My logic for suggesting the best of qualifying or race time is: If you have a bad qualifying time or a bad race on a normal weekend you can redeem yourself with another qualifying session. Lets not make a bad session worst by saddling someone with it.
Tony, Is there not a cost for each sanction number and 3 races would require an additional number, hence an additional cost? Would our region go for that?

Tony, sounds like a great idea, at least as it applies to SRF's. We don't need to mess with gears, etc. So we could get more racing for the dollar Match that schedule up with a test day before hand and you have a great weekend schedule. When I drive to the track I want to do W2W racing, not qualifiers. Hopefully, the SF region will consider it as an option, before doing so, they should check with other regions to be find out how it works there, but based on the input above so far - it sounds positive.

PS: If other race groups in the region (like wings and things, etc.) still wanted, they could have the option to keep their weekend schedule the "old" way (1 practice, 2 quals, 2 races).

One format I have seen that could be cool is one practice then a qualifying race gridded by practice times, then a second race gridded by the results of the first race, then a "Main" gridded by the combined results of the first two races.
One thing we used to do in SF region was have a couple "bonus" races at the end of the weekend, rotated between groups. I think they were gridded by the qualifying session (this was when we had single regionals and a couple regional / nationals that we hugely popular). They weren't for points and the workers hated them.
Speaking of regional / nationals, we used to have one at Laguna and one at the track that was then named Sears Point every year. The national would be on Saturday and the Regional on Sunday. The practices would be combined, but qualifying and races would be seperate. It was setup so you could run just the National and go home on Sunday, which was what a lot of the out of region drivers did. And since there are fewer national groups, there was more track time over the three days. They were hugely popular, we would have 450 entries (counting doubles twice), and the region would always make a big profit.

SRF49 wrote:My logic for suggesting the best of qualifying or race time is: If you have a bad qualifying time or a bad race on a normal weekend you can redeem yourself with another qualifying session. Lets not make a bad session worst by saddling someone with it.
Tony, Is there not a cost for each sanction number and 3 races would require an additional number, hence an additional cost? Would our region go for that?

Bob, yes but Regional sanctions are relatively cheap ($450 sanction fee), if the format attracts 1-2 more drivers it's paid for itself. And from a driver perspective, if you run 3 races that weekend each with its own sanction, that's 3 race credit towards your license renewal. Insurance is same cost, 1 race or 3 for the weekend. You only pay insurance on the car once (hence logic behind discounted price for double entry if your car is eligible). Note the 3 races, 3 sanction numbers is a bonus for drivers. You can have 1 sanction number and 3 full length races if you want, but then drivers don't get the license credit for 3 races.

Oregon did a variation of that rolling grid format in September.
4 sessions, over 2 days, 1st session is Qualifying (or combined P/Q whatever). Then race 1, race 1 finishing position sets grid for race 2, race 2 finishing position sets grid for race 3. All 3 races with their own sanction number,

Tony,

Keep something else in mind.... Some groups like SRF and SM may love the 3 race weekend schedule (prep shop concerns aside!). Other groups like the Group 3 guys might have only1 car left running for the 3rd race of the weekend. They usually drop like flies for the second race in a double weekend!

So consider a mixed schedule you could give P, Q1, R1, Q2, R2 for some groups under a Double regional format and P, Q, R1, R2, R3 for the other groups that want it. The R3 would be a restricted regional (not all groups/classes included). A little bit more work for your race schedulers to handle, but doable.

The separate sanction number and fee is an issue I'd want to see worked out carefully. We have done single sanction two day (six run group format) doubles in the past and I think it did catch a few off-guard as to which event they'd show up for. Data mining is a cold bucket of water. We are down about 200 entries total from our conservatively modest '12 projections across the 16 sanctioned events we hosted this year, but most telling is that these past seasons, 60% of our racers entered only a single weekend double with two separate sanction numbers (keeps a regional comp license current) and an additional 20% entered two weekend doubles (keeps a national current). That's 8 out of 10 racers doing the minimum necessary to keep that card in their wallet.
tony

Anthony Tabacco wrote:... We are down about 200 entries total from our conservatively modest '12 projections across the 16 sanctioned events we hosted this year, but most telling is that these past seasons, 60% of our racers entered only a single weekend double with two separate sanction numbers (keeps a regional comp license current) and an additional 20% entered two weekend doubles (keeps a national current). That's 8 out of 10 racers doing the minimum necessary to keep that card in their wallet.
tony

Maybe raising entry fees and then giving money away at random isn't working, for one thing.

