Rocky,
I think Rick's post pretty well echoes my own feelings. Since Steve
came on board, I saw that the SOLO part of the club started taking on
more an air of trying to make money rather than thinking of what is best
for the people who were trying to compete. As a result, classes started
to be pushed for more competitors or risk being shut down. Faced with
these issues, the SEB took it to heart and started trying to make
misguided efforts to encourage more people from the regions to compete
in national events. Rather than trying to find out what was keeping
these people (like myself) from attending national events, they made
some big assumptions and put a person in charge of rewriting the rules
who did not believe that there was a problem.
What they got was a new set of rules in DM and EM for 2006 that did not
go far enough to encourage the people from the regions to come out but
just far enough to make all the current competitors angry enough to
throw up their hands and give up.
Only time will tell, but I would guess that in 2006, there will be a
sharp decline in the attendance in both DM and EM at national events.
If they were truly interested in encouraging the regional competitors to
attend national events, they would have realized that the only way to
appease both parties is to create a new class for DM that would allow
the current set of "Purpose built race cars that look like a Lotus 7" to
compete in a separate class and the real cars that are modified beyond
the limits of prepared to compete in a separate class that is at a much
higher minimum weight than the previous or current DM allows.
I would bet that there are other such stories in other classes as well
but I am most familiar with the DM class so I can only speak to those
issues.
That is just my opinion that probably means nothing, since I let my
membership lapse in January.
Regards,
Joe
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-fot@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-fot@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Rocky Entriken
Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2005 1:39 PM
To: Joe Curry; 'Mark J. Bradakis'; fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Hmmm...
Sorry, Joe, but my experience is just the opposite. I feel the club is
MORE
member-friendly, MORE sensitive to the members' needs, under Johnson
than
it was under several of his predecessors. inckuding Craw.
At the very least, the man was accessible, and visible and mindful to
all
factions of the club, not just the racers.
IMHO he is the best leader SCCA has had since I joined in 1971 and I'll
miss
him.
--Rocky Entriken
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