Very, very tentative 2012 schedule (tentatively)

I may not be totally geriatric, but I did see the Beatles twice, live! I was also in downtown Anchorage in the 50's the day it became a State, so I'm definitely not that spring chicken that I hear people talking about all the time!
The only issue I see with this schedule is the back-to-back-to-back scenario in August, which is bound to hurt at least one of those 3 clubs like it did this year. Having served on the E-board in the past I understand that it is a track scheduling issue, but it sure stretches the pocketbook.
 
westipton said:
The only issue I see with this schedule is the back-to-back-to-back scenario in August, which is bound to hurt at least one of those 3 clubs like it did this year. Having served on the E-board in the past I understand that it is a track scheduling issue, but it sure stretches the pocketbook.
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It's 5 straight weekends for PRO3 drivers who run the August Conference races and the NASCAR support race Aug 24-26 and Mission on Labor Day weekend. Think of it as an opportunity!
 
Um, were they listening to any of the race-scheduling thread?

I hope the 3-weeks in a row is really tentative, cause that pretty much guarantees losses in entries.
 
Karen Stimson said:
Um, were they listening to any of the race-scheduling thread?

I hope the 3-weeks in a row is really tentative, cause that pretty much guarantees losses in entries.
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They definitely were but, as Rick mentioned in that thread and others have mentioned in this one, the Clubs are at the mercy of the tracks' schedules. Any discussion about schedules that takes place in October 2011 is already far, far too late to impact 2012. For example, did you know that The Ridge's schedule for 2012 is almost already booked?! The track surface has barely cooled...
 
This weid scheduling is another reason I stated in other post's that every club needs to start working now with each other
NOT FOR THE CURRENT upcoming year, BUT for the NEXT year. This includes working with SCCA and SOVREN as well.

The last 2-3 years SOVERN has had their dates locked in by the end of August and I know that the tracks will also start
work for the following year about February. Look at NASCAR, they showed up in August and before they left the track they had the Aug 2012 date locked in.

Most of the dates have been within a week or so of the same weekend for the last 5 years that I have seen, so I still do not under stand why it is so hard to due this scheduling.

Finally schudele's should be finished and ready to publish by the middle of December not March for April May dates.

This is my $0.125 worth.
 
Dave first thing, what may seem simple to you is not. I would not want to walk a mile in our clubs shoes for the scheduling and I have sat on the board for 7 years watching them trying to get the best outcome....how long you been there?

Secondly, when YOU want the schedule to be finalized doesn't really matter. Considering how many races and race weekends ICSCC is trying to pull together....more than Sovren and Nascar that's for sure, it's a whole different animal. I am not slamming these organizations, but the challenges are not the same so you can't compare them at all.
And our schedule is usually set by mid-Jan not MARCH.
Enough said.
 
Wow - first, thanks to all of you who understand what a difficult task it is scheduling a 15 race schedule over 11 weekends encompassing 5 different venues organized by 5 different clubs. Add to that most of those clubs have nothing more than the good relationship that they have spent countless developing with the racing venues and a willingness to pay the rental fees to get deals done.

Last I talked to Rod @ The Ridge Motorsports (just before the E-Board meetings), it sounded like they were close to being able to sign events for all of the available dates they will have for next year and the track isn't even complete yet!! Rod and Joe have bent over backwards to be as accomodating as they possibly can for us (remember they are Conference racers and IRDC members!) but we are just one club of many that are clamoring for popular dates at their highly anticipated new facility.

I talked to Tracy at Pacific Raceways today in an attempt to see if there was any wiggle room to maybe space a couple of the tight races but she said that they are now scheduled full with no open dates to shift to. She has also gone out of her way to be as helpful to us as possible, but they have the further problem of having to schedule big drag racing events on the same blacktop that we want to use during some of the prime week-ends of the summer. By the time the SOVREN Historics take the last week-end of July and three big drag race week-ends take the first three week-ends in August we can't touch Pacific for a solid month.

It's a credit to those that currently help put on races and those that did so before us that we enjoy the good relationship that we do with the tracks. They treat us for the most part as favored customers and that is because a whole lot of hard work went into building and maintaining those relationships. Our tracks have a lot of potential customers out there but we have been good long term customers so they do their best to treat us well. In Pacific's case, they already have most of their dates under contract but they (and The Ridge) are willing to hold our dates until after the ICSCC Spring Meetings (Spring as in January) which is where the schedule is officially accepted. Only after that has happened are we even allowed to sign contracts.

Let me just assure all of you - every one of the 5 member clubs starts with the goal of having two weeks between races and making each event as easy for the racers and volunteers to attend as possible. It's in all of the club's best interest, becasue crowded races can result in low entries which means events that lose money - nobody wants that. In the end, we get stuck with certain dates and hope we don't affect each other's attendance in a negative fashion. The schedule isn't difficult because we want it to be. We work hard to get it as good as we can for our members without simply cancelling races to make more space.

As to Dave's comments - I've been discussing schedule with Rod and Tracy since August. My concern is IRDC, and ICSCC. We have a great relationship with Sovren and we do our best to help each other out but apart from their Historics we have very little interference from them. SCCA is essentially a non-problem for us. Pacific usually puts their one event on the schedule well after we have picked our preliminary dates. And you are completely mistaken - the dates fluctuate WILDLY and are nowhere near stable for years at a time. IRDC's traditional dates have been consumed by large commercial events at Pacific so we move frequently. Cascade submits three choices for each date and in the end is assigned dates that work best for PIR. You are free to state that we should start our planning earlier, consider competing clubs, and even question the difficulty we claim to face, but clearly you have no clue what you are talking about.

