Atlanta Region Pro-IT Problems

[Ron Earp]

Steve, I think you're basically right. For all intents and purposes the rules are the same. These non-SARRCs are essentially longer races.

The problem is going to be territory. Tom's thinking "yeah, Pro-IT at VIR, CMP, and RRR, that's cool". While Bob is considering the merits of CCPs races at Road Atlanta and Fred is thinking it'd be great to run the THC down at CMP. Each is thinking of their own racing region and how everything is just fine. Most are not considering the big picture or overall club health.

This fiefdom stuff has to go.

The RE's (or whoever decides this stuff) need to sit down and consider what racers want. And racers, well, they need to tell the RE's what they want but from experience we know it isn't easy. In a club like the SCCA the squeaky wheels get the grease and if the squeakers are the ones affiliated with a given region's pet series, well, then there won't be any compromises.

I'd like to see a 1.5 or 2 hour race format, a series that runs all over the SE, with purse and payouts and the allowed classes included ITE (a catch all class for cars that met IT SAFETY rules) and provisions for LeChump cars. I think that would be successful and could replace the ECR, ProIT, CCPs, and the THC. It'd draw a good pool of cars, that is for sure, and for that reason it wouldn't have to cost any more than one of the aforementioned races.

We've got five great tracks in the SE - CMS, RA, CMP (shut up, it is fun), RRR (that's a stretch), and VIR, maybe even Rockingham if we removed the "great" adjective. It'd be wonderful to run SARRC and an XYZ series at all of these tracks. The fact that both series would be at all the tracks the average SE racer could get to would be a boon to entries.