Or having special weekends with extra races for the groups that already have strong participation.

Or dropping groups for certain weekends.

Maybe it's time to get out of the data mine and take a look around. The region has been shrinking since before the economy went bad. Now other groups are growing and adding dates to their schedule, but SF Region only has 7 club racing weekends covering 7 months of the year.

I would be interested in seeing how our club racing participation compares with auto-x.

Our promotion of club racing consists of free booths at pro races and a series of gimmicks that are primarily targeted at getting people to bring their friends to the track.

The scope of our club racing events are so narrow (no time trials, driver's schools, etc.) that you really have to be committed (real race car, driver's suit, etc.) to participate.

Then we do things to shoot ourselves in the foot. Like have driver's school only once a year in the winter. People don't want to wait, so we accept licenses from other organizations. They let drivers work up to licenses gradually, so the initial cost of entry can be spread out. How many potential SCCA racers go to NASA (or Porsche or BMW clubs) and get their licenses and never come back to SCCA? (A very small portion of our SCCA school graduates actually race very much).

Thanks to the limited local SCCA season, we are getting exposed to other organization's events. I agree the quality of racing and organization doesn't compare, but they are getting the 20-somethings and 30-somethings and the tuner shops running a couple cars to show off their stuff....

Todd, I brought up the extra sanction fee to Tony since he sits on our board and they watch the pennies very closely. And I didn't know how much the fee was, so it was just food for thought.
I like the 3 race format suggestion, I just don't want to see someones weekend messed up anymore than it already has been by a bad qualifying session or race. Hence my suggestion that allows someone to redeem his/her weekend.
Two things that hurt the numbers. Races at Thunderhill in the Summer and the economy. Racing budgets start running out about September. Throw in the timing of the Runoffs and Sept races are low attendance.
I would rather see the Sunoco and T-hill monies put into the budget and entry fees lowered for everone.

As Dave pointed out, there are 7 race weekends in SFR and a lot of those are in conflict with other region's events. An example was the April Laguna Seca Double Regional was in conflict with the Double National and Super Tour event at Buttonwillow. I voted with my money and went to the Buttonwillow event becuase it was a National event with better competition and the registration fee was quite a bit cheaper. If SFR would work with the other regions on a division schedule without conflicts it would allow those racers in the various regions who are willing to travel to attend without having to choose one over another.
There was a time were SFR returned a part of the monies collected to the racers based on participation. It would seem that if you want to reward a racer for participating in SFR events, you should actually have some participation basis and not the random drawing scheme used now. BTW winning some money to be used for a future entry...won't change the number of events I attend per year.

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I like the proposed new/alternative format - assuming that when you say "..and qualifying race# [next]" you mean best-lap times, not final position in race. Doing it this way should only be unfair for someone getting taken out early in a race, which might(?!!) encourage greater efforts by people towards cleaner race starts. (And as to toss-worst-result-of-3, I have no opinion.)

Also I would agree with Dave & Bob G last comments:

The drawings are fun but, why not keep the entry$ lower for everyone instead. A certain level of sticker-shock by everyone nowadays. And I doubt you're getting any -new- entries by having the drawings, esp. among the young'uns Dave mentioned.

---> Perhaps a good question for a future questionnaire could be, "Did the possibility of winning $100. in the post-race drawings to be held for your group, influence your decision to enter any race or weekend event?"

As to getting money back: I thought that's what "Thunderhill Reward$" program was all about-!! Speaking of, I haven't heard Boo about this in recent months - any idea if they're still doing this??


Scheduling is kind of an issue too. I had really wanted to do that April BW event, but opted to run in-region instead... Ditto, Labor Day - same conflict with events/regions. Next year I may choose differently. I would hope that the leaders of the regions would talk to each other (more) to work out potential conflicts as much as they can - benefits all the regions, ultimately.

---> Although, in SFR's defense for the summer dates: What else can they do for summer, really? Could they actually pull Laguna or Sears dates in July/August? Doubt it... So what's the alternative then; do we/SFR do like CalClub, and just take the summer off? This would likely push the season to run later - into potential rain conditions which puts off a lot of people - and there goes that attendance we were trying to improve upon.


Anyway, thanks for being creative and looking for fresh(er) ideas to run with, Tony!! To paraphrase what someone smarter than me said, when something doesn't seem to be working, you change what you're doing... Getting a dialogue like this going is certainly a good start.

Cheers -
mike
SRF #53, SF Region