Strategic Planning and "The Problem with IT"

[Doc Bro]

It's too bad there isn't a way to consolidate ITB&C with fairness and safety to all involved. That would also provide room for a class above R. In 15 years you could invision some of A joining in a similar fasion as the speeds continue to increase. It's a sort of planned obsolescence, that still gives the opportunity to race more competitiors than the current system would allow.

R

[gran racing]

I'd hate to see an age limitation on cars. I actually think it's pretty cool to see the mix of cars and ages out there all racing against each other. As others have said, I don't think older cars should be thrown a bone for various parts allowances but don't ban them from the category.

[Doc Bro]

I'd hate to see an age limitation on cars. I actually think it's pretty cool to see the mix of cars and ages out there all racing against each other. As others have said, I don't think older cars should be thrown a bone for various parts allowances but don't ban them from the category.
[/b]

Couldn't agree more. I KNOW for a fact if my wife were ever going to race it would be in an ITB Volvo.....pink with purple numbers.................

Hey it's a long ride to the Glen....what can I say???

R

[lateapex911]

Couldn't agree more. I KNOW for a fact if my wife were ever going to race it would be in an ITB Volvo.....pink with purple numbers.................

Hey it's a long ride to the Glen....what can I say???

R [/b]

Whatever it takes, Rob! Better than her demanding a super jammy top of the line ITR car!

[pgipson]

suggest the trouble Prod got into was that they changed the entire foundational rules package in attempts to molify owners of older cars that could no longer compete due to the inability of the old parts to survive the stresses of racing, or the parts sources dried up.[/b]

And I would suggest that as IT moves further from the original intent, one rule change at a time, that the same destination awaits.

25 yrs is a number, and exclusion of older cars is a just an idea. Or maybe no new logbooks issued for cars older than XX after some date.

The real issue is what do the current participants in IT think the class should look like in 10 or 20 yrs. As Kirk said, that is not very long in the grand scheme of things.

[Dave Zaslow]

I agree in principal with every point Kirk has made.

As silly as something like the washer bottle rule may seem to some, it is a benchmark of the intent of the IT rules philosophy.

The (now) five groups that make up IT are based on race potential of a set of cars. As long as there are new cars to class within those sets there is no reason to set any age limit. When there are no cars (or no interest in those cars) available to fill a class, that class will die.

Classifications of newer cars are needed. ITC in the NE is in trouble. Part of that is that there are no new cars being built and (chicken and egg) there is no good competition. One cannot run a Fiesta, Datsun 510, Rabbit 1.6 forever. ITB may have similar issues soon enough, but there are still cars out there that could be interesting for folks to build.

It appears to me that there is no feed from SS cars/drivers into IT. I don't know where they go after they age out of their (now) longer national lifespan. IT is an attractive choice people make when they decide to go racing. For a lot of people without extreme means IT is not too hot (technology) and not too cold (technology) but just right (technology balanced with that off other cars).

As has been suggested, I think that a faster class than ITR is not in our interest. Let those be the problem with another set of classes.

I am surprised that I have not seen a Ford Focus out there. Perhaps that and the equivalent Chevy should be looked at to repopulate C.

Dave Zaslow

[Bill Miller]

LOTS of really good stuff here. Sorry I'm late.

NASA does some things right but they haven't got it all figured out. Their real strength is in in the ability of the HPDE program to grow people into race licenses - something that SCCA has completely missed the boat on.[/b]

I'm repeating this, because it's such a fundamental issue. In fact, I see this as the single largest opportunity for new membership, and as Kirk said, the SCCA hasn't got a clue. Someone mentioned PDX as an answer, which it might be, but I think it only goes part way.

I think NASA has it right (and they sure didn't come up w/ it, EMRA had it 20 years ago when I got hooked on this madness). You have to run your HPDE/Time Trial/Solo I events IN CONJUNCTION with a race. It's an association thing. You get people out there w/ their street cars intermingled w/ people w/ their race cars, and the street car people get exposed to what the whole racing side is all about. You've got a Wombat XSR that you drive to work every day, and Fred (Bob's brother and Alice's cousin) has a Wombat XSR that he trailers to the track and races. You start checking out Fred's car, and talking to him about what he's done w/ it, and then you hang around and watch him race it. THAT is what will get people hooked. I know, because it's exactly what happened to me. I took my Rabbit GTI street car to Pocono for an EMRA Time Trial and there were these two guys there w/a a Rabbit GTI that they were racing. It took that, and one session on the track at speed, and I was ready to sign up!

