Driving School Shortage

[Amon]

AZJC:

I couldn't have said your last paragraph any better!

Mark

[azjc]

Less than half? How?

$500 of that $1450 was tires - does that cost somehow magically disappear for ICSCC drivers? $250 was race fuel and tow/food/misc. So, ICSCC drivers don't use any fuel and don't have to eat or tow to the track? Those items are already more than half of the total cost outlined. Is the license free? A doctor's physical somehow costs less if it's for a different sanctioning body?

My FC tires for initial shake down & PASA school - 2 sets of very old & rock hard tires that came with the car. Who cares how fast I go ! Cost... nothing.

Fuel - 10 gal of 100LL is about $36. Tow is 50 mi round trip - 22mpg @ $1.73 gal. Wife makes lunch.

Physical - covered under my health insurance. Bought my suite & helmet used on EBay (have every thing else) for $500, bought HNR for $550.

Car cost $8200, trailer $500... spent about $2,500 on car before running it. Use my everyday driver (Ford Escape) to tow with.

As posted earlier I spent about $500 getting licensed with PASA, add an other $170 (fee) for my first "race" day since then.

Point - You can race on a budget as long as you are willing to accept that you wont be the fastest. Doesn't mean you can't have fun !

[Marshall Mauney]

My FC tires for initial shake down & PASA school - 2 sets of very old & rock hard tires that came with the car. Who cares how fast I go ! Cost... nothing.

Fuel - 10 gal of 100LL is about $36. Tow is 50 mi round trip - 22mpg @ $1.73 gal. Wife makes lunch.

Physical - covered under my health insurance. Bought my suite & helmet used on EBay (have every thing else) for $500, bought HNR for $550.

Car cost $8200, trailer $500... spent about $2,500 on car before running it. Use my everyday driver (Ford Escape) to tow with.

As posted earlier I spent about $500 getting licensed with PASA, add an other $170 (fee) for my first "race" day since then.

Point - You can race on a budget as long as you are willing to accept that you wont be the fastest. Doesn't mean you can't have fun !

That is absolutely my point. The $1400 or so called out in the earlier post had very little to do with the entry fee of the school. Everything you did to get to the point of being able to race could be done with ANY sanctioning body. If you had used the same exact plan to go to a SCCA school, how much different would the cost have been?

[Marshall Mauney]

1.
SCCA Entry fee: $500.00
ICSCC Driver trainingg Entry fee: $200

OK, that's a legitimate difference.

2.
SCCA Novice License: $75.00
ICSCC Novice License; $75.00 (note, not required for driver training)

Not much difference by the time you can actually put a race car on track in competition.

4.
SCCA Race fuel: $ 50.00
ICSCC not required as you do the driver training in your street car. Maybe $35 of gas.

OK, perhaps. If $15 makes a big difference to the driver, he/she is in the wrong sport, IMHO.

5.
SCCA Tires: (est. 8 heat cycl.)$500.00
ICSCC nah. Street tire on you street car and equal to about 150 miles of 'hard' street driving. $50 maybe.

True. You can also run cheap take-offs in SCCA, or anywhere else. Speaking for myself, I used the rock-hard tires that came on my first car for most of my first season (until the cords showed through). The point is that if you're using a real prepped car to learn to race (as opposed to just drive fast), you'll be using tires - and that doesn't change from sanction to sanction.

7.
Truck gas: $ 75.00
ICSCC doubtful 15 schools throughout the year at 5 tracks. Catch one close to home.

That's nice if you happen to live very close to a track. Most of us don't, and the tow cost has NOTHING to do with which group sanctions an event.

No safety equipment required to obtain a novice license beyond a helmet and a street car in decent working condition.

Perhaps, but that doesn't get you ready to actually RACE. You can't use jeans and a T-shirt, an M-rated helmet, or a car without a rollcage and fire system in a real competition event. Performance driving in a pure street car without safety equipment is a lot more like Solo II than like a real racing school.

Add up all the costs from zero to taking your first real green-flag start, and I'll bet you that the cost difference is negligible among ANY of the sanctioning bodies in the US (assuming the same car).

[rickb99]

Marshall,

I agree with you completely!

The real thrust of this thread isn't the 'cost' of racing. Rather....

1.
How difficult is it to get IN TO SCCA racing based upon a VERY limited number of schools available to the new driver.

2.
The COST of getting through the initial learning process (in whatever form the club takes) of drivers school/training and achieving the goal of entering a real race as a novice.

The difference between $1,400 and $400 is the cost of personal driver safety equipment. As you pointed out, $10,000 to $15,000 (fairly low budget but not rock bottom) just to hit the track with any open wheel car as a new driver is close if you add everything up including the car. To some $1,000 here or there can make the difference between doing it and not.

P.S.
Jeans and a long sleeve shirt was pretty common 'race gear' in the 50's

[azjc]

That is absolutely my point. The $1400 or so called out in the earlier post had very little to do with the entry fee of the school. Everything you did to get to the point of being able to race could be done with ANY sanctioning body. If you had used the same exact plan to go to a SCCA school, how much different would the cost have been?

