Big Picture of IT - Share Your Opinions

[seckerich]

[ Quote from Stephen B:
I am one of those drivers and HOW can I go away mad? I made a choice to build and race my car on my own, I wasn't told to drive my Audi. EVERYONE here chooses the car they are driving along with ALL OTHER IT drivers. Sorry to be on the other side but seriosly are you all going to sue your local coffee shop if your coffee is to hot?

Since you mentioned it... They were both at the event 1 in an ITA car now bumped to ITB that now as classified is almost 2 seconds faster than my car. The other one was behind me and my bro in qualifying... and involved in a protest against my brother. But honestly that doesn't matter we now have a stable class!




Good for you that you are willing to be treated as second class. You are willing to let a few members of SCCA determine you do not deserve the same treatment as new cars get. If you are good with that I am happy for you. I'm not built that way. The CRB pulled out the rule card and decided that what they have allowed for the last few years with "errors and omissions" is no longer valid. I understand this is being clamped down on in other classes that have other avenues of fixing a mistake, but that was all we had. Most of these older cars were classed with a beer and a dart board. That is an error by todays standards. If you made it in under the wire then good for you. Contrary to posts here the BOD is not aware of all this and how it will impact IT. Let them know.

[Bill Miller]

I am one of those drivers and HOW can I go away mad? I made a choice to build and race my car on my own, I wasn't told to drive my Audi. EVERYONE here chooses the car they are driving along with ALL OTHER IT drivers. Sorry to be on the other side but seriosly are you all going to sue your local coffee shop if your coffee is to hot?

Stephen,

If nothing ever changed after you made the choice to build your car, I could almost go along with you. But given the way classifications were done in the past, you've got no way to know if they'll be done the same going forward. You listed a couple of scenarios before, but here's one that you left out, and I think it's an important one.

You built and race your Audi because you love it. You happen to be doing pretty well with it. It's not an overdog car, but it's well prepared and well driven, and usually does pretty well. You have no way of knowing how the spec weight was determined, but it doesn't really matter to you, as the car is doing ok. Along comes the Atwood GT. Believe it or not, it's pretty much the same car as your Audi. The drivetrain is the same, the suspension is the same, pretty much everything is the same except that it has a big 'A' badge on it, instead of 4 rings. It gets classed in ITB using the new process, and comes in 200# lighter than your Audi. A couple of folks build and race them. They are well prep'd and driven. They're still not overdogs, but they're finishing ahead of you, pretty much every where you race together.

You're saying that you're ok with that?

Since you mentioned it... They were both at the event 1 in an ITA car now bumped to ITB that now as classified is almost 2 seconds faster than my car. The other one was behind me and my bro in qualifying... and involved in a protest against my brother. But honestly that doesn't matter we now have a stable class!




Good for you that you are willing to be treated as second class. You are willing to let a few members of SCCA determine you do not deserve the same treatment as new cars get. If you are good with that I am happy for you. I'm not built that way. The CRB pulled out the rule card and decided that what they have allowed for the last few years with "errors and omissions" is no longer valid. I understand this is being clamped down on in other classes that have other avenues of fixing a mistake, but that was all we had. Most of these older cars were classed with a beer and a dart board. That is an error by todays standards. If you made it in under the wire then good for you. Contrary to posts here the BOD is not aware of all this and how it will impact IT. Let them know.

That's pretty much it right there. All the other sedan-based categories have the cars treated the same. There may not be a classification process that anyone understands, but at least all the cars get treated the same. You win the Runoffs, there's a chance that you get a lead trophy. You can't make the car get out of its own way, there's a chance that you can shed some pounds or get some help w/ go-fast stuff. The CRB has essentially given the IT community the finger and said that they don't care if the cars in IT aren't treated the same, they don't think that's important. They're telling the IT community that they (CR know better, what's best for IT. Dickheads like Travis are ok w/ this, but I doubt the rest of the IT community is. That's probably because he feels like he's got an in w/ a CRB member (or two) that won't let anything happen to his beloved little Miata. As Kirk said, he's become the poster child for the "me-centric" generation (a bit of a paraphrase on my part).

Steve,

If the BoD really don't know what the CRB has done vis-a-vis IT, I agree, they need to be made aware.

And it looks like just about the only thing I got wrong w/ my hypothetical quote, was who said it. Should have been the CRB, not the BoD.