And please, stop trotting out the red herring that is the 'wing thing' to attract the tuner crowd. You need to actually look at the typical 'tuner guy' mindset to understand that the vast majority of them will never make the jump to racing. And it's not because they can't put wings on their race cars. For most of them, it's not just about the go-fast stuff, it's about the BLING. And the biggest issue, is that they don't see their cars as disposable. By that I mean, they're not comfortable (or willing to accept) the fact that they may write their car off any time they put it on the track. Hell, some of them still owe major chunks of money on their cars. If you don't believe this, just scan any of the marque forums and look for the stories about how the kid totaled his Wombat XSR at the track and his insurance company is denying coverage and how he now has no car but still has to pay for it.

You want to get the tuner crowd hooked on racing, start having HPDEs in conjunction w/ races, and work VERY hard at educating them as to what you can and can't do to the cars. It's one thing to talk about it, but when you've got physical examples right there, it's easier to get the message across.

Kirk, and others, have made some very good points about older cars in IT. Looking at the 'age window' when IT was created provides good insight into what was going on at the time. There's a reason that they made an age cutoff. I just wish that they would have had the vision to put something in there about how to deal w/ it in 10, 20, ??? years. That being said, I don't want to see anyone told that the car they have will no longer be eligible to race because it's too old. I think Evan really hit on something. Don't issue new log books to anything older than 25 (20?) years old, but grandfather in all the cars that currently have log books. I think that solution strikes a good balance between the two issues. Of course, there will be the case where someone wads up their 1980 Puddlebee, and has three spare tubs at home and a garage full of parts to build another one. I think in that case, you just have to say "No". There is of course the 'transplanted roll cage' option.

As for creating &#39;newer&#39; IT cars, and better aligning T and IT, I think it&#39;s a great idea. Do you go so far as to say that you can prep to IT rules, cars that are <5 years old, and race them? I&#39;m not sure. Maybe. I think it&#39;s probably better to make the T rules a true sub-set of the IT rules. For example, only stock parts, no gutting of the interior, remain emission-compliant, etc. for T (probably not too far from what the original IT rules were). I just threw those out there as a couple of examples, certainly not a complete list, and may need to be tweaked further.

An important part would be to roll T and SS into one category. Right now, most of the T3 cars are ITR and some ITS cars. You need ITA and ITB (ITC???) cars. Set up T1 - T5 and be done with it. And don&#39;t let the mfg&#39;s hold the Club hostage again. I also think the T -> IT progression needs to be codified. And that being said, I don&#39;t really see a way of creating a T>IT>Prod>GT progression scheme, at least not the way things are now. Look at EP, it&#39;s a mix of ITA and ITS cars, nothing faster. And find something that&#39;s less than 10 years old that would fit into HP. GT has gone way too far down the tube-frame road to ever make it reasonable to build one out of a tub car. Not only that, just look at how many guys moved from Prod to GT over the last 10 years (w/ the same car) to get a sense of the desire for such a progression. I think that while it may look good on paper, and it may have this ultra-strategic ring to it, there&#39;s no real practicality in it. Nor is it something that the membership may really want.

And I won&#39;t go into my thoughts on the whole Regional/National thing again. I&#39;ve made my position very well known on that issue.

And as Greg said, one of the important things to do, is not dork up IT. I think the ITAC have done a good job in balancing the need to fix some issues w/o going too far and just opening the flood gates (ECU issue notwithstanding).

It&#39;s really too bad that we can&#39;t drive a bottom up strategic plan for IT. And it can&#39;t be done in isolation, it needs to be part of a larger plan for all of the production-based categories, and Club Racing as a whole, above that.

My 5-year vision for what the production-based landscape will look like:

Prod pretty much is gone
BP/DP (and probably AP and CP) are the &#39;new&#39; GT
T1-5 align w/ ITR-C (not directly, but you get the point from my post above)
SS is gone
Regional/National distinction is gone.
ITR, S, and A have the largest fields at the Runoffs.
SM is gone, as all but three of the cars have been wadded up.

The one key area that I didn&#39;t mention above is AWD/forced induction. SOMETHING will need to be done to get those cars into IT. The mfg&#39;s are offereing more and more cars w/ this configuration. They&#39;re already in T. Not finding someplace for them in IT will be a big mistake.

[ddewhurst]

***SM is gone, as all but three of the cars have been wadded up. ***

& they were racing wheel 2 wheel when they did it to each other.

