>since you see 8th out 9th as better than 8th out of 8th, I'd say you're
> likely to be around awhile.
Hey Jake, you seem to be using me as a gauge at my first autox. (I was the
9th) Hehehe, wanna trade cars for a real test of skill? ;-)
I skipped out of novice last Sunday, but maybe I should return so that I too
can claim to beat some other novices...:P
-Arnold (friendly competition)
"Gee, Brain. What are we going to do tonight?"
"Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try and take over the world!"
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Urschel" <OSP13@attglobal.net>
To: "Jake Hodges" <jake_hodges@hotmail.com>
Cc: <ba-autox@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2001 2:39 PM
Subject: Re: Course design and rookie return rates...
> Jake Hodges asked a lot of questions:
>
> Let's start with your last question, Jake. Are you a crazy,
> unenlightened newby? Of course you are. If you keep
> autocrossing you will become a crazy old hand. As for
> enlightenment, you could pay attention to Ms. Kelley's
> musings.
>
> > Catch me up, here. As for Rookies being discouraged enough to not
return
> > after not doing well at their first events... Are there a lot of data
points
> > to support this?
>
> There are two to three hundred data points per year
> of Novices (nee Rookies) not returning. As for the reasons
> they don't return, well, we haven't actually tried to track
> them down and ask them, so it's open to speculation.
>
> What the data would show you is that we have a Novice
> program which is effective in keeping a fair number of
> newbies participating regularly during their first year, but
> participation drops off rapidly after that. Of the 1998
> rookie class, 12 trophy winners, 5 trophy contenders
> (but not winners), and 5 others participated in at least
> half of the events the following year. There are about
> five of them still participating regularly today. We simply
> aren't structured well to provide close competition to
> developing drivers after their first year except in a very
> few highly subscribed classes, even though the data also
> shows that 60% of the revenue comes from drivers
> competing for season trophies. So we have lots of
> newbies every year coming and going amongst the
> core group. The objective is simply to keep autocrossing
> alive. Everything else is gravy.
>
> In five seasons I was able to find close competition twice
> having otherwise to make up measurements of progress
> such as my ASP car being only 3% slower than Ray Miller's
> Super Stock car rather than 5% slower as it was the previous
> year. There's always something to shoot for, and since you
> see 8th out 9th as better than 8th out of 8th, I'd say you're
> likely to be around awhile.
>
> Rich Urschel
>
> Ps. We made a couple of minor mistakes with the course
> last Sunday. I'm sure we won't be forever abandoning gates
> as a result.
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