Mr. Foster:
I would like to see some hard data to support your claim about ST and SM.
Certainly on a National Level, SM has a fair amount of SM competitors that
are not new to the sport, the same is true for STS, the same is true of MOST
of the classes. How about some evidence of what you wrote from a regional
or divisional level.
I will give you some information on New England Region.
At our last event, we had 170 competitors, a normal turn-out for us.
Of those, 20 were ST, 5 were SM.
Of the 20, two usually competed in other classes, but one of the usual ST
members was in BS for this event.
Of the 19 half were SCCA members, all had joined in the last two years.
STS on this day was won by Nick Leverone. Not because he was jumping into a
new class, but because he was driving the car to help one of our newer
members with the set-up. We have not had any of our current members jump
into the new class.
SM is a slightly different story. We do have 3 members that jumped in.
These are Camaro folk that wanted to go beyond ESP but didn't want to CP.
The other regular driver is a new member of the SCCA. He doesn't complain
about being beaten, he knows that it is because of the level of experience
that he has. He has attended schools, had instructors drive with him, and
has improved his driving considerably. He also gets help from the other SM
drivers.
Some of our retention is due to the overall success of our kick-ass Novice
Program (which is co-chaired by one of our newer ST members BTW.) Much of
the retention though, is due to the fact that the ST people can compete
against each other in one class instead of 2 or 3 SP classes. This means
that when people bring friends in similar cars, they are racing against each
friend. Let's face it. It's much more fun to whup a friend's butt. You
can give them grief every day until the next event. The result has been an
extremely strong ST community in our region, one that actively recruits to
bring new people in.
Oh, most of the ST guys are under 30.
Paul Zahornasky
NER Solo Chair
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-autox@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-autox@autox.team.net]On
Behalf Of Paul Foster
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 11:34 AM
To: wheeltowheel@wheeltowheel.com; team.net
Subject: Making the SCCA Into Something It Is Not
I guess in this country where bigger is always considered better it is not
too hard to understand that a bunch of A-types would try to turn a sports
car club that is primarily geared towards amateur sports into an institution
the likes of NASCAR, the PGA, WWF, and HSN combined.
You see this sort of thinking in Solo II with classes such as STS and SM
that are being pushed as a way to encourage the youth to get involved. But
that's not what happens. People who would have competed in other classes are
the ones to get involved and do well, chasing off any momentary gain you
might see from a few fresh faces. The net result is zero growth or close to
it. I see lots of young people at every autocross I attend. Why? It is
already within their price range. If they have the desire they will come. If
they don't they will stay home and watch football. Big surprise. Trying to
tear them away from drag racing or street racing to autocross with us is not
going to work.
<SNIP>
Paul Foster
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