[Andy Bettencourt]

While I agree 110% that running your PDX&#39;s in conjunction with races is th e&#39;right&#39; way to do it, I submit that at the size the SCCA Regionals are now, it is impossible. NASA can do it because their events are small enough so that they can have two things going at once. An entire run group dedicated to a PDX is impossible in certain areas of the country. In those that it isn&#39;t impossible, it should be done, no doubt.

Creating a road from Touring to IT would result in some more IT classes. T3 cars barely fit into ITR now, nevermind the forced induction/AWD cars that reside in T2. I do think &#39;TTX&#39; could be successful, but if I was interested I could just create it Regionally.

T1-T5 has always been a good idea.

It&#39;s all very interesting and it&#39;s good to see some lurkers weigh in. I think we can just leave IT alone and help the CRB with some ideas on how to get the REST of the house in order.

[Bill Miller]

Andy,

I agree with you. In this case, size does matter. One of the reasons that groups like EMRA and NASA can run their &#39;dual events&#39; is because they&#39;re not drawing huge crowds. But, if you look at what some people say about some of the SCCA races, they&#39;re not drawing huge crowds either. I know that&#39;s not the case on the East coast, but I&#39;m sure that there are plenty of Regions that could integrate a PDX event into a Regional weekend. Of course, that means less track time for the racers, but that should be offset by lower entry fees since they&#39;re spreading it around to the PDX folks.

I&#39;d love to hear from someone that had a lot of experience w/ Solo I. Did anybody ever do an analysis as to why it failed?

And I said that T1-5 is not a direct ITR-C alignment, today, but we should be able to get close. T1/ST should become the new TransAm. Start running production-based cars again and see if you can&#39;t get the mfg&#39;s interested again.

Not perfect Andy, but it&#39;s a place to start. Think about where we started and how we got to PCAs. That took a couple of years and a LOT of work.

[gran racing]

While I agree 110% that running your PDX&#39;s in conjunction with races is th e&#39;right&#39; way to do it, I submit that at the size the SCCA Regionals are now, it is impossible. [/b]

If it&#39;s the right way to do it (which I believe it is), we need to give further thought to how it can be done. I really think there are ways to make it happen which will vary from one region to another. If the event size is too large, make the event a restricted regional. Maybe in some instances it means that there is only one PDX group out on the track, be it novices or experienced, and they only get two run groups during the day but it is priced inexpensively.

I still think a mentor program should be developed.

[Andy Bettencourt]

I think my point is in Region where you can&#39;t fit it, it may not be needed. Push the smaller Regions to incorporate this stuff and build upon their ranks.

[Zneed4speed]

While I agree 110% that running your PDX&#39;s in conjunction with races is th e&#39;right&#39; way to do it, I submit that at the size the SCCA Regionals are now, it is impossible. NASA can do it because their events are small enough so that they can have two things going at once. An entire run group dedicated to a PDX is impossible in certain areas of the country. In those that it isn&#39;t impossible, it should be done, no doubt.

It&#39;s all very interesting and it&#39;s good to see some lurkers weigh in. I think we can just leave IT alone and help the CRB with some ideas on how to get the REST of the house in order.
[/b]

Being an SCCA guy and a Solo guy first I always wondered why the Street Prepared and IT rules couldn&#39;t parallel more so SP could feed IT.

PDX&#39;s/ DEs are "the" thing for this decade. Some good points about how running them with a race can pull people into racing. My Region(I&#39;m on the Board) will hold our 2nd this year 12/1 at Barber. The only issue we have is getting instructors to ride in convertibles without rollbars or cages(we do require arm restraints).
Can&#39;t do them at regional races because we have so many groups and we have the " they can&#39;t be combined even it there is only 2 in that group" mindset. SCCA, though we have mostly reasonable entry fees, also offers less track time than other clubs already. So yeah it&#39;s currently impossible, but the NASA events in the Southeast aren&#39;t small Andy. Two events I ran in this year had over 200 entrants. You can&#39;t compare SCCA events to NASA events. We maybe able to learn from them but at this point there is no comparison. Rather than chance offending anyone here I&#39;ll send that note directly to the ITAC.

Jake mentioned the "low cost" issue again. Maybe the word comparitively should be inserted somewhere there.

[Knestis]

Size isn&#39;t the primary factor in my direct experience, between NASA and SCCA scheduling - looking at NASA MA vs. NC Region. It&#39;s about the schedule.

NASA MA does an amazing job of getting stuff done during the day. An NCR race by comparison is a HUGE amount of sitting around. There are issues at both ends of the continuum of course, and room for criticism of NASA&#39;s safety practices where the schedule has the potential to drive decisions about hot pulls; the roll-on, roll-off process; and other issues. Worker rest is a topic of conversation but at the end of the day, even the huge SARRC/MARRS Double at VIR has the capacity (in terms of track time replacing "dead air") to host PDX or similar activities, if it were a priority.

