....Snip
And on my thoughts from before... Jake-
Does EMRA (?) and BMW club pay the same rates to have "racing" days or do they take muffled dates at a lower rate? Has anyone from the SCCA Regions ever investigated this idea?
Raymond
[/b]
Raymond -
Sorry to get to this particular party so late.
I'm "the EMRA guy" Jake referred to a few pages back (even though I used to hold a SCCA regional license, EMRA has been my racing home for 19 seasons now). EMRA pays the same horrific rates that the SCCA does for LRP for our race days. For our Time Trial days we pay a slightly discounted rate, equivalent to what the marque clubs pay because we have very limited passing. Lime Rock does not give us any special deal. We're there in October this year because we chose to take advantage of the "off season" rates that are in place after (I think) September. At least ten years ago we had managed to get one of the unmuffled days, but haven't had one since. We run to the same restrictive dB requirements that everyone else faces.
I've been following this thread with interest because we face the same problems as your much larger organization faces. In fact, during last year's event we had an huge amount of rain and had something like 23 cars show up on race day. EMRA is a not for profit organization, and certainly lived up to those standards that day. Just like many of the smaller regions cited in these sorts of threads, a few events like that and we might cease to exist.
Interestingly, our Time Trial days at LRP are always well subscribed and usually have waiting lists. Just like Matt Rove, we're looking at what our customers want, and what we can do to to attract more. At LRP it seems to be a classic case of supply and demand.
Our insurance costs are as stratospheric as the next guy, but we do have an advantage in that we don't have to pay the "Mattberg Black Helicopters Fuel Fund to get our event specific golf shirts delivered."
WB
Grateful to be 100% Mattberg free!
Perhaps we could emulate EMRA. Circa 1980: "Organized Open Practice". Early Tuesday morning, EMRAs zany cadre of grassroots racers convene at LRP, including officials, timing/scoring, and flaggers. Entry is dirt-cheap, the going rate for an open practice/test day ($75?). There is a little initial confusion when we want to put our flaggers on station when LRP already has their own, but the track relents when we explain that we need to "practice" flagging. The 5 or 6 SCCA types are suprised to see such an eclectic mix of cars that stay out the whole first (practice)session and do the same the nest (qualifying) one. We didn't figure the track would be too sanguine if we "practiced" a start, so I, as polesitter, paced the field around to No-Name where we had our start. A good day of racing, unmuffled, and quite economical. EMRA didn't even buy any insurance as I recollect. After the race, an SCCA guy came over and wanted to know why we seemed to be so competetive on track-he's probably still wondering! Phil
[/b]
Phil - not much has changed since then except the dollar amounts and the insurance. And maybe we get a better selection of beer for the trophy and worker award ceremony at the end of the day then we did then!
Hero To The Momentum Challenged
Bookmarks