Getting Rid of Regional/Majors Distinction?

[Butch Kummer]

Butch, with all due respect why did you strrt this thread?

Why did I start this thread? Because a bunch (or at least some) of you guys say you want change!

In various discussions on the Concorde Agreement (or whatever it's called today), current members have asked the BoD to explain why getting down to 14-16 classes will make racing better. That explanation has yet to be advanced as far as I've seen, and to me that's the biggest reason to NOT force class consolidation (let nature take it's course)

In a similar vein, some of you guys insist that inviting every class to every event will make your racing better. Why?

[Butch Kummer]

Said another way:

Back when I first attended the Runoffs at Road Atlanta in 1971, there were 22 classes that ran in 21 races (7 races Friday thru Sunday, A & B Prod ran together). There were 8 Prod classes (A-H), 4 Sedan classes (A-D), 4 Sports Racer classes (A-D), and 6 formula classes (A-C, F, V, SV). Even then a number of people complained that "SCCA has too many classes - the racing is too diluted and it's difficult for the public to understand!" yet all efforts to reduce the number of classes over the years has failed. The latest proposal is to have the CRB come up with a ten-year plan to reduce the Runoffs to 14-16 classes, and it's being met with the expected protest by those invested in the current class structure. I'm certainly not resistant to change, but I've yet to hear (from the BoD) a compelling argument WHY we need to reduce the number of classes.

Over that same period of time, there has been Regional and National (now Majors) racing. The idea is people get started and learn their craft at less intense weekends, then if they want they can move/transition/migrate (note I'm not using the word "advance") to a more intense level of competition. BTW, the Solo program works the same way - lots of local regional programs, then those that want to can travel to a limited number of National Tours and a winner-take-all National Championship event.

Even though it's worked well for over fifty years, more than one of you wants to eliminate that distinction in the Club Racing program. Why?

[zchris]

I think a lot of the IT guys want the contingency monies they are not eligible for. What I believe they do not realize is that would mostly go away as the companies making those payouts would not be able to afford the huge number of regional events that take place. And it would further dilute the lesser suscribed classes. Effectively killing off most Prod, GT and Formula car classes. Can you guys now see what would be the start of the clubs death spiral. Haven't you IT guys done this club enough damage by eliminating the cheap entry point known as IT with massive rules creep. Flame away.

[Knestis]

I think a lot of the IT guys want the contingency monies they are not eligible for. What I believe they do not realize is that would mostly go away as the companies making those payouts would not be able to afford the huge number of regional events that take place. And it would further dilute the lesser suscribed classes. Effectively killing off most Prod, GT and Formula car classes. Can you guys now see what would be the start of the clubs death spiral. Haven't you IT guys done this club enough damage by eliminating the cheap entry point known as IT with massive rules creep. Flame away.

No flaming. It's just a silly argument, in terms of both the cause-effect proposition (or leaps, I should say) for which there's exactly no evidence, and your projection of an intention on some folks that so far I as can recall, I've never heard voiced. To the latter point, I pretty consistently didn't get those whoopity-do contingency awards running Majors because of participation numbers low enough to prevent them from kicking in.

You also completely don't really understand the dynamic of the "cheap entry point" and "rules creep" in IT. Budgets went up ONLY because people were willing to spend more to be competitive. Rules creep had some TINY impact on that, and new allowances NEVER forced anyone to spend more money than they would have otherwise been likely to spend. A newb can absolutely still use IT as an "entry point" for a very, VERY modest amount of money. He can't WIN, maybe, but we have no obligation to give everyone a first place trophy.

I do like the fear mongering strategy of invoking the inevitable outcome of a change KILLING OFF entire categories, though. That's some good web argument hyperbole right there.

K

[TomL]

Kirk, I'll plead guilty to looking at this from a personal perspective. I agree that SCCA needs to think strategically, but part of thinking strategically is providing racing programs that are attractive to members - which is the agglomeration of a bunch of personal perspectives. If you don't "stroke the egos" of the Majors racers who like the program, and tell them just run "races", maybe they will. Or maybe they'll just leave. Market forces might generate an informal replacement of high demand races, but I have my doubts. If the Majors racers like the program, why take it away from them? Again, who actually benefits by doing so? I see it as a negative for the Majors racers, and don't see what good it would do the current regional racers. What is that "sound theory with the potential to be more healthy in the long run"?

