Geez... Travel for a couple days without checking in and you get crucified!

First your point Butch. The end result was not less races but less desirable scheduling or shall we call it "less racing product". Horrendous actually for the Florida folks. I'll get to that is a second. First, the premise, as it was stated by those who wanted the SARRC schedule adjusted for "fairness", they needed to contain the market in an artificial manner. That meant they needed to somehow limit race availability and product in Florida, remove or reschedule competing dates and or force racers and workers from Florida to poorly attended events being put on by less fortunate regions.

By giving Florida "more" races, the officials who brought this about would have you think they were being generous and charitable, and as Butch has postured it, Florida is getting more. But let's take a look at that. For those in Florida to take advatage of those races they'd have to do an awful lot of racing in 2006 to compete in the SARRC without having to travel to Roebling, Atlanta, Brimingham and possibly farther North in 2007. Five of those 2007 SARRC Florida races take place in 2006 over the course of four race weekends crammed into roughly thirteen weeks between the SIC, Runoffs, ARRC and the Turkey Trot (no longer a SARRC race), not to mention three big holidays and two Jewish holidays. So for the next almost ten months in 2007, Florida has two small singles and one double over only three race weekends.

In 2007 Florida gets two undignified singles and one double. The first is at the far less popular Sebring club course competing against the big Atlanta SARRC/Pro IT/ECR/PDX. The second is a traditionally lightly attended Moroso single that hapens to be on the same weekend as the big double SARRC/MARRS at VIR. Last race of the year for Florida is the double at Sebring, which is pretty much the only decent race scheduled for the 2007 calendar season even though they sandwiched it around a double SARRC at CMP and the National/Pro IT/PDX at Atlanta (actually on the same weekend), pretty much assuring no one from outside Florida will be there. So from June 2, it's just wait four months or get ready to tow. It's clear what the idea here was and it is exactly what their stated goal originally was nine months ago; to reduce competition for both racers and races by distributing the market. Regions like Alabama, South Carolina, Buccaneer and even Atlanta have been struggling to create profitable events and making pleas for more workers, even canceling races. This was the solution they came up with in January. It's the solution I was told directly about and was so upset at at the time. It's the solution they denied pursuing and when the suggestion Florida might leave the division, it's the solution they told Florida officials, wouldn't and couldn't happen. End result is I don't think they wasted one second in moving forward with implementing their solution once the Florida officials left the room and continued right on with their lobbying of small non-racing regions for their votes. It is truly shameful and I assume the Florida officials are feeling quite injured and offended. Rightly so.

As to Florida getting ten Nationals? Hey, as their own division they can create any regional structure they want not to mention getting waivers like Roebling has. SCCA is in no position to play hardball with anyone these days and there are antitrust issues as well. There are regions in SEDIV with something like four people. Probably wouldn't even want more than 6 National, which is plenty, so it's no biggie. But I wouldn't worry that much about the Nationals. If I were the rest of SEDIV I'd be worried a shiiteload about a new Florida racing league competing against what were, in many cases, already poorly attended and struggling SARRC events. I know Atlanta voted against this, and for good reason too. But unfortunately, not just Florida, but all of the SEDIV racers' destinies were put in the hands of a bunch of non-racing regions and a lawyer on a deceptive mission. That's the truly sad thing here, and that a few greedy folks figured out a way to manipulate that system to feed their egos.