Howdy,
On Mon, 21 Mar 2005, Jay Mitchell wrote:
>> With all the talk of cutbacks in SCCA Solo2 and making it live on its own
>> for it to be a viable part of the SCCA/Johnson strategy,
>
> Would you please share with us who has been talking about such cutbacks,
> and what they've been saying? That's a good-faith request, BTW, not a
> challenge.
At the NEDiv Roundtable this past weekend, the response from the NE Div
BOD members and Steve Johnson to questions as to the increases in
sanction/insurance fees (now at $8/car combined, used to be $6/car. Oh,
and now you can get a 50 cent discount on the sanction fee if you provide
results/addresses) was that the solo program has been in the red.
There wasn't a lot of data given to back that up, but that was due to the
nature of the event vs. any apparent desire on the part of anyone to hide
anything. Insurance costs were certainly mentioned, but also overhead
costs for national staff, etc. One thing I learned that surprised me was
that solo has a similar level of national staff as club racing.
Considering that club racing sanction fees are quite a bit higher than
solo, this could easily help explain a difference.
In any event, the suggestion from the participants was for someone on the
BOD/National staff to write an article in Sports car explaining how the
insurance costs, overhead, etc. are divied up amongst the various groups.
If you think that should happen, I'd encourage you to email/write/call
your BOD rep and let them know.
Also had an interesting discussion directly about insurance... I've not
done exhaustive research (and folks at the conference disagreed with
this), but its seemed to me that non-SCCA groups were finding insurance at
rates less than $8/car that SCCA charges (yes, sanction fee is included in
that... I don't think you can get one without the other). So I brought
that up. The 'loudest' response was that their insurance may be cheaper,
but ours covers everyone a heck of a lot better. Which I have no reason
to doubt, but also which nobody seems to care a lot about. Perhaps its
time to change the coverage limits or give regions applying for sanctions
ways to limit the coverage to reduce the cost?
>> It is my understanding, and someone correct me if I have bad information
>> from more than one informed person, but the Solo program sees very little or
>> none of the proceeds of our rulebook.
>
> I know the Regions make a profit (25-35%, IIRC) on the sale of
> rulebooks. How that portion of the proceeds is used is a matter of
> Regional discretion. Beyond that, I have no idea how profit from the
> sale of rulebooks is used.
I believe that rulebooks cost $18 for a region to buy from Nationals.
_My_ word of mouth understanding was that the profit from rulebooks went
to covering the costs involved with the SEB & AC conference calls,
meetings, etc.
No idea if that's right though.
Mark
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