Having read Josh's post, I'd like to offer a different viewpoint from the
same part of the country (New England.)
First, I want to point out that Josh drives primarily with Cumberland Motor
Club (CMC), a small club that has most of its events in Northern New
Hampshire and Southern Maine. I have not run with them in a few years, but
have a general idea of the club from word of mouth and reports on the
nersolo mail list. (If any of these statements are grossly in error, please
correct me and accept my apologies)
As he points out, it is a friendly club, with a relaxed atmosphere. With
all due respect to their drivers, it is not the place that would I go for
top notch competition in the New England area. It would probably rank
towards bottom. Typical turnout is probably in the 50-80 range, depending
on what else is going on in the area. Their sites in the past (and most of
them have not changed)have been of the postage lot variety, high school
parking lots, or small factory lots.
CMC is not an SCCA region or chapter, but they do follow SCCA preparation
rules.
Now on to the running commentary:
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-autox@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-autox@autox.team.net]On
Behalf Of Bill Brockman
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 12:53 PM
To: autox@autox.team.net
Subject: Foolish Rules
Josh Brockman writes:
Let's start with what's already happened. Take this recent stock class
alignment, for example. Having 4 classes dedicated solely to new, expensive,
low production sports cars, and one more dedicated to expensive, limited
production sporty coupes/sedans may work fine at nationals. It's downright
silly for a local club. The fastest stock class that that we will probably
make a full class in at one of our events this year is DS. I don't even
think we could fill DS if the WRXen weren't selling so well up here in New
England. I could probably win my club's SS annual points title just by
showing up and completing one run in an eligible SS car.
RESPONSE: Many regions have people showing up in in expensive cars and are
able to fill classes. Just because CMC cannot fill SS-CS does not mean it
is not being done elsewhere. If it concerns your club that much, combine
the classes locally into one class.
JB:
The cream of HS includes some pretty quick cars, cars that seem designed to
be autocrossed - Mini Coopers, BMW 318s, Civic Sis, GTIs. I think it's very
odd that some cars considered to be sports cars by the majority of the
public would end up in the slowest of *9* stock classes.
RESPONSE: You make my point here. Cars in general are getting faster.
Better suspensions, better engines, more technology, have relegated cars
that 10 or 15 years ago would have been in DS or CS to our slowest class.
Yes, this means that econocraps like Hyundai Excels (which I started in) and
Mercury Tracers (which YOU started in before moving to, I believe, either a
Sentra SE-R or a 240SX) to non-contender status. But now, there are
actually cars in HS that people want to autocross. Cars, that by the way,
are pretty damn affordable to the novice autocrosser that has decided to buy
a car more suited for autocross.
JB:
The class structure has become so segmented in the interest of the
nationals crowd, that most local clubs can never fill any P or M class, and
even national events other than the big one in Topeka find it hard.
RESPONSE:
This is flat untrue. Locally, New England Region SCCA has a very strong CP
and EP turnout and AP, DP, and FP usually have a driver or two. Our Mod
classes have blossomed. The mod class that did not have two or more drivers
was EM with 0. FM has grown to 7 regulars, with a couple others that show
up occasionally. Most Tours have a reletively strong turnout as well. YOUR
club may not have a strong P and M presence, but don't apply what happens in
your corner of the country to the rest of it, as you need only go beyond the
Maine/New Hampshire border when things change.
JB:
I don't expect to have any impact on the SCCA national rules, I understand
that their true purpose lies somewhere other than with the local club.
RESPONSE: It would be better stated to say that the SCCA's true purpose
lies somewhere other than the local NON-SCCA clubs.
JB:
And I know that local clubs or regions are not bound to those rules.
RESPONSE: No, you are free to dedicate the time and resources to developing
your own ruleset. Many small clubs do, and have rules that fit their LOCAL
situation very well. No one is forcing small non-SCCA clubs to ride the
coattails of all the work and money that goes into maintaining the current
SCCA rules. They basically get them for free. I don't see where non-SCCA
clubs have any reason or right to complain. Don't like a particular rule,
write up supplementals that change it (for example, NER allows street driven
Caterhams drive in ASP instead of EM.)
I'm not against small clubs. Really, I enjoy small club events as I can
just show up and run and do a normal work assignment instead of being part
of the core group like I am at NER events. I also don't care what class you
want to put me in. Don't have a big mod contingent and want to combine CM
and FM? Fine by me. It's your club, I'm just a guest.
Paul Zahornasky
191 FM
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