Mike and Lara King wrote:
>
> The way I look at something like this, and I very well may be wrong in
> thinking this way, but is the way I feel, is explore the class, propose the
> class to the membership, take member input before you create the class, and
> just get all your ducks in a row before you create a class.
While this sounds straight forward, I think the likelyhood of timely,
fair, and long lasting success is less. Just look at team.net and the
discussions and differing opinions about what the rules should be.
There was a lot of member input on this BTW, in fact the membership
basically created it, didn't they? My opinion is that they did right by
settling on a basic but loose starting point, and then pulling the
trigger cautioning everyone that it was going to be experimental for
awhile while everyone worked out the best rules package. Look at all of
the flying changes that have been made already...how would you feel if
you prepared a "Nationals" car early on only to find the rules changing
like they did? My guess is that you would be more upset about that.
Doing it this way allows the various regions to run the class and see
how it shakes out BEFORE getting people to commit seriously to a
"National" effort. Much better chance for *long term* success IMHO.
> Many of us who run
> National Tours and Pro Solos also run Nationals in September. In my
> thinking, if I'm going to build a car, it's not going to be one that I can't
> go for a National Championship in, in Topeka. I'm sure someone like Vince
> and Matt and a variety of other very good, and serious competitors would
> like to run for their own National Championship, and not get bumped to CSP
> or ESP where they would never have a chance in ST form.
I don't dis-agree, but if they are serious about running a car at
Nationals, they should not have picked that class. It is not SCCA's
fault...they clearly announced those conditions up front. (And they
accepted them by default by participating) I agree with you in
priciple, but I do not agree that the SCCA should take a black eye for
it, which was really my only point.
Additionally, while your statements are focusing mainly on the "us", the
"I", and the other serious competitors, the ground swell reason for this
whole thing in the first place was to draw people in who were skipping
SCCA Solo because there was not a "fair" place for their street tweaked
cars to play. There are exponentially many more people who do *not* run
Tours and Pro's, and that is who the class was created for by my
understanding. (Definately could be wrong on this, but this is what I
gleaned off team.net during the embryonic stages of this deal)
> I believe this is
> definitely a good reason why you don't see more people subscribing to the
> class.
You think your probably right, but this statement might only apply to
"serious" experienced competitors looking for a new class to perhaps win
a championship in. See point above.
To tell you the truth, I would probably consider ST if I could run in
> my own class at Nationals (just me, no one else!...lol!) I don't know, I
> guess I feel they should stop messing around with it, scratching their
> heads, and make it a class. If it doesn't work in the long run, so be it. At
> least it was given an equal opportunity. Just my opinion..
Not looking for an argument, and I don't really dis-agree with most of
your sentiments. Like you, I have an opinion about how a new class
should be created, and there both valid. Like I mentioned in the other
post, my "thing" is that I simply find it disagreeable that there is
always some fault to be found when they are actually responding to the
membership's wants. Maybe not as fast as you would like, or precisely
how you would do it, but responding non-the-less. It's a tough deal to
make everyone happy, but I think they are proceeding appropriately with
this as best they can. I'd rather have to be patient and wait a little
to insure long term stability as opposed to having classes created and
dropped at the drop of a hat at someone's whim. That would be worse
IMO. Again, and like you, just another opinion.
end-o-wordiness
--
Patrick Washburn <washburn@dwave.net>
Wausau, WI Land of Cheese
95 DS Neon
Moooooooooo.
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