>you may lower attendance, but you will not lose many newbies. more of the
>serious people will be inclined to drive to sac where you can get 10 runs
>for less money. one reason i want to drive in SFR is because the high
>level
>of competition makes me improve faster.
>i would prefer to have more events. i am willing to co-chair event(s) to
>help make this happen.
>
>comments?
I'm not suggesting that we increase barriers to entry for any particular
class of competitor, in order to reduce the turnout. If a newbie is serious
about autox, and is willing to stick it out, so be it.
Raising the price will pose the same economic question to everyone: do I run
here and pay, drive far and pay less, or not compete at all? You have a
point in that a new competitor will not be aware of the price change, and
therefore won't have that comparative frame of reference. Anyway, if the
more serious competitors elect to compete in Sacramento, that's fine, too.
Some will follow them, and some will be replaced by the dreaded "newbies".
Note that consumers make the same decision in the Bay area every day with
respect to housing and commuting.
Increasing the number of autocrosses will have zero effect on attendance at
any given autocross. Most people are more inclined to pay $25 a pop for 25
events than $40 for 15 events. If someone has no intention of competing for
the whole series, then the economic analysis is even simpler. Also, more
events would make it more difficult for any given participant to win a
trophy, because you would have to attend more events in the series to ensure
your results.
If the idea of higher cost really puts it over the top, we could consider an
attendance based discount structure. i.e., attend 12 or more of 14 events,
get $X refunded; attend 10 or more of 14 events, get $Y refunded; attend
less than 10 events, get nothing.
Finally, I may be incorrect on this point, but I thought one of the
constraints is site availability -- I assumed that we are basically running
the max number of events that we can accomodate, subject to constraints of
availability of both sites and organizers.
We could also raise other barriers, too. Like clear numbering of cars, etc.
Enforcing what's in the rule book would be fine. This would have to be
over-communicated before it is applied, or there will be a hue and cry of
unfairness.
I like the idea of the automated timing and scoring, BTW. It does offer the
potential for increasing the number of participants we can handle. However,
I think we expose ourselves to becoming overly dependent on the technical
equipment required to support it, training, etc. We should definitely buy a
supported software product instead of writing our own, for example.
IMHO.
Regards,
Rob
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