From: Smokerbros@aol.com <Smokerbros@aol.com>
>Phil writes (liberally snipped):
>
><< No. Businesses are about numbers. Clubs are about concepts and shared
>interests. If the concept and shared interest is sufficient, the club will
>survive. >>
>
>Isn't that the same thing? If a club satisfies the numbers, it survives
just
>like a business.
Yes, but the difference is which is more important to the organization: The
growth or the concept. SCCA chose the growth. I'm not saying that's wrong.
I'm just saying that it happened. AAA is bigger than SCCA now, and they did
it by forsaking racing entirely.
>If the club continued to center itself around MG TCs and
>TR-3s, there would be this very happy, tiny group of SCCA members. So,
then
>you'd have an "SCCA" with 1000 members, and a club that does what SCCA now
>does, with the remaining 50,000 people and a different name.
Didn't I essentially say that?
><< SCCA's primary goal has changed from what it was
>in Westport in the very early days. That process was already well underway
>when I joined in 1968. It started as a sports car club. Racing was a big
>part of that. Later, racing was the main ingredient, and the sports-car
>thing slid. >>
>
>First, I don't see how "preservation of classic sports cars" was a primary
>goal in Westport in the early days.
Go read the charter.
>What we know as "classic sports cars"
>were then "current sports cars."
They didn't say "classic" in the charter. Of course many of the cars in
question were current cars. This "classic" word is what the SCCA spokesman
(in the story that triggered this discussion) used now in retrospect.
>I think those guys were interested in
>"enjoying and competing in sports cars." It just so happens that they are
>currently our "classic sports cars."
Sports cars were rare in America. The point of the club was to keep them
available. Hence the threat to toss you out of the club if you allowed a
sports car to be broken up without offering it to another club member. I
didn't say that I thought they still needed to enforce this now. I said it
was a basic tenant of the club at the beginning, before you and I came
along.
><< Well, exactly. That was the point of the SCCA at its inception. The
>preservation of sports cars. In fact, if you allowed a sports car to be
>destroyed or sold outside the club, that was grounds for you your
>expulsion from the club. A am not making this up. >>
>
>I guess we disagree on the word "preservation." I think the point of that
>was so that someone else could enjoy the sports car the way it was
intended,
>not so that it would be "preserved." They were just elitist enough to
think
>that only someone else in the club could do so.
They were just elitist enough to think that the general public couldn't be
trusted to, yes.
><< Hmm. The most "popular" car club hereabouts is the Minnesota Street
Rod
>Association. The cars they celebrate are all built before 1965. Their
>annual weekend show draws 10,000 cars (including mine, this year). Seen
any
>SCCA events with 10,000 cars lately? >>
>
>I'm not sure how you can compare 10,000 cars sitting around being looked at
>with 1,000+ cars in an actual driving competition.
We were talking about clubs and popularity. This is the problem with this
discussion. You have to decide what you want to talk about. Should we
limit this discussion to autocross, since this is an autocross list? If so,
general talk about the SCCA is incorrect, since the SCCA is primarily a
road-racing club. Well, at least it is in my town.
>Are all 10,000 of those people actually members of the MSRA?
No. You don't have to be a member to enter this event. See, this is
another case of the club making a decision. In this case, it was to wrestle
control of an every-other-year event (used to alternate with Oklahoma City)
away from another outfit and make it one of the largest car shows in the
world every year. If sure there were some members who were against it, but
the club did it.
>SCCA is just fine the way it is, even if it isn't everything to everyone.
And nothing in my post was to suggest anything other than that. That's
pretty clearly stated in the part the post you didn't quote.
>The Boxsters, Z06s, S2000s and even the Type Rs and WRXs are in 2001 what
the
>MGs, TRs and XKs were in 1951.
Sort of. The difference is rarity. Sports cars were a rare commodity then.
The huge influx of cheap Spridgets and the like was to take place a decade
later.
> That's not to say we can't improve it, but I
>don't see making old sports cars competitive in Stock Category as one of
>those improvements.
Ah, back to autocross again. I think with the revolution in tires, really
elderly cars are pretty much out of their depths in Stock category. I think
the proper place for them is SP. They really need the sway bars to make it
with modern tires. In stock category, my Saturn would be a hell of a lot
happier than any of my other cars.
This brings us back to the basic divide in autocrossers. If you are a
person who wants to win, get a car that wins. If you are a person that
likes a certain type of car, drive it and don't care that you don't win.
Phil Ethier Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 Triumph TR4 CT2846L
LOON, MAC pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/
Daughter Amanda has presented us with a second grandchild. Sirena Mae
Stremski
arrived on the first day of Spring 2001, weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces.
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