Enduro???

Its has come to my attention and I am sure it has come to most of yours that Seattle is cancelling their Endurance race at the beginning of the 2012 race season.
I would like to know what the General feedback would be if SCCBC would host a 4-6 hour Enduro at the beginning of the upcoming race season in March or April. The last few years Seattle race ways has put this event on in March.
Who would participate? Who would not? And the big question why or why not?
How much support is there from SCCBC, META, club members from all around, and racers?
 
Seems like everybody and their cousin are doing the enduro thing at Chump Car. They turned away around 10 at their October race at PIR. They started some 84 cars, while Cascade started 21 two weeks before that. Why are the numbers way down for the Conference clubs and not for Chump Car?
 
Rob,

One of the reasons that Chump Car get so many entries is that they do not insist on drivers having a race licence or race training. That opens the door to many more driver/team options. Car prep rules are around safety and not go-faster ($$$$$) parts, no class structure regulations etc.

John brought a simple and fun product to the track. I raced the first Chumpcar 24hr event at Portland a few years back and it was loads of fun. I would love to do it again if anyone has a seat for rent.

James
 
Chumpcar has added the Ridge on the schedule for a Sept 15, 2012 date. Marked (Tent) but it's early yet.

I believe that the 'club' run enduros were well attended in the past. And the attendance started to wane well before Chumpcar, or even Lemons was even a concept. So the question is WHAT changed?

Talk amoungst yourselves.
 
I found the 8 Hours of the Cascades Enduro in October to be the most enjoyable race of my short 2 years of racing. If you split the cost including fuel, amongst the drivers, it's pretty cost effective IMO....Chump and Lemons is cheap by comparison. But personally I'd rather race real race cars in real races. Chump/LeMons is a "happening"...more like a Halloween party than an actual race. Sorry to hear the April Pacific enduro is history for now. Did not notice on the tentative 2012 schedule.

Bill-

Not withstanding the above comments about Chumps/LeMons, I would still like to try it one day as an owner/driver.
 
That's fantastic news! I was really bummed to hear we lost the Spring Enduro, but I completely understood IRDC's position.
 
Question remains, as in many other threads; how does IRDC's and CSCC's Enduros survive?

I think positioning IRDC's at the beginning of the year enables an opportunity to get a car sorted out before the race season. CSCC's at the enable the year enables cars to be "used up" at the end of the season.

So what is the hold-up? Time? Money? Scared of destroying the car? Entry fees too high??

We need to figure it out. The only thing that kept me from running CSCC's was my engine was blown and being rebuilt. Would like to see the entry fee lowered to make it more attractive. I sure won't run it for more than 6 hours. If I do that I put my other engine in.
 
IRDC always lost money at the spring enduro. It became a 'how much' question pretty early on. The word went out a while
back that 'quite a bit' was getting untenable, and this spring's enduro pretty much sealed its fate.

There was a LOT of support for a switch to the Ridge in the spring- but logistics and timing were going to be really difficult to manage...

t
 
As Toby stated, IRDC felt there was an excellent chance that a spring enduro would do very well at a brand new track (The Ridge) in 2012. We figured everybody would want to get on the track which would mean lots of entries as a result. Unfortunately, that would also put a tremendous amount of pressure on The Ridge to have all of the details perfected and the track completely ready before the sprint racing season just a very few months from now. Rod and Joe have already performed a medium sized miracle with pavement down and the facility taking shape. We didn't want to dump the stress of a full scale race on their schedule so early nor rush the logistics of a first time race at a new venue on the incoming IRDC Board. Look to the very real possibility of an Enduro at The Ridge in 2012 though.

It's funny - whenever racers are asked about doing an enduro they pretty much all want us to have one on the schedule. Additionally, you talk to people that have run them and they almost universally talk about them being one of the most fun things they have done in their racing careers. Knowing those two things, it's a mystery why so few people actually enter them! The IRDC Board really liked several things about the Spring Enduro - It gave us a chance to do an early run of all of our race procedures and make sure all of the people and equipment were fully trained and operational for the sprint season. It's was also nice to give our members another reason to get together and enjoy a motorsports event. It was discontinued because drivers voted not to support it with their entries, and we couldn't justify perpetually losing money to our constituents. If you like an event, show your support by entering so we can keep it on the schedule!
 
It is a real shame that there is no Seattle enduro this year, we were really looking forward to it. Now that we have three great tracks so close together, I can see an Enduro series on the horizon. Three races, Pacific, Ridge and Portland, spring-summer-fall, 4-6-8 hours in length, championship team points in each scaled to participation numbers??

Funny, you might even see teams testing at sprint races for enduro's! Get some sponsors together, we might even be able to award the Champions with a paid entry to the 25 hour at Thunderhill as the official Northwest Motorsports Entry??

We would not be interested in running an enduro at Mission, just doesn't fit for us.

They did say "discuss".....

Jeff

www.Retroracingteam.com
 
Once upon a time...

SCCBC ran a 7(?) hour enduro a week or two after the CSCC 6 hr Enduro. That was at Westwood. I do not recall if they have had one at Mission, but hear tell that it too may be a possibility.

Those were the days when these events were considered the individual club's events, not a derivative of an ICSCC event. Insurance not withstanding.

Perspective.
 
I wonder how much reticence there is about entering an enduro with an uncompetitive, "regular" sprint car, which is to say, a car where someone hasn't spent the money adding features that are really only needed for endurance racing (larger cell, lights, radios, dry-break fueling, etc). As the semi-regulars in the enduros around here spend more time and money making their cars and teams better, is it also raising the bar to entry to anyone else? I know the "Limited" classes were brought about to help counteract that, and they're certainly the majority of entries at the 25-hour, so maybe the question that should be asked is why more people haven't entered their cars in the Limited classes? You're unlikely to win overall, but I would think the competition among regular ICSCC cars in a longer format would be more appealing than it's shown.
 
Great points, Steve, and that's why there are the classes E3-E0 for the 25hour race. You can take a sprint car down and have a great finish with some lights and a radio. As for around here, you can schedule a 4-8 hour enduro without the need for lights (although I would be disappointed with no night driving) depending on time of year. Hell, at the right track you could run a Saturday afternoon enduro, 4-8 or 4-10 on a regular race weekend with a little help on the corner stations.

There are some really good enduro cars in the PNW, and I thing there would be more if there was more than one race to attend every year.

And..................discuss.

Jeff
 
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