Curious about number of race drivers

[G-Man]

Anyone have reasonably accurate info on how many amateur/club road-racing drivers there are in the USA these days?

I suspect there's lots of crossover between SCCA, NASA, marque clubs, vintage, track days, etc. Not looking for circle track, drag, off-road, etc.

I'm just curious to get a feel for how many individual active drivers there are - driving one or more races per year in the last three years.
Thank you.

[Knestis]

It's very hard to know. Turnover in the sport is pretty huge and the clubs/businesses involved don't seem to be very good at sharing figures.

K

[dickita15]

SCCA 2010
Total 7,566
National 4,310
Regional 2,185
Novice 449
Vintage140
FIA 219
TT Novice 41
Time Trial 222

[Kai Noeske]

SCCA 2010
Total 7,566
National 4,310
Regional 2,185
Novice 449
Vintage140
FIA 219
TT Novice 41
Time Trial 222

Dick, I assume these are the numbers of active comp. licenses?

Wow, I would have thought there are way more!

[dj10]

There are but not in the SCCA.

[dickita15]

Yes Kai the number is from actual renewals during the year. You would think the number would be higher giving how big racing is in our lives. And Dan is right there are racers that run with other club that are not SCCA licensed. Not sure how big that is. Certainly none of the other clubs are as big and almost all are regional in nature. Now add the number doing track days and I bet it gets pretty big.

[Bob Roth]

If you were making decisions, would you continue to invest in regional racing with a 2 to 1 ratio of national to regional licences? I am really worried that regional racing is the next US Postal Service.

[Chip42]

If you were making decisions, would you continue to invest in regional racing with a 2 to 1 ratio of national to regional licences? I am really worried that regional racing is the next US Postal Service.

I'm not sure how it is in Wisconsin, but in the SE regional fields dwarf nationals. A lot of regional racers are nationally licensed, the numbers Dick posted don't show where they participate, only their license grade.

[StephenB]

If you were making decisions, would you continue to invest in regional racing with a 2 to 1 ratio of national to regional licences? I am really worried that regional racing is the next US Postal Service.

I bet a lot of regioanl racers probably hold a national licence. I have always run IT but I have always had a national licence.

Stephen

[dickita15]

Regionals are not going away. In 2010 22157 regional entries over 242 races and nationals had 8578 over 66 races. The mix varies much over different parts of the country.

[jumbojimbo]

I bet a lot of regioanl racers probably hold a national licence. I have always run IT but I have always had a national licence.

Stephen

Me too. This year I decided to not bother paying the extra $ for a national license I likely won't use. But it still got renewed as national.

I don't know if that was a single instance that only affected me, or have they started simply issuing national licenses for anyone who meets the participation criteria?

Interesting how quick some people are to write of regional racing with just the slightest excuse and without thinking about the reason for the numbers...

[Flyinglizard]

IF SCCA serves up National tickets, the $ potential is larger. New guys want to run the Nationals because they think that where it's happening. .
Chumpcar has some SCCA drivers, some BMWCCA, some NASA, lotsa track day guys, many oval trackers, many virgins. We had 397 drivers @ Sebring last week.
Zero contact with each other, zero contact with the walls. In the dark, in the rain and dark. 14hrs. Tons of fun.
Thats a pretty good business model,IMHO. 90 teams paid about 800$ per team to run the sat. race. No sunday expenses.