Twelve and a half cents might be well above market value on that post.

And thanks for sticking up for me Lynn - everybody should take a moment and give a standing ovation wherever you are to someone who has been an OUTSTANDING ROD for a bunch of years. Way to go babe!

Member # 1 of the Lynn Rimmer fan club. (and Thomas ain't so bad either.)
 
Cool, look at all those opportunities to race!

Wait, what is all this complaining about??? I guess I havnt been around long enough to get it.

Thanks again to everyone who VOLUNTEERS to make this stuff happen.
 
Thanks for elaborating Rick. It's good to know that our feedback is being considered. I knew that the schedules of the tracks were full, but it's new to know about the new big events taking up Seattle's time.
 
No problem Karen and all -

I just wanted you all to know that we not only monitor the forum but actively go out and solicit the opinions of the membership that we serve. I think you will find that pretty much all of the fine folks who volunteer their time to help run the five clubs do so as a service to their memberships. The clubs aren't a business, the racers aren't customers, and the workers aren't employees. We are all the same: club members and racing enthusiasts. Those of us currently in the barrel are doing our best to make everybody happy and waiting for the next group to take their turn in the barrel so we can complain about them!

We figure that a gross minority of those who are drivers and volunteers within the ICSCC actually read these forums. It's easy to fall under the assumption that "most" stop by and read our flowery prose, but we are pretty sure that is not actually the case. The best way to make sure we know what you want is to attend meetings, talk to people at races and functions, and call your club leadership directly. I talk to a very diverse group of members about a remarkably diverse set of subjects on a regular basis because they just call me to tell me what they think. Believe me - we listen.
 
rick_bostrom said:
We figure that a gross minority of those who are drivers and volunteers within the ICSCC actually read these forums.
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I have the data (i.e., server logs) to back that up. For those of us on this forum, many of whom are quite passionate, it can be hard to remember that we are only a small-ish portion of those with race licenses. When you factor in corner workers and other non-driving volunteers, we're an even smaller percentage than that.
 
Ah but Steve, great things come in small packages!!!!!
You just have the honor of monitoring/finger slapping us small outspoken ones.
 
In your blatherstats, Steve what is/are the 'guest'/unlogged viewer numbers? Or am I not forming the question very well?

How much is anybody looking through the forum in general, regardless of registration? Zat better?

Now you'll probably tell me I can look them up any time on some 'secret squirrel' page that I've just never noticed the link to.
 
Ken Killam said:
In your blatherstats, Steve what is/are the 'guest'/unlogged viewer numbers? Or am I not forming the question very well?

How much is anybody looking through the forum in general, regardless of registration? Zat better?

Now you'll probably tell me I can look them up any time on some 'secret squirrel' page that I've just never noticed the link to.
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I could dig that level of detail out of the logs, but I don't have the time or the inclination. That said, something like 96% of all traffic to the forum and the site in general comes from search engines.
 
I've been a board member and event director for other car clubs and I can tell you it's no easy task and it's a very, very small minority that contribute and do all of the work for the masses. So kudos to all of you that work on this scheduling and putting on these events. It's no easy task.
 
Well said Rick. As I have said many times 97% of the people come and race and go home. They have no clue what it takes to schedule, organize and put on a race week end. At some point in time we all need to give back to our clubs and get involved in any segment of club activity to help put on a race. It doesn't take much but it all helps.
 
As I have been out of action for the last couple of weeks, I can now respond to a couple remarks
Lynn---Yes I have not been directly involved with Conferance scheduling but over the last twenty something years I have been involved at times with other groups and the combined scheduling meeting at Pacific and I do know that there can be
a frustrion level that is not good. But, again, if you look over the past few years, you will see that all groups, not just conferance, have had dates that are either the same weekend or +/- a week.

Also, with a few exceptions, even the drags are on the same date(s).

So, again, I will state that if ALL groups were again to get together and start working on these dates earler in the year, I believe that things could go smother.


Rick b Your comments are well excepted and I under stand where you are coming from. I know you are doing the best that you can for IRDC and I respect that. As for SCCA being put on the calender after IRDC dates, I think you maybe mistaken as the memorial day event has been a locked in event for over twenty years except the 2-3 years during the change over from Rocksted to family run days. Also, SOVERN has also has The 4th of July instead of the last weekend.

I have also not said any thing about the inter relationships between the groups and I know that as a whole IRDC and SOVREN work well together.

As for dates moving around, it may take a couple of days, but I can go into my records and pull schedules and do a side by side. Do you have the ablity to combare?

At this time I think this is all that needs to be said and I will drop it at this point.

Just because I am not more directly involved with things in IRDC especially at the upper level, does not mean that I do not have a clue as to what is going on. This was disrespectful.
 
"Just because I am not more directly involved with things in IRDC especially at the upper level, does not mean that I do not have a clue as to what is going on. This was disrespectful."

Sometimes this needs to be said... perspective.

Happy Thanksgiving, Dave.
 
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