I don't see why we need to push everyone into the big pond. Almost all amateur sporting organizations have multiple levels of competition. The NCAA doesn't tell North Dakota State or Wisconsin-Whitewater to play the Alabamas of the world. They have their own championships for the lower level teams to fight for. Why should SCCA be any different?
Not everyone has the skill, commitment and ,yes, money to compete at the National/Majors level. Your "It's called competition. Get some." comment is far more condescending to regional racers than anything I've seen from the PTB in SCCA.

And if you think that lots of racers will be running for a long time with SCCA if they are put in a position where they have essentially no chance of being competitive, I think you are wrong. The closest example I can think of is what occurred in drag racing several decades ago. As I remember it, stock class drag racing was seriously ill because many classes had one or two racers who had developed their killer cars that no one else could match without the expenditure of a lot of time, effort and money. Many racers just gave up trying. That was the genesis of bracket racing. A few road racing organizations have tried it, but I doubt that's really the way we want to go.

I agree that you can't limit what racers are willing to spend, but I think it's silly to say that the club shouldn't factor racer's spending into designing their programs. As I've said many times before on this subject, you can't limit what racers can spend, but you can certainly limit how much benefit they get from that spending. The two most popular classes in SCCA are SM and SRF, and they are also probably the classes where the speed differential from fastest to slowest car in class is the least. The two are related. Anything that can be done to lessen the benefit of spending money will make racing more appealing. And so is reducing the amount of money you need to spend to run and run competitively. The biggest obstacle that SCCA has to expanding the pool of racers is that: a) it costs so much to run at all, and b) it costs a whole lot more to run competitively. Providing a "small pond" helps address b).

I'm with you that class consolidation would be beneficial, although I also agree that inertia and history will make it difficult. But I really don't see why there couldn't be a goodly number of classes combined that have the same type or cars (or even the same cars, i.e., Miatas) and run similar lap times. For example, FC, FE and FM all run similar lap times and with some judicious weight adjustments could easily run competitively with each other. Same for EP, STU and maybe GT3, or for STL, GTL and FP. I know everyone wants to run their current car unchanged, but if the only change that is required is to add 50-100 pounds to the faster class, I don't think that should be an insurmountable obstacle. As long as the class rules are otherwise unchanged, what's the problem? However, if the PTB want to start changing the class rules to make them the same for the combined classes, I don't see that ever flying.

[disquek]

As a majors participant, I thought I'd offer my perspective.

Some back ground. I ran NESCCA regional SM for many years going back well before SM went "national". I switched to "National" GTL in 2008 because I got tired of the contact in SM and also wanted the opportunity to engineer and stay legal.

Why do I run Majors?

I like the idea of a touring series. I don't want to race the same track every weekend, or really more than once a season. I enjoy the travel and I keep my travel costs minimal (open trailer, sleep in the pickup truck).

I also like the run group I run in. The cars are all fairly similar and for the most part we have a like minded group that travels with the series that gives you the chance to know who you can trust wheel-2-wheel.

The contingencies are a big help. And as it's been mentioned before, I think that selling vendors on a larger schedule would be impossible.

Realistically, the two sides (regional vs majors) run different classes with some overlap (SM and SRF). The other classes, although they can race in the other series, generally don't. IMHO, this is the primary difference between the two side. Which classes are heavily subscribed.

If you were to merge them (and doing so would certainly result in fewer overall entries), you'd have seriously mixed up run groups with little opportunity to race with folks in your own class.

"Integrating" or "Merging" regional and national is impossible. All races become regional at that point.

Honestly, I don't understand why folks want to eliminate one side of the racing coin. How would you feel if I wanted to eliminate your side?

I think my side is great fun. So do hundreds of other guys racing with me.

Why do you feel compelled to screw that up for us? Do you hope to see some gain from that?

-Kyle

[Knestis]

It's kind of a typical way of looking at questions like this, but I'd propose that Tom is asking questions about value from an individual point of view - what does Stephen have to gain from eliminating the distinction when he doesn't run Majors? I've long been in the minority on this but I do *not* think that we achieve the best collective racing program by assuming that we should simply give each individual what he/she wants at any point in time. I'd further argue that a lot of the ongoing crazy-making policies in the Club are the result of "being responsive" to (sometimes individual) members' interests rather than having the nards to make strategic decisions.