No real difference in cost, other then you can race on a limited budget - especially a school.

But we are getting a bit side tracked, it's not the cost of the SCCA school that is a limiting factor... it's the lack of schools.

I remember a young gal that ran a IT Ford Fiesta in CalClub back in the late 80's. Was a corner worker and spent very little to get her license, lots of used & donated equipment. Wasn't fast, stayed out of the way & had a blast. But she had a reasonable priced SCCA school to go to. That's the point. If others can do it (hold a school), for sure SCCA could do it also.

[SteveLevin]

I personally do believe that for many novices, a day in a street car has great benefits. And it's a great hook to get people started...then let them complete a single school in a race car. Such a school could even possibly be slotted into a two day race weekend in smaller areas?

Steve

[Josh Pitt]

.

[Amon]

I understand Marshall's post and agree with it. What I was trying to convey
and did a poor job of doing so, was why I can race in a National / Regional
at Nelson Ledges for $290-$350 for a two day entry fee, but the driver's
school was $500.00 ? The most expensive time during our racing career
is the initial acquisition period when we're buying the car, gear etc..and now
the surcharge for a school. No wonder very few younger adults have an
interest in our sport, and the numbers back this up. This may also be the
result of Topeka believing we're the Secret Car Club of America. Who knows?


Mark

[Purple Frog]

Simply stated... The track costs $N to rent. The bigger the number you divide that by, the less cost per entrant. Drivers schools do not have as many entrants as race weekends, and need many more staff to pull off. (i.e. instructor's benefits)

[azjc]

... but just about any business model will have a "hook" to get you in the door; good marketing would dictate subsidizing a school in order to pull participants into the program. In the long run you’ll make the $$ back plus more in shear volume of participants.

The other option (a number of post have touch on it) would be to integrate the school into normal regional race weekends (using a mix of the PDX & Regional programs). Would totaly change the cost per person factor, make it less stressful and more in tune with todays market place. I truely feel SCCA needs to dump it's existing program that worked in the past but just doesn't hack it in todays world.

[rickb99]

...... Drivers schools do not have as many entrants as race weekends, and need many more staff to pull off.

1.
I think that goes to the crux of the matter, Frog.

A.
Track rental fees have escallated at a much faster rate then inflation over the past 15 years. So the model of using a 'race weekend' format to accomplish drivers school (for 30 to 40 drivers) is out dated considering the cost/benefit ratio. If ICSCC attempted to run that model, we couldn't do it either.

But with the alternate program we can run 30 to 35 students through per day at a reasonable cost and turn out drivers who are WELL prepared to run novice only races incorporated in the 'normal' racing weekend.

...... (i.e. instructor's benefits)

2.
What?

It can be difficult to staff the instructor's for the 15 drivers schools a year. NOT because they don't want to do it. Rather, simply because of life conflicts. But we get the qty. needed in the end.

Benefits of instructing? ALMOST NONE! Simply knowing you're helping to perpetuate the club is all the reward they are looking for. PLUS one 20 minute end-of-day session for them to go out in their own cars. Many use this session to take their students of the day on a serious ride at speed to see what the difference is between 'training' and hauling butt. These instructors (for the most part) are the same drivers who will be observing around the track during the novice only races.

Corners are staffed with minimul coverage as this is NOT a race, ambulance and E-crew truck with qualified personel on duty and normal race comm. in effect. All hard core volunteers. As we are not racing, I flag for schools to support the club.

[Purple Frog]

Instructor's benefits... Yes there are free lunches. Somebody has to pay for 25 extra lunches for 3 days.

[Jim Garry]

Some want to use resources to sustain themselves which then leads to a declining membership and income. Others want to reach out to others, spend resources on bringing in new members which will not only sustain the membership but cause it to grow.

... but just about any business model will have a "hook" to get you in the door; good marketing would dictate subsidizing a school in order to pull participants into the program. In the long run you’ll make the $$ back plus more in shear volume of participants.

Absolutely agree with the concept. This works very well for businesses that have reserve funds to use for this type of "seeding".

And many SCCA regions could (and some do) afford to take a loss on a school knowing they'll make it up in the 2 or 3 or 4 races they'll hold during the season.

The problem comes when an entity doesn't have a lot of business or cash reserve. My region for example has very low cash reserves and we only host one race per year. If we took a several thousand dollar loss on a school, it could push us over the edge into bankruptcy. Certainly multi-year losses like that would.

Similarly, for SCCA corporate to fund drivers schools across the country would take a lot of money. I am uninformed on exactly what SCCA corporate's bottom line looks like. Could they (we) afford this without ending the financial year with an overall loss several years in a row?

I get the feeling that SCCA, like my region, is a bit on the edge. Take a few losses in a row and we're in very bad shape, maybe out of business.

However, someone earlier mentioned that schools could be a multi-region affair. And if one region didn't have money to help with track rental, perhaps that could be made up with staff/instructors/corner workers.

But the place to discuss this is at the SCCA Divisional meetings; Roundtables and Mini-Cons. That's where ideas could be realized and become actual events.