I made it into the school (YAY!), so I'm certainly not going to
complain. But if ideas are being solicited, I'll kick out a
few:
> The problem with autox schools is:
> 1) Paying for them - $75 x 40 is a lot less than
$25 x 250 that we draw for a regular event.
Personally, I would be happy to pay more than $75. And although
the club could still undoubtedly earn more from a regular event,
I'd guess that dealing with a huge 250-entrant event instead of
a focused group of 40 has its major downsides, too!
> 2) Scheduling them - there are a limited number of
> site days available during the year.
How about a weekday? I'll bet I'm not the only one who would
be more than happy to arrange a day off if necessary. And it
seems to me that the site availability would probably go way
up as well.
> 3) Finding instructors
Being a newbie, I'm afraid I don't have much insight into this
problem. Are instructors given sufficient incentive? Free
club memberships? Free entry to events? Track time credit at
Thunderhill? Anything? From what I understand, the Solo II
program is a huge revenue generator that helps offset the costs
of other SCCA racing programs. The club surely must recognize
the value of the volunteers that make this happen.
Don't they?
> 4) Finding someone to coordinate them
Again, that's a tough one for newbies to help with.
> There are any number of experienced drivers who are more
> than willing to provide assistance and instruction at the
> regular events
True, but (to me, anyway) there's at least one major difference:
The absolute maximum instruction time possible at a regular
event is on the order of three minutes, total. And that's only
if you can somehow find an instructor who can ride with you on
every run. The experienced autocrossers are understandably
usually pretty busy!
--
-Craig Haggart
haggart@slac.stanford.edu
Sunnyvale, California
'96 Miata M Edition
|