I don't personally care if we aren't stroking the egos of current Majors entrants, if we have a program that's based on sound theory with the potential to be more healthy in the long run - across the entire Club Racing package. If the qualifying points system rewards beating people rather than just showing up (a la what we did with the IT National Tour), drivers will naturally gravitate to better-attended races chasing those points. Regions will pick races that they want to showcase and work to get more drivers there. Every driver will look at his/her "national" and "divisional" points in the tally and some will, I guarantee it, attend more races to improve their rankings or possibly decide to chase a championship or qualify for the RubOffs. Change the qualification requirements from participation numbers (bah!) to an actual COMPETITION. Only the top XX (or %) of points-earners in each class from each division get invited. Go beat someone if you want to get to the big show, lame-o. We could count only the best X finishes in the qualifying points scheme. Whatever.

I equally don't care if we "push everyone into the big pond" and make mere regional racers run with the big dogs. It's called competition. Get some.

We've GOT to set free any policy decision that's (a) predicated on some assumption about what racers spend, or (b) intended to limit what they spend. That's ongoing bad policy and/or class warfare silliness.

The "let all classes run" orientation comes straight from a first principle that if a class is in the GCR, and if members have built cars to run in it, then it should be on equal ground opportunity-wise, with all of the other classes in the book. While a suitably empowered dictator could force consolidation, I don't for a minute think it's possible given our rules-making and administrative processes and culture. Letting them all start on an equal footing but encouraging competition for national championship status recognition would, as Butch describes, "let nature take its course." As things currently stand, there are no predators in the SCCA environment, so classes have no reason to evolve. Nature will just leave things as they are. I don't think that letting every class in will "make the racing better" in a year or two but if there IS some incentive to cherry-pick a well attended class to realize a personal goal of going to the Big Deal, it will make for a better program in the long term.

Finally, I take it as given that - if the intention is to RACE - fewer classes is a good thing, as long as the classes offered give some variation and choice among them. If a new racer is presented with three options for "racing something that looks like a street car" rather than seven, they are NOT going to just walk away.

K

[Butch Kummer]

The "let all classes run" orientation comes straight from a first principle that if a class is in the GCR, and if members have built cars to run in it, then it should be on equal ground opportunity-wise, with all of the other classes in the book. While a suitably empowered dictator could force consolidation, I don't for a minute think it's possible given our rules-making and administrative processes and culture. Letting them all start on an equal footing but encouraging competition for national championship status recognition would, as Butch describes, "let nature take its course." As things currently stand, there are no predators in the SCCA environment, so classes have no reason to evolve. Nature will just leave things as they are. I don't think that letting every class in will "make the racing better" in a year or two but if there IS some incentive to cherry-pick a well attended class to realize a personal goal of going to the Big Deal, it will make for a better program in the long term.

K

K,

Your proposal is more than just to let everyone run every weekend, which is what I understood most of the previous posts were wanting. What I see you're saying is "Let everyone run every weekend AND only the top XX classes get to go to the Runoffs."

While I agree that is very much letting nature takes it's course (and at least one definition of "competition"), you and I both know it will never happen.

[mossaidis]

While I agree that is very much letting nature takes it's course (and at least one definition of "competition"), you and I both know it will never happen.

...(crickets)...

[StephenB]

. What I see you're saying is "Let everyone run every weekend AND only the top XX classes get to go to the Runoffs."

While I agree that is very much letting nature takes it's course (and at least one definition of "competition"), you and I both know it will never happen.

This is what I thought would be a good idea. I feel it would increase participation in the national eligible classes during regional weekends which would help my entry fees :-)

I have said it before and although not all that passionate either way I don't think IT should be considered for the runoffs. Let it stay what it is. I still see it staying what it is even if it ran on the same weekends as everyone else.

I have never heard of anyone wanting the contingency from the majors program. Never in the 25 years I have been a member did I think that or hear that as an argument to go national.

I also want to be clear I am not insistent, and couldn't really care. I have multiple posts here trying to make you understand my idea, aka, suggestion. Take it or leave it, just an idea that hasn't been tried before, except in NASA. I am happy with the group and schedule I get with the NERRC series.

Kyle, great post. I think your on to something if the majority of majors drivers want it the way it is. I haven't understood why most people doing majors don't just go to SCCA WC, I would think a TCA car probably has a smaller budget than most of the majors classes.