K

[Andy Bettencourt]

RL - note I didn&#39;t say they were &#39;small&#39;. I said they were "small enough" to use a run group for the PDX. Some SCCA regions can do that, some can&#39;t. As it is now in the NE, many want restricted regionals that cater to the large classes for more track time.

[tnord]

Here in the KC region, we do run PDX&#39;s in conjunction with our regionals. in the past, the regional has been held in july when the days are long. we typically have 6 run groups, and the PDX group is #7. the PDX guys have classroom in the morning while all the racers are going through qualifying, and get a 20 or 25 min session before lunch, and the first session after lunch. the 6 race groups run after that, and the PDX guys get the last session of the day. i think the idea is to get them back after lunch for their session, and they&#39;ll stay around and watch all the races. i think we charge like $175 total for sat and sun. we usually get around 20 entries, so it certainly helps from a financial perspective.

it&#39;s probably not possible in many other regions, but i would further suggest combining race groups in order to fit a PDX group if at all possible. imo, it&#39;s important enough that some small sacrifices are worth making in order to recruit new drivers/racers. do other divisions run single regionals? are the single regionals or nationals smaller events? pick the smaller events, run the PDX groups on sat during practice/qual, and let them run for FREE if they work the event on Sunday.

i used to do solo 1 type stuff with Midwestern Council. i did it in a street car that the bank owned. iirc, the SCCA solo 1 rules required a roll bar/cage. that just doesn&#39;t work for the majority of people interested in DE events.

i love the trans-am idea Bill. somebody work on that.

i did start a bit of a mentor program this year, and think it warrants further development next year.

[gran racing]

I think my point is in Region where you can&#39;t fit it, it may not be needed.[/b]

I&#39;m curious how you are defining "may not be needed". Is it simply that these regions are currently getting enough entrants? If you take a look at our club&#39;s membership, it is not growing and our membership base is not exactly young. Since we&#39;re talking strategic planning, I do think this is needed across the club&#39;s regions even where many events do well. Take a look at the demographics chart (page 9). 30% of our membership base is over the age of 46 years old. I can&#39;t help but chuckle that at NASA events I feel pretty old and SCCA events I feel young. (I&#39;m 33.)

SCCA Demographics

[Jeremy Billiel]

Since everyone knows that ITC is all but dead, what would happen if you put them in ITB at the lower process weight?

While we are not talking about IT, get rid of the 8,000 open wheel classes with 1 entry each.

Here is my wish list
1. Remove the National/Regional differences
2. Top 25 classes go to the runoffs
3. Eliminate many undersubscribed classes across the club
4. Eliminate SS
5. Create a feeder into IT and from IT into something else
6. Simplify Production rule set
7. Develop a better HPDE program
8. Reduce the # of races in each region to minimize the financial losses and draw better car counts/event.

Done - I am now off of my soap box.

[Andy Bettencourt]

I&#39;m curious how you are defining "may not be needed". Is it simply that these regions are currently getting enough entrants? If you take a look at our club&#39;s membership, it is not growing and our membership base is not exactly young. Since we&#39;re talking strategic planning, I do think this is needed across the club&#39;s regions even where many events do well. Take a look at the demographics chart (page 9). 30% of our membership base is over the age of 46 years old. I can&#39;t help but chuckle that at NASA events I feel pretty old and SCCA events I feel young. (I&#39;m 33.)

SCCA Demographics [/b]

What I mean is that it may not be needed to &#39;force&#39; a PDX into a Regional event by giving it it&#39;s own run group. Seperate days like we have up here can fill the pipeline. In areas where the pipleline flow needs to be bigger, they probably have events whee they can fit in an extra run group.

[lateapex911]

Interesting list, Jeremy. We&#39;ve seen some good discussion here, but it&#39;s interesting that it&#39;s been mostly non IT related, as evidenced by the above list. I will certainly boil it all down in case the CRB wants to see it.

Since most of the discussion has centered around larger club issues, I urge you all to take a moment and shoot your friendly BoD person an email. They are charged with governing the direction of the ship.

Finally, merging ITC into ITB is tricky, as many ITC cars can&#39;t get to ITB process weight...which is why they are in ITC to start with. And adding weight to all the ITB cars to hit ITC performance is going to hurt the many to serve the few. I&#39;d suggest that the class will eventually run itself to extinction, but for now, it doesn&#39;t hurt anyone, and it helps entries.