2014 Schedule

I agree on that one Steve. The tracks are pushing renters to sign earlier and earlier. I was really hoping with the excellent and diligent effort that the clubs made this year to get the schedule sorted early might lead us to try to start ratifying and announcing at the Fall meetings instead of the traditional Spring meeting confirmation. As Ken documented it would require yet more modification to the P and P's but going forward we may find that the ability to secure dates and sign contracts early will better serve our needs.
 
Pushing ICSCC to publish and commit to a schedule earlier doesn't solve the fundamental problem of trying to arrange the weekends not to have
conflicts, or for ICSCC weekends to be too close together. All the E-board reps worked together to define an ICSCC schedule that worked for ICSCC
racers and avoided other known weekends to the extent possible. Other clubs information that we were basing schedules on changed at the last minute.

As Rick points out, to avoid conflicts, someone has to cancel.
 
Both Rick and Kevin make good points:
  • Because of external forces (the tracks themselves, and the other potential renters that make their attitude possible), there is both more incentive to and fewer reasons not to publish our official schedule earlier than we do now.
  • The ICSCC Member Clubs did work really hard to come up with a schedule that would work well for everybody, within the various constraints (each other, other race organizations, no back-to-backs, as many races in as few week-ends as possible, the tracks' schedules, etc) and this was very evident at the Fall Meeting. In fact, I recall that Dave Bennitt specifically called this out. Even in my limited official time going to the meetings, it seems like there has been more cooperation among our Clubs to make this kind of thing happen over the last couple years.
 
Well established and good communications with other users (WMRRA, Motofit, Karts, etc) is just as important, if not more than coordinating dates within the Conference.

The facility mgmt may try to please all of their customers, but with a different set of priorities and goals. PIR has a user group set up. They meet every year. They network and solve some of the issues that yearly scheduling always delves out. Maybe that's why PIR is able to produce their schedule earlier than they have in the past.

If the groups that would use the facility are not talking to each other, there may be options that will remain unknown. Solutions unexplored. Hypothetically... What if WMRRA didn't get a date they wanted, but didn't know who got it until it was too late to negotiate a swap to satisfy both clubs? It happens. The track isn't going to be responsible for providing those options, but representatives from the clubs might be able to connect (i.e. user group style) and satisfy both clubs' issues and then provide the facility with that desire to change.

It's pro-active. It takes some weight off of the facility's administration to square away their seasons schedule. It also lets all users have a peek at where their competition for dates comes from.

But someone has to make 'first contact', or nothing will ever change.
 
In my experience scheduling and my interaction with other clubs doing the same, I have to disagree Ken. While the scenario you mentioned would be great in an ideal setting but really didn't seem to work when it came to putting ink to paper. A fair part of the issue comes from the fact that complicated problems have complicated solutions. Complicated solutions usually take a lot of applied time and effort from talented people. The talented people who are solving the scheduling problem for Conference are all volunteers and pretty much have full time jobs that consume the bulk of their time and energy. Add in the fact that most of the tracks are not under our control - they are less interested in what is best for us than what is best for them, and rightfully so. So I am not saying the schedule couldn't be improved - I'm saying it is pretty close to as good as it can get especially considering the amount of resources available to work on it and the infinite permutations possible considering all the players.

For IRDC even though we have recently had access to an embarassment of riches (TWO tracks!) the truth is that BOTH of those tracks have no problem selling every single week-end of the "racing season" and have other clubs standing two deep hoping one of the big clubs doesn't want a weekend so they can snatch it up. My time on the Board has been an eye opener - there is very strong demand for week-end racetrack rental, much more than I had expected. IRDC even now walks a razor's edge because tracks give priority to renters who take multiple dates and pay a hefty deposit up front that the tracks us to live on during the off season. By splitting our races between two different facilities we actually reduce our favorability to both! We have been lucky to have a long history and good relationship with Pacific and strong friendships at the Ridge along with our track record of being reliable and paying our bills without complication so it has worked out so far. It turns out that this is an unintended consequence of limiting each club to three Championship racing week-ends that we all entered into with the best of intentions following the desires of our members. In reality, IRDC could probably hold at least two events at each track and they would have a reasonable expectation of having decent attendance. The downside would be that would likely create a drain on attendance at races that are longer tows because racers would have additional opportunities in the central Conference area that IRDC is lucky enough to inhabit.

