Hi Jim
Speaking as a prospective CM racer, but as an active FM
racer, I can share with you a few things that we on the
Left Coast have managed to pull together, but it all
boils down to one thing, in the end:
Centralized crewing.
Quite a few of us F Modders out here on the West Coast
have teamed together to run and practice as a cohesive
team with a real team identity.
This means we arrive together, leave together, pit
together, and crew for each other, and compete as
fiercely as fellow team drivers will.
I've noticed that a lot of the BM and CM folks out here
do tend to socialize but are really singletons.
This puts a coherent front to joe public, who is
already accustomed to seeing this kind of activity on
TV and now wants to see the "real deal".
And this, of course, has become a major part of the
racing experience for me, so much so that I will drive
160 miles each way to go and run with my team than
drive 40 to run by myself.
I think that should tell you something right there.
There's simply not enough of us to be one-man or
one-family teams, plus it's much better competition if
you can share the better guy's MaxQ data and both look
at what you're doing on the same laptop.
Since we're all running Vees, we tend to pool parts and
expertise as usual, and obviously if someone goes down,
everybody who is not running becomes a part of the pit
crew.
Now if you have 4 or 5 cars running separately, that's
pretty impressive, but even with 3 cars running,
there's still a minimum of 3 people, usually around 5
or 6, in the "crew", at every event.
So that's a tangible and very visible presence, and
that gives people something to see, and something to
aim for. This year we've sold two "new" team members
and hope to pull a few more off the track in an
impromptu "Vee Challenge" - (yes, folks, track Vees
against Solo Vees... )
Now that kind of activity in C Mod would be a lot
easier overall, due to the lack of obvious disparity in
the different cars (track Vees are 1200, solo Vees are
1600, for instance), but I'm sure you could get a local
challenge going, and also get some of the track guys to
come and use your practice days for quick teat-and-tune
runs. The cost differential alone would be enough to
get some track guys over, and then it's up to you to
get them interested.
But since we are driving "real" race cars, it stands to
reason that the people at the Subaru teams or the Evo
clubs are looking at us going "now there's a real race
team" -- which is what we look like to the outsiders,
and, probably, truth be told, how we feel ourselves.
Who knows? San Diego Team 5150 may, sometime in the
future (when one of us makes the big bucks and the 2008
rule book implements the 1900cc Solo First category),
come around to your town and challenge your team -- in
C Mod or F.
Got team?
1968 Lynx Solo Vee
1986 RF86
On Sun, 11 Mar 2007 11:06:50 -0500, Jim Garry wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've been concerned about the health of CM for a few
> years.
> Are there any thoughts on what we, as a group, could
do?
>
> Best regards,
> Jim
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