Do you require membership?
At first it seems not the most friendly and welcoming thing to do, but
once the membership requirement (in our case, you must have the
membership card in hand) is implemented, it does cut down, especially
among those who want to screw around. The ones who are members really
WANT to be there. The attitudes of all are far better, and the events
run more smoothly because everyone's a member of the same club.
Camaraderie is better.
Entry levels? Instead of 280, we had 217 last Sunday, and that was with
2 competing organizations putting on events. Because of Golden Gate
Fields site requirements, we couldn't start until 10 a.m., finished by
4:30, and had plenty of time for fun runs at the end.
--Pat Kelly
Benjamin D Thatcher wrote:
>
> Rick Brown of Cal Club,
>
> I empathize with you about getting overwhelmed with entrants (with your
> 280 drivers). I think we're seeing this all over the country. However,
> we've got to do something to cope with it as Steve Johnson is going to
> take the old "Secret Car Club of America" out of SCCA. I know that the
> internet has fueled our visibility, also.
>
> Either we will have to start expanding schedules, renting adjoining lots
> or raising our entry fees to cope with this.
>
> We just bumped our entry fees from $20 for members to $25 and saw about a
> 15% reduction in entries. Do the math, we increased fees 25% and only
> reduced entries by 15%. So now we are taking in more money but having a
> little smaller event (177 versus 210). It's supply and demand. (Lots of
> our experienced drivers have fled to surrounding small regions for their
> events, they don't like the extra $5 expense and the large events).
>
> Let's not choke off the supply, if possible. Let's figure out ways to
> accomodate the hordes. If we start bumping up to 250+ we are considering
> renting an additional lot and having 2 courses for the weekend with 2
> timing & scoring trailers to accomodate the competitors. Then each of our
> events would be weekend affairs like at Topeka (run one course on
> Saturday and the other on Sunday).
>
> These are the growth pains when the best kept motorsports secret gets out
> in the open. Unfortunately, they don't pay us enough to solve these
> problems but we get to do it anyway<grin>. Probably what we need is an
> elist just for Autocross organizers so we can swap ideas and get a handle
> on this. Anybody interested? If so, I'll get one started.
>
> Ben Thatcher
> Apex Benefit Services & Motorsports
> Stockbridge, GA
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