I don't want to speak for Cascade because I only know what I saw when I was coordinating with them for scheduling when I was still on the IRDC Board but I think that they have had one of the toughest times scheduling of any club and, at least when I was there, controlled when we could finalize the schedule to a large degree. It wasn't really any fault of theirs - they were always ready and willing to jump in and coordinate with us on schedule any time we asked. The problem was that PIR takes requests with multiple alternates from all of it's proposed users and then ASSIGNED dates. It happened late enough then that I think they either hadn't recieved them or at least gotten done horse trading with other users before the Fall meetings.

Frankly, I love the diversity of tracks that we have available to us and I don't want ANY of our clubs to fail so it comes down to a decision hierarchy that gets real complicated after just a couple steps. It is already hard to protect the ICSCC clubs directly affected in the scheduling process as evidenced by one or two clubs being measurably hurt by back to back scheduling every year for the last several years. Any schedule that provides each club an opportunity to hold a successful event and provides the membership as a whole no back-to-back weekends is a great accomplishment in my book. Next in line is probably SOVREN as we train a lot of their drivers and our tie to them provides a place for our members to go when their car and/or their competitive fire reaches a more "dignified" pace. After that, if we can stay clear of our "semi-friendly" competitors like SCCA and NASA without too much effort on our part then I guess I am OK with that but I don't forget that there is only so much disposable income allocated for racing available and I would prefer that they come and race with us instead. Past that we just compete with the motorcycle racers for venues, not really for entries. Last but not least we cannot forget that we compete with camping, golf, tennis, baseball, softball, go-karting, travelling, yard work, boating, marriage, having children and laying in front of the tv doing nothing for the time and money it takes to participate. We have lost more racers to those things than all of the other sanctioning bodies combined.

If you have the ability, perpetuate the future of the club and start mentoring a neighborhood kid or a friend across the back fence. Work in his garage and invite him to work in yours. A love of cars and the friendships you can build around that is the core of our sport and that is where the future volunteers and drivers come from.
 
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lolrus.jpg
 
Well there is always a way ou of the box/bucket. You just have to be willing to take the risk.

If there are to few workers to cover to many dates either due to number of dates or event conflicts......the obvious solution is fewer dates.

The current solution that has been embraced by ICSCC is the multiple race weekend. Race weekends have been reduced from 11 to 9. There is some more blood in this stone, but I do not see the 2 major clubs going to this format anytime soon.

So what is next.....well I would suggest we look into the possibility of co-sanctioning SCCA regional events. Before raining down all the reasons this cannot work take a moment to consider what an additional say 50 to 80 full price (not discounted second entries, or special race entries) would add to the gross. And it would further reduce the number of race weekends, conflicts and worker hours required. In addition gross revenues per event go up, cost per event remains almost static, and the number of ICSCC and SCCA events remain the same......only those racing both SCCA and ICSCC events at their local track are impacted. Run them as SCCA-ICSCC challenge races
 
greg_coffin said:
.....So what is next.....well I would suggest we look into the possibility of co-sanctioning SCCA regional events.....
Click to expand...

That would be a marvelous idea. But as you guessed there are buts.

1. All cars pay both SCCA and ICSCC sanction/entry fees?
2. Who's insurance is primary and would the other clubs be considered secondary? Can you switch off?
3. Would Topeka even allow the NW region to do it?
4. One hundred other buts I haven't thought of go from here on down.
 
