Quote Originally Posted by ner88 View Post
What you're saying is if SNJ wants to run an event, NER should not? Why not? It's called freedom of choice. You might find this hard to believe but many do care what region puts on the event. And a lot of them are loyal workers.
Jerry, please. Stop taking this personally, and stop dredging out the tired "but we're volunteers and immune from criticism!" card. It's becoming pitiful.

Yes, Jerry, I'm all for "freedom of choice" (and I love America, my mother, General Motors, and apple pie, too). But you can't sit there behind the keyboard and accuse drivers of accusing the regions of "cohorting" against the drivers, when it's patently clear that they're not (much to everyone's detriment). So these regions wants to pretend that they're each acting in a vacuum, as if their customer base is unique, and they want to play these silly little inter-regional power politics -- politics, that no one except the regional administrators give two shakes about. After all, we're not talking about Rocky Mountain and Northeast divisions - divisions separated by thousands of miles - here; these are two regions in the same division!!!

Jerry, are you telling me you're shocked ("shocked", I say!) that entry lists for these two tracks contain many of the same drivers, especially those located within the geographic space between the two tracks? As shocking as it may sound, the answer to your question in regard to what regions should do about weekend conflicts is...YES! yes, they should coordinate. If a region within the same division is hosting an event only a few hours away, it's a damn fine idea for regions to coordinate who should hold a race that weekend! It just makes sense! Is that a surprising answer to you? I sincerely hope not. 'Cause if you guys WOULD get together and coordinate, I think you'll find increased entry numbers, lower risks of financial distress, and happier drivers who won't continue to feel like unwilling pawns in a silly, pointless intra-club rivalry.

Here's the deeper thing though, Jerry: this is a systemic problem, not a problem of an individual person such as yourself. The systemic problem is this silliness of the regional power politics. It's not something that you, Jerry, can resolve on your own, but it is something that you can influence. If the regions keep scheduling events without trying to work together they forfeit the rights to complain about the easily-predicted results, including lower entry turnouts, lower revenue, potential lack of "profit" at some events, complaining drivers, and, catastrophically, potentially bankrupted regions, all done at the expense of one or more regions' success. How, when one - or both! - events may not be financially successful that anyone within the division can call this a "win"? How, when the entries are being split among numerous events, can the entrants feel like the event they chose to attend was worthwhile?

Where's the success or "goodness" here? This results in nothing but the good ole "lose, lose". And if we continue to do so, it will be without empathy - or ignorance - from me.

In the end, just can't fix these systemic problems by offering a regional championship plaque at the end of the year...

GA