Stephen

[Knestis]

It strikes me, Kyle, that many of your arguments assume that nothing about what a current Majors or Regional event looks like (as you see them) would change if the distinction went away, while others presume that there will be some huge result which will be bad. To the specifics...

** Like to travel to other tracks? Nothing about a consolidated program would prevent that.

** Nice homogenous run groups? We get messy groups when we try to jam lots of cars into a few groups (e.g., to get a one-day regional in the books), so only go to the races that offer more open schedules and groupings that are attractive to you. Again, nothing about all events having the same status prevents you from doing that, or regions from offering races like that.

** Manufacturers get involved in contingency programs to reach customers. It might indeed be that some decide to slice their existing pie into smaller bits, making any given event award smaller. However, it's equally possible that they might be excited about reaching a LOT more SCCA racers across the nation. There's no way to know at this point and frankly, it's a minor issue compared to equitable offerings to all Club members, so I personally don't think it carries a lot of weight. (I'm also generally dubious of contingencies from a more philosophical point of view, since they tend to reward the folks who spend more money than their competitors. Some quite literally rob from the poor to give to the rich, like the distribution of spec tire revenues from the entire field to the winners.)

** Any complaint about entrants not running "the other series" goes away when there's no distinction between the two. I haven't seen any argument here about why that's a problem beyond the fact that "it is one." When everyone runs a consolidated program, competition overall increases.

** Re: "all races become regional," I'd argue that in practice, "all races become Majors," in the sense that they are part of a bigger deal. To be clear though, this kind of consolidated scheme would allow a person to accrue points for regional and divisional championships, too. Anyone who's opposed to something like this because it makes it harder to win a regional championship - against more competition - needs to tell me that to my face so I can laugh at them. This isn't supposed to be a feel-good HPDE program. It's "racing."

** Not trying to do something because its not politically feasible is not the same thing as not doing it because it's "impossible." It's entirely possible to merge our current regional and Majors programs. As Butch points out, it probably won't happen because too many people put their personal short-term interests ahead of having a cohesive program that might - should - outlive their involvement. We keep giving people exactly what they want and a HUGE percentage of them still only participate for a couple of years. Or we give people with longevity but narrow interests too much pull, and end up with tiny legacy classes or other issues <coughplungecutcough>.

** Re: "certainly result in fewer entries," I have NO idea what evidence or theory-of-action serves as rationale for that. Help?

** Finally, it's interesting to me how you view the idea of a consolidation as "eliminating your side." Wouldn't it be "eliminating THEIR side," too? I have no side, in that I've essentially split my time between Majors, regionals, and other stuff (a la Lemons) for the past few years. Over the past 30+ years, I've had SCCA regional, national, pro, rally, and NASA licenses and all the while wondered why we insist on Balkanizing our racing into dozens of tiny chunks. Is it in fact because everyone wants a trophy? That would be sad.

As to why...? I would hope to gain a successful, vital roadracing program that can survive EXTERNAL competition. SCCA continues to be its own worst enemy, squabbling amongst ourselves over petty palace intrigue while the barbarians are at the gate. I don't recall now who I heard it from first (Scott Giles? Bowie G?) but it's true that "SCCA eats its young."

K

[Knestis]

Not everyone has the skill, commitment and ,yes, money to compete at the National/Majors level. Your "It's called competition. Get some." comment is far more condescending to regional racers than anything I've seen from the PTB in SCCA. ...

How is it condescending to "regional racers?" It's supposed to be condescending to anyone who chooses to avoid competition.

Atlantic coast Regional ITB races used to be WAAAAAAY more competitive than a majority current Majors class races are now. The guys who won my two-car STU races in 2003 didn't in my eyes have much to crow about. And I'd say the same to those who cherry pick poorly subscribed SARRC races to win a "championship" against racers they never see on the track, let alone beat.

As to why consolidation? Look at SCCA's closest competition for a great example.

K

[mossaidis]

What Kirk said... seriously.

This is the defining section which makes me sick:

** Not trying to do something because its not politically feasible is not the same thing as not doing it because it's "impossible." It's entirely possible to merge our current regional and Majors programs. As Butch points out, it probably won't happen because too many people put their personal short-term interests ahead of having a cohesive program that might - should - outlive their involvement. We keep giving people exactly what they want and a HUGE percentage of them still only participate for a couple of years. Or we give people with longevity but narrow interests too much pull, and end up with tiny legacy classes or other issues <coughplungecutcough>.