It has nothing to do with reasons that it won't work. They are a competing organization who, if you believe people vote with their dollars and their attendance, are not doing as good a job as Conference. How could it CONCIEVABLY by in Conference's best interest to encourage our competition to continue making decisions that are by Conference standards "wrong" yet help them succeed in spite of it? It isn't in the best interests of the people who have invested their money and time building Conference, it doesn't benefit Conference racers, it only helps people who have a soft spot for SCCA and don't like seeing them struggle. Maybe they should take it as a sign that the way they do business isn't appealing to this particular market and change that. In a nutshell, that is why:

It
Is
Not
Going
To
Happen

and frankly, why would we even want it to? I can see lots of places where some effort and some thought could be applied to much more important subjects but this one is just a non-starter. The truth is that anyone in the SCCA is welcomed at our events and can pretend it's a ICSCC-SCCA Challenge all they like (note the top billing where it belongs). What you are suggesting is already happening - more SCCA racers are attending ICSCC events. Heck, we can save them all of the expense of paying sanction fees and big entries that they send back to Topeka to fund big salaries, bankrupt car building ventures, and pro series that bleed money that needs to be funded by infusions cash from their club racing and autocross revenues. They can just go ahead and enter ICSCC races and appoint a scorekeeper to total up a points championship among those who want to call themselves SCCA'ers and their cash will stay right here creating more and better racing. It would be just the same as they have now, only run by friendly folks and they get to race with about four times as many entries.

You sucked me it! I was going to chastise you for the waste of electrons in even discussing it and now I've written more than both of you combined, but I think it is clear - a marvelous idea it is not.
 
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The other option is not fewer weekends, it is more workers. That way, if no one from out of town shows up to work the event, it can still go on. A driver and his family sponsored an Explorer Post when I was in high school in San Diego. The kids in Explorer Post 901 basically ran pre-grid for San Diego Region SCCA at their events at Holtville Aerodrome International Raceway (H.A.I.R.) back in the 70's. I'm still involved some 40 years later. Got to think outside the box guys.
 
I agree. We keep saying we need to rebuild the worker base but in general we have been doing the same kind of things that we always have and kind of just hope volunteers will come.

There are a few out there who have always made a good effort in this direction and in particular we probably get more new volunteers from our current volunteers recruiting friends, family, coworkers, an acquaintences than just about anywhere else so a BIG thank you to those people - you know who you are! When I was Prez of IRDC we gave this a lot of thought but if I had to cite one area where I feel we didn't really move the ball forward as well as we would have liked that would definitely be it.

Getting out of the box is exactly what we need to do. I think there a lot of good folks involved who would be willing to apply planning and effort and I am sure there are modest amounts of money in the clubs available if it results in more volunteers, more friends, and a stronger organization. Really it isnt a lack of willingness to do it - we are kind of stymied about what to do! That is a subject that is well worth discussing and we would love some brainstorming on the subject.
 
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Rob - that is a great story and exactly what I am talking about. When I was with WMRRA we got some good volunteer support from the Gold Wing riders club. It had a great motorcycle tie in and they were happy and excited to be there - really gave it a party-like atmosphere.

I think approaching the right kind of groups or clubs is a good way to go. People are more likely to give it a try with a group of friends than taking the leap and presenting themselves, alone, to a group of strangers to do something they have never done before and dont know whether they will even like yet - its just human nature. That is one of the reasons our current volunteers are typically our best recruiters. If they bring out a friend at least that person knows they will be spending the day with someone they like. If the racing turns out to be fun that is just a bonus!

I would be very much in favor of forming relationships with groups or clubs where it would be beneficial to BOTH as it was in Rob's example. That is how you form strong and long lasting bonds. Now, we just need to identify the right groups. Suggestions?
 
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"Don't you ever wonder why on some weekends ICSCC events seem to be short of workers? Like corners with only one flagger or maybe two instead of three?"

(need to learn how to add quotes)

Just for clarification, one flagger per turn is only allowed on Track Days/Test & Tune.
Race weekends must have a minimum of two.
And yes, we have been short sometimes, but drivers, crew, wives, other club members have always stepped in to fill the void.
 
Lynn Rimmer said:
....Just for clarification, one flagger per turn is only allowed on Track Days/Test & Tune.
Race weekends must have a minimum of two.....
Click to expand...

Sorry to disagree, Lynn. But I can distinctly remember working 2B and 6 alone on at least one occasion each during race weekends (i.e. not track days).

Now I'm off to make my baked potato dinner for Christmas Day! Rejoice and be Merry one and all :)
 
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