Regardless of your will. or your way, mandating that there not be back to back races will result in some clubs not being able to hold some or all of their races at all. Is that what you really want?
It is a testament to the efforts of the hard working race chairs and VOLUNTEER officers elected by each individual club that the schedule works out as well as it has! By all means contact your (or any clubs) E-Board representative and ask them how hard we work to try to avoid back to back week-ends. I've posted on this subject several times in the past, but I'm happy to run through it again.
1) Race season runs roughly half the year and even that is pushing it with Northwest weather at either end. That is 26 weeks, and consequently about 26 weekends. In reality, the sprint season (not counting the Cascade Enduro) is usually about FIVE months long since that is when the best weather is, and race attendance usually suffers during the bad weather months. That puts us a lot closer to 21-22 weekends per season.
2) The current ICSCC rules mandate that each of five member clubs has the right to hold three championship races each to comprise a 15 race schedule. That would actually take 28 weeks if they were all singles and spaced evenly two weeks apart. Luckily, to aid attendance for the outlying clubs, the E-Board has encouraged them to hold double weekends which also serves to make the schedule more managable. Byu having a triple at Spokane and doubles at Mission and Grass Valley we end up with a schedule that completes 15 races in 11 weekends. So far, so good - in a perfect world, we could fit 11 weekends spaced a perfect two weeks apart into the 22 weekends of the "good weather" racing season.
3) The member clubs each strive to have a good relationship with the track that they hold races on but, hold on to your preconcieved notions, WE MAY NOT BE THEIR ONLY CONCERN! Some of the best weekends of the summer are not available to us because professional events that draw large crowds (and result in large revenues) get first consideration. Large drag racing events, historic sports car racing, Nascar roadracing, and even big time events put on by the world's car manufacturers and major marque clubs often take slots that we might want for our perfect schedule.
4) Lets talk about the tracks for a minute - each club has a widely varying amount of control or influence over the tracks they host races at. Here is my basic understanding, and please - if I am stating any of this incorrectly please correct me:
Mission - I believe that SCCBC is basically in control of this track so they generally have good control of whatever dates they want to hold races. That is not to say that it isn't a revenue producing asset, and I'm sure there are a lot of renters who want onto their schedule that they would also to accomodate.
ORP - I know a lot of TC members have participated to some degree financially in a track that they can finally call home and I assume they have reasonably good control over what dates they can schedule races on. Taking that into account, I'm guessing it also has the potential to be quite a bit colder and less hospitable in May and Spetember/October if there is bad weather so they could potentially want to fit more into the nicer weather months.
Spokane - No clue, but it sounds like the track is happy to have us while they build their clientele. It's schedule may well get more crowded as the track matures but for now since they are scheduleing one triple, it seems to work out OK
Portland International - The problem with being a track that has hosted lots of big time professional series is that there is a lot of competition for dates. It is also not a "for profit" venue as it is run by the city which may have different priorities than a track run as a for profit business. My understanding is that Cascade submits a schedule of desired event dates and alternates to each date and in the end PIR assigns them some dates that may be their preferred, may be their alternates, or may be what they have available and not a preferred OR alternate.
Pacific Raceways - In recent years have really worked hard to help us get the dates we need, but as with PIR have a lot of other big clients competing for dates. When their schedule was done they didn't have a SINGLE open weekend for the racing season this year and still had people on the waiting list who wanted spots.
The Ridge - The constructors of this facility have pulled off a small miracle getting it operational in a short amount of time and even considering we have been in the loop with the owners since day one it was already filling up by the time we got our date. There is going to be even more demand for this track going forward and I have no doubt it will also fill up for every available weekend of the racing season in the years to come.
5) Because of the structure of the ICSCC all of the clubs come to the fall E-Board meetings with a list of the weekends that they would like to have based on what they think would be best for them and what their home track has available. At that point FIVE different clubs representing the needs and desires of FIVE different groups of members start negotiating to five FIFTEEN races within the available dates at SIX different racetracks. Been a while since I left college but I'm pretty sure the statistical chances of a schedule that makes everybody happy are non-existant. By the time we get to the Fall meeting, whatever dates Pacific Raceways, PIR, and The Ridge have perncilled in for their respective clubs are usually the only ones available. If there are still two races back to back the only possible solution at that point is for an outlying club to change their date if they have other dates avaiable or for IRDC or Cascade to cancel their event because they can have the dates scheduled or nothing. There are no alternate dates avaiable to switch to.
This problem is one that is near and dear to me. I sent out e-mails to all of the clubs DURING the 2011 race season proposing that we all try to get an early start and throw out some proposed race dates so we could construct a season that would minimize interferences. I sent out some dates that we were looking at and asked others to do the same. Most did. Linda Heinrich then reached out to me and we met DURING the 2011 Cascade enduro to go over the schedule with the hopes of trying to make any shifts while it was still early enough that there still might be a few weekends open that would allow us to move. We all worked diligently at the E-Board meetings and used all of our choices and options and the 2012 schedule was as good as we could possible get.
It's funny - I'm on my way out as a Board member for IRDC so I can be a little more politically incorrect. There are people who give a tremendous amount of time and effort to their clubs - they really work their butts off in an effort to give back to the clubs and the sport that they have enjoyed. They want to give the membership the things they want if at all possible, but sometimes you have to settle for what you can actually get done. By all means pass a rule that says "I'm not happy with the results of all of the difficult things you volunteered to do on my behalf, so in the future I an going to INSIST that you volunteer to do IMPOSSIBLE things for me with perfect results."
Better yet - you can have my chair and somewhere down the road we will have a beer together and you will be able to laugh at the days when you believed that five clubs could put 15 races on six tracks spaced two weeks apart with 22 weeks to work with. There are several other factors affecting attendance at ORP and will affect Cascade's Doernbecher Dash, but I've already written way too much and that could take us the rest of the week. Sorry you are unhappy, best of luck with your rule change.
