Despite the overwhelming response on this issue, there are even more
people who are trying to respond but can't because the list is not
posting their messages. This is my 4th try at replying, who knows if
anyone will ever see this message...
Simply put, I don't agree with the idea or the way it was handled. I
respect the people on the SC and I know they have the region's best
interests at heart, but I don't think this is the right thing to do.
First off, by killing Street Tire you are killing a great class. Yes
there are a lot of people who come and go, but at the same time every
year there are 5 or 6 people who do enough events to get a trophy, as
much as any other class. As a former competitor in the class, I can
tell you it is as competitive and fun as any class I have run in SFR.
Regarding Andy's comment that indexed competition is meaningless against
cars with different tires and prep levels, I would argue that this is no
different than *any other class* at the regional level where the range
of driver and car prep is far, far wider than at the national level.
At least what it does have is sheer numbers of competitors, so some will
always be rather tough to beat. If you throw out a portion of the class
and cut the rest into 9 pieces, you end up with a smaller base of
competitors and more classes with only 1 uncontested trophy. We already
have enough of those in stock, SP, P, Mod, etc.
Second, I believe it hurts the level of competition locally and will
hurt our program nationally. Stock attendance is already suffering in
SFR, now you are just going to take small numbers in most classes and
divide them further. Some folks who currently run SCCA stock will see
insufficient competition to justify the R tire budget, and will just run
street tire. Sure they could do that in ST already, but when you see
half of the group you already run in bail from running R tires it is
even more tempting. The last thing we need to do is split up stock
more. This year SFR had 9 Solo2 National Champions from Topeka, none of
them in stock. 4 of them recently defected from stock, where they had
previously won or trophied at Nationals. SFR, by my quick count, only
brought home *2* trophies total from the 18 S/SL classes, one of which
no longer runs stock and the other of which runs Fresno and AAS events
almost exclusively. Giving people 2 paths when they enter stock is not
going to encourage them to run race tires, especially when there are
barely 2 trophies in most classes. And no race tires = no national
level competitors in stock.
The other two good options I've heard are to split into 2 groups with
the division between CS and above and DS and below. Or, to just kill
the class entirely rather than split into 9 useless classes. All would
be better IMHO. I really think this could have been communicated better
to the region members as well. There are lots of people who contribute
to the region but do not attend SC, so it's a little silly to say that
those not attending have should not question decisions. And as for the
decision being based on input from event chairs, I have chaired events
for each of the past 4 seasons and nobody ever asked me. Lastly, no
matter how strongly the SC may feel about these issues, it seems
unnecessary to insult competitors by calling their class a "pickup game"
unless you would wish to write that on their trophies as well. I am
encouraged to hear that the SC is looking into ways to better
communicate meeting agendas and decisions to the rest of the membership.
Peter
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