I attended the Pocono event this past weekend, and frankly I was suprised at how small the field was and from what I picked up from discussions with a couple of drivers it that they are tired, frustrated, and overtaxed. So I think the old discussion should be brought back up about bringing back spectators and making the events more enjoyable to watch. To do that you need to do two things 1) combine the regional and national program into one group. The idea that regionals are training grounds or less expensive is silly, the preperation costs to field a competitive IT car has passed "national" production cars years ago, and drivers who are inexperienced can still race at a "national" event by attending 4 regionals don't crash and off you go "here's your national license. If you combine the events, it will force more drivers to attend fewer events, and if your competitve enough you EARN points to go to the runoff's, since going to the Runoff's was suppose to be a EARNED opportunity, not accomplished because you ran 4 nationals and the field only had 3 cars. If you run the events and don't wish to go to the Runoff's then you decline the offer and the next highest points gets a shot. But no matter what, during the season you actually raced with more cars, and more people at the events so you had more fun and learned about what other drivers and cars are like.

2) It is also time to start dropping classes altogether, if after a few years of combined operation a class cannot make the attendence minimum, then it's done. Not too many people watch races where 4 cars are in the race and each one is in a different class so there are 4 winners. You want to have spectators to help fund the operation, and you are not going to get that with 25 races in one day with 25 winners in 9 groups.

Fortunatly and unfortunatly this discussion has been around a long time, and there is always a few people who make a lot of noise because it will change their operation and they don't really care about the event or the club as a whole, it is all about them and screw everbody else. Well now as Bob indicated the club as a whole is at a critical juncture and real decisions have to be made that will affect everyone, and perhaps the selfish ones will finally have to change or leave.

If the SCCA can put on a limited number of events, have full fields, with competitive races (perhaps 4-5 groups with 2 classes) where the winner actually is being chased to the checker, than people will start to come back to watch a few events, and vendors will sell product, and the cycle starts fresh again.