds of 20yr olds is that it is too expensive, too much work, too many rules, too old. This could change a lot of that, get a large demographic involved now, and they may grow up to appreciate the other aspects (when they grow out of drift, where are they going to go? They probably will stay with cars, and if half of them migrate to autocross, rally or racing, then great).

I'm not so far removed from my college days to forget the conversations about SCCA there. My favorite was "can you bet on the races - like at the horse tracks?" As a whole, the 16-25 yr olds typically want to have performance street cars, and not a purpose built racecar (can't drive your IT car to the track anymore - can't boost it, either).

Remember, SCCA started with car shows. They probably never should've left (kept it as an additional piece).

Jeremy

[B Schley]

I'm all for getting younger members. Why not work on more actively promoting the Go-Karts and stars of tomorrow? Maybe this is a response to NASA. Why not something that is a more logical progression to auto-cross or road racing, like ice racing. SCCA has to be careful not to dilute itself. When will the wet tee-shirt contests begin?

[whenry]

Ive never been to the Runoffs when the weather was good enough for the wet T-shirt contest or to judge if there would be some worthwhile participants. Something about too many clothes on the backstraight when it is snowing(yes, I know that it was an aberration). However a racer does have to look forward to the Spring races as the weather warms and the new racing bimbos are revealed(especially in Fla) YMMV

[gsbaker]

Originally posted by whenry:
...Something about too many clothes on the backstraight when it is snowing...

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the snow bunny wet snowmobile suit contest!

Oops. Froze another one.

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Gregg Baker
Isaac, LLC
[email protected]

Originally posted by planet6racing:
How many times have you been to an autocross where there were "enthusiasts" present with their "tricked out" cars? How many times have these "enthusiasts,' upon deciding it was time to go, left in a fashion that was less than desirable? How many of the autocross sites keep tabs on this and raise rates to prevent autocross clubs from coming back?

Case and point. I was at a lapping day at Road America. Some spectator thought it would be cool to do burn-outs on Hwy 67, about 1 mile from the track. Said spectator was observed by some of the locals leaving the track, then doing the burn-outs. RA management got wind of it and that club is no longer welcome back.

I'm all for getting new members, especially younger members. The SCCA needs to make sure that EVERYONE at these events behaves like an adult during all aspects associated with the event, including leaving the neighborhood/wherever they are.

But, as others on other boards have said, the drifters probably won't like all ther rules they'll have to deal with now in the SCCA, so this will probably have a short life.

Maybe the reason more "younger" drivers don't get involved in scca is the attitudes of the older members. I went to an scca autocross 2 years ago for the first time and it was my last. You shouldn't assume that because somebody shows up with a car that isn't all go, no show that they are just some riceboy ass-clown. Try to have an open mind. drift driving is very hard to do well, and is amazing to watch. Maybe aspiring drift masters will realize that You have to crawl, before you can crab-walk, and show up to an auto-x to learn basic skills. hopefully they will have a better first impression than I did.

[This message has been edited by Trevor's GTI 57 (edited November 16, 2003).]

[Prince Makaha]

Let them come watch the drifters.
Let them stay to watch the real racing.

More fans are better.

What if the IT racers decided to dominate the drifting competition?

[This message has been edited by Prince Makaha (edited November 16, 2003).]

[Geo]

Originally posted by Trevor's GTI 57:
Try to have an open mind. drift driving is very hard to do well, and is amazing to watch. Maybe aspiring drift masters will realize that You have to crawl, before you can crab-walk, and show up to an auto-x to learn basic skills.

You're assuming drifters may be actually interested in real racing. In my limited experience they couldn't care less about racing.


------------------
George Roffe
Houston, TX
84 944 ITS car under construction
92 ITS Sentra SE-R occasionally borrowed
http://www.nissport.com

[mumbles027]

maybe the drifters don't and maybe they don't know how to break into it. i spent years thinking about how much fun it would be. and the more opertunity the better i say.

[planet6racing]

Trevor:

Thank you for taking the time to post. Since it is your first post, I'd just like to know how you heard about this topic.

Secondly, it only takes one (yes one!) person to ruin a site for both autocross and road racing. That's all I'm saying. If people want to drift, fine by me. I'm in no way close minded to it, but I am ultimately concerned about insurance costs and site costs because both of these ultimately effect me in the most important spot: the wallet.

Come to a Milwaukee Region autocross. Find me. I'll gladly help get you classed and through the autocross making sure you have a good time. Yeah, it will deal a blow to the ego (mine was pretty big), but I couldn't wait for the next one! If you're interested, contact me offline.

Mumbles: I was in the same boat. As soon as I found out about Road Racing, I started building my car. 4 years later, I have my license and will be racing hard next year. I don't think a drifting event would have changed how I got into it because I don't have cable and therefore can't see any of the televised SCCA events ($50 per month X 12 months = 1 new set of Kumho's) and therefore still wouldn't know about the SCCA. Perhaps the SCCA should focus on better promotion of their current programs to drive up interest...

Oh, and just a suggestion to all the Junior Members: You'll notice most of us put our real names at the end of our posts. This will go a long way to help us take you all seriously (not that we don't, but it sure gets easy to skip some posts, especially when you read many boards with high noise ratios!).

------------------
Bill
Planet 6 Racing
bill (at) planet6racing (dot) com

[mumbles027]

i know about luck. i didn't know there were any tacks in mi untill i bought my lotus on a bet. then someone pull my registration and asked if i wanted to go to a track fun day. then when my car club turned into an online community for sports car enthusists a svr regional director sighed up and i found out about auto-x. i wish i would have known about it three cars ago when i had the camaro.

[Knestis]

If the issue is behavior at/around venues, address it separately. In just a few years, we had one rolled Fiat and two different people hit trees (the same tree, actually) on the access road at Seattle (now Pacific Raceways) - 1 crew member, 1 rallysprint entrant(!), and 1 spectator, as I recall things. No drifters. I wish that I had a nickel for every idiot that I saw blow across Highway 18 onto the hilly back road into Kent and disappear into the distance with redline shifts.

K