I agree w/ whoever said it (I think it was Mr. Janos), the CRB, as we know it today, needs to go away. Get rid of the political appointments, and have it made up of the chairs of the various AdHoc's. New AdHoc members are voted on by the current committe membership, and the chair is elected by those same members, and serves for a period of 2-3 years. AdHoc membership is limited to 5-6 years, but previous members can be re-elected after a hiatus of at least 2 years.

The CRB will then have balanced representation across all categories, and the folks that know a particular category the best, its respective AdHoc, will handle the day-to-day business of their category.

[Andy Bettencourt]

I agree w/ whoever said it (I think it was Mr. Janos), the CRB, as we know it today, needs to go away. Get rid of the political appointments, and have it made up of the chairs of the various AdHoc's. New AdHoc members are voted on by the current committe membership, and the chair is elected by those same members, and serves for a period of 2-3 years. AdHoc membership is limited to 5-6 years, but previous members can be re-elected after a hiatus of at least 2 years.

The CRB will then have balanced representation across all categories, and the folks that know a particular category the best, its respective AdHoc, will handle the day-to-day business of their category.

Bill, I wanted to address this point. Try and take out the fact that you may not agree with the current CRB position on what is happening in IT and you may like what the ITAC is doing.

In either case, it's a committee made up of members. What if you didn't like the direction the ITAC started to take the category? There is always someone in charge and people tend to like the 'system' when it's going there way and want to change it when it's not.

The CRB IMHO has the toughest job in Club Racing. So much work, so little reward. Half the people think they are knocking it out and half think they suck (not unlike the ITAC! ) I DO like that there is a group that is watchdogging us...actually, that is too strong of a statement. We don't make policy, but when I became an AdHoc member years ago, the directive was to really push a lot of the responsibility to the sub-committies, and that is why I signed on. It appears we have stepped over the line in terms of our overall charter in a slow but genuine way.

I think that the best thing to do is write in as members how you would like your class managed. The CRB should listen and then dictate to us what to do.

Lots of bable there but I am just trying to point out that whether its us or them, at some point someone is going to disagree with how things are going so I am not sure how the structure matters.

[Knestis]

... The CRB IMHO has the toughest job in Club Racing. So much work, so little reward. ...

Too hard. Hard enough in fact that they can't effectively do it, the way things are chartered. As a director where I work, I have to set big picture policy, make sure project leaders have what they need to be effective, and stay out of micromanaging their work. If one of them DOES step in it, it's my responsibility but that does NOT make it OK for me to review every one of their decisions. I need to figure out how to scaffold them so they don't make the same mistake twice. And me providing SO much guidance that I can't attend to big-picture matters doesn't do the corporation any good.

This situation lacked any real direction from the CRB, in the sense that if we were overstepping the bounds of our charter, we should have gotten shut off. OR the charter should have changed.

There's a term I love: Strategic ambiguity. That's the process of not being so clear that you get locked into any particular position, as a tool of maintaining control. The CRB took - and has again taken - a position of strategic ambiguity. They OK'd the 92-95 Honda Civic DX but not almost 30 other cars recommended by the ITAC for changes. They've said, "go ahead and use the process for new cars" but tagged that direction with "just make sure it makes sense," thereby leaving themselves an out.

If they want to say, "Respect my authori-tay!!" and do whatever they want, they ought to simply and honestly take that position. I personally don't think that they have the time or perspective to be able to effectively manage all of the car-level decisions for the entire Club Racing program but they could do that if they chose. Or they could defer category mangement to (perhaps more formally constituted) AC's.

K

[Bill Miller]

Andy,

I appreciate your comments. Maybe I take too much of an altruistic or naive view when I look at how I think things should work. In my scenario, the various AdHoc's would already be taking the pulse of their constituency as to where their category should go. If I don't like the direction it's going, but many others do, it's my job to try and change people's minds, or recognize that while it may not be what I like, it would be the best for the category (hey Nord, you listening?). I also think that ultimately, decisions would be made by the CRB, that are made up of folks from other categories. So there would a bit of check & balance.

And in all honesty, I'm not saying that my proposal is the be-all and end-all. I threw it up more as a straw man. The main goal is to get away from the political appointments.

Kirk,

I LOVE that term. I think that's EXACTLY what the CRB is doing, and has done in the past. The never want to be in a position where they're tied down, or can have someone point to something they've done and say that it goes against their policy. You never really commit to a position. I'm sure most of the strategically ambiguous policy is written w/ what an old boss of mine called 'weasel words'. You never come right out and say what you mean.