The big (non) competitive (cars that aren't really racing each other) fields in Rationals are an anomaly caused by the slow downfall of the National racing program. If the region wanted big, competitive, fields, we would have gone back to regional nationals, which would have 450+ entries and were very competitive (and made a LOT of money, if that's so important).
How is the region going to grow if every event has to make money on it's own? If it doesn't invest in new ideas, and continue to kill them out of greed (Enduro, PCRRC, pro event support at Sonoma), eventually we won't have to worry about losing money on races, because we won't have any. (at the rate our membership is "growing" we won't have any members, anyway).
Dave
P,S, Suspect we will lose as many entries as we gain from the Rationals because the Memorial Day event (race on workday, stay home on the holiday?) conflicts with Seattle and the September event conflicts with the Runoffs.

dave wrote:The big (non) competitive (cars that aren't really racing each other) fields in Rationals are an anomaly caused by the slow downfall of the National racing program. If the region wanted big, competitive, fields, we would have gone back to regional nationals, which would have 450+ entries and were very competitive (and made a LOT of money, if that's so important).
How is the region going to grow if every event has to make money on it's own? If it doesn't invest in new ideas, and continue to kill them out of greed (Enduro, PCRRC, pro event support at Sonoma), eventually we won't have to worry about losing money on races, because we won't have any. (at the rate our membership is "growing" we won't have any members, anyway).

In one breath you're saying we need to embrace new ideas and in the next you're suggesting we go back to the heyday of single Regional/National weekends? This is diverging from the Majors topic, but I'm sad to tell you those days are gone and are not coming back. Nobody is towing for a single race on $4-5/gallon gas. If you survey the country nationwide, there are only a tiny handful of single National races any longer. Drivers have spoken: they prefer doubles.

The same reason why the Majors program was introduced - to restore some prestige to National-level racing by reducing the overabundance of National races - is the same reason why single Regional/National weekends are a losing proposition for both drivers and regions. Nobody in the SCCA has 450 cars out for a Regional/National. I don't want to run them as a driver (waaaay too much time and expense for a single race) and I don't want to run them as a region leader (waaaay too few cars to cover the expenses).

Calling the big fields of an inclusive format like the Rationals an anomaly is a mistake in my opinion and ignores the macro trends in amateur motorsports of more casual participation. The overwhelming majority of drivers aren't out to win championships. As we have shared several times now, in SFR only 7% of drivers run every event but 54% of drivers run two weekends or less per year. That is the trend across the country. The sooner the membership accepts these realities, the sooner we can focus all our effort on finding the right mix to move forward and grow our membership.

dave wrote:P,S, Suspect we will lose as many entries as we gain from the Rationals because the Memorial Day event (race on workday, stay home on the holiday?) conflicts with Seattle and the September event conflicts with the Runoffs.

Dave, PM me your email address and I'll send you the SFR planning calendar for 2013. When you factor in pro support (and the closures they force on Sonoma/Laguna), avoid running the workers back to back and trying to have relatively even spacing in our race schedule, you will see how few choices we really have when booking dates. Conflicts are undesirable but inevitable.

Offer is open to anyone - if you're curious to see the scheduling process is, PM me your address and I'll send the calendar.

My address is dave@hse.com (I'll bet I'm the easiest person to contact on this site -I'm also at the track a lot). Having served on the board, plus running with other orgs, I have a little familiarity with the issues involved.
My point is there are a lot of options available other than eliminating events "because of money". And the fact that an event doesn't make money doesn't mean it can't make money.
I am aware the regional / nationals were dropped because of scheduling issues (I was there). But that doesn't mean the same model wouldn't have worked for an event earlier in the year.
Another option that worked in the past was having a restricted regional with the double national and including a regional race for classes that are both regional and national (except SF region Miatas can't run both because we use Toyo tires).
I've talked to several board members about this, including one yesterday. The standard answer is "We can't make money on Nationals". So the questions I have are:
1) Does each event have to stand on it's own financially? (are Summer events the same as Fall and Winter?)
2) How much profit is required before an event is considered viable?
3) How are the region's indirect expenses allocated across events? (according to entry count, or equally across events?)
Just from my admittedly limited information, it seems to me a real serious problem is entry counts falling off from the smaller classes as the season progresses. I suspect rewarding the larger classes with festival weekends discourages people from getting involved in the less-popular classes.
Dave

dave wrote:I've talked to several board members about this, including one yesterday. The standard answer is "We can't make money on Nationals". So the questions I have are:
1) Does each event have to stand on it's own financially? (are Summer events the same as Fall and Winter?)
2) How much profit is required before an event is considered viable?
3) How are the region's indirect expenses allocated across events? (according to entry count, or equally across events?)

First, let's understand "making money". The region doesn't operate to generate profit. What we model for is to generate enough surplus above and beyond expenses so that we can cover our non-event expenses. These include things like the Wheel, the office staff, equipment for our crews, safety and tow vehicles, etc. Just this year we had to replace one truck and an engine in another. If we only ran the events at break-even, we wouldn't have the ability to run smooth, safe events.

For the last couple of years while the economy has been tough, we have not been making our budget (which is to have a surplus above the event expenses for the above). In a few cases we have had a net loss IIRC but generally somewhat small. Financially the region is in good health but we only get and stay there by making the program be sustainable. We could make entry fees free which would be incredibly popular... until we ran out of cash and shut down.

1 - No, it's already budgeted that some events do better than others. Despite giant turn out at Sonoma, it's by far from the best performing event in the schedule.

2 - No surplus is required by any rule or bylaw. We lose money every year on the Driver's School but we continue to run it because it's an investment in our future drivers.

3 - If I understand what you're asking, we don't allocate indirect expenses to the individual events. Those are all covered on the P&L but they're tracked (and depreciated in appropriate circumstances) separately. We do create event P&Ls for all direct event expenses.

So, the outstanding question is: why not throw a bunch of money at a Double National at, say, Laguna or Sonoma, as some other kind of "investment"? It's something the region could decide to do. The current situation is such that we have a small minority of dedicated National racers. How much benefit from a National accrues to SFR members vs. those who may belong to Cal Club or Oregon? Are we doing the best to serve the most of our members as we can with such an event when it would likely take away from a regional weekend? If we take the gamble and we don't get the expected return, what then?

A great example is the PCRRC. There are many people in SFR who would like to see an invitational-style championship race at the end of the season at Sonoma or Laguna. Ignoring all the macro trends in motorsports and why I think that's a bad idea, let's say we do it. How much are we willing to commit to making an event like that fly? $10k? $25k? $100k? How many years should we pour that level of funding into something "to see if it works" before it's simply financial mismanagement running the region into the ground?

There are really no right or wrong answers per se; we serve a diverse demographic of drivers and workers. All of these trade offs have benefits - the question is simply whether or not it's enough to tip the scales in favor of pursuing any particular course of action.

Having had this conversation so much as of late and with the Majors on the mind, I'd like to see a year-end post-Runoffs Regional vs. National shootout. Let's see who is really better!

That is a very good post, thanks! I was just sending you a private message.

Not sure what you mean about the shootout, we had one last year and SFR got shot at their home track.

Part of why this is such a hot issue...