Cost of Majors

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Originally Posted by Purple Frog

I believe there are three completely different segments of SCCA Club racers.

1. regional guys that are just starting or budget minded. ($)
2. the more serious national level competitor ($$$)
3. the folks that can afford to play in one class only events (aka the pro series, F2kCS, Trans-Am, etc)($$$$$)

You will see group #1 occasionally dabble in #2.
You will see group #2 occasionally dabbling in #3 and using #1 to test.
You will see group #3 racing anywhere they damn well please

When reading web forums it would be best if those posting had the appropriate number of dollar signs attached to their avatar so that we can understand from where they come.

Realize of course those that play in group #1 seem to be the most vocal on the forums.
Those in group#2 read forums and occasionally post.
Most in group #3 could care less about what goes on in the forums.

That said, if one is a promoter of racing events you must identify your audience and communicate with them and ignore the "noise".

Just saying.

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SCCA was founded by group #3, but it prospered and thrived for both groups #1 and #2 for the first 35-40 years. I consider myself a combination of #1 and #2, as many of my friends would. As club racing numbers have fallen, it has become apparent that a new business model is needed. The Majors program has failed. The "Concord" agreement is a joke. We need leadership to create a plan that will service a large segment of the community and let other groups service the balance. Trying to service everybody with a 20th century business model just is not working.

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Originally Posted by Peter Olivola

What works down on the plantation at some local bull ring will only serve to create a hostile environment when people figure out all the ways to beat the system.

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Local short tracks aren't hostile environments? People club racing don't figure out ways to beat the system?

Let's not make any rules because people will find a way to beat them, resulting in a hostile environment. Brilliant.

Let's just keep doing what hasn't been working for years and hope we get different results. If we don't we'll just point the finger at everybody else for not coming up with a solution.


Cheaper entry fees.
Fewer paid support staff relative to the number of entrants.
Fewer classes.

A bit outside the box-----reserve entry-level classes for those who haven't placed top 3 at the runoffs in said class.

Post #121 explains why group 1 is disappearing.
The costs to put on a weekend, when divided by the number of entries, results in a number out of the budget reach of group #1.

Years ago many tracks were built by a wealthy guy with a passion and no need to make it profitable, or even break even. Now the investors in tracks demand a ROI.

Corner workers used to volunteer to wave flags, now they expect expense money.

Doctors would donate time to work in the quack shack. The local tow truck guy would hang around for fun.

The business model has changed.

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Originally Posted by Purple Frog

Corner workers used to volunteer to wave flags, now they expect expense money.

Doctors would donate time to work in the quack shack. The local tow truck guy would hang around for fun.

The business model has changed.

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Yes, it most certainly has. Those costs aren't going away, neither are the other folks competing for those entry dollars. The only feasible way to change the impact of all those costs is to increase the number of entrants.

If you want to increase the number of entrants, you must deliver better value.

If the per-race weekend total expense was cut in half most people would race twice as often. More entries brings more entries.

"If the per-race weekend total expense was cut in half most people would race twice as often. More entries brings more entries. "


Never going to happen. Dream on.

Engine builders are not cutting their charges in half.
Gas stations are not going to cut their charges in half for the hauler fuel.
Car insurance for the hauler isn't dropping to half.
Motels are slashing their prices to 1/2.
Tire suppliers are lowering race tires to 1/2 price.
Race tracks are not reducing their charges to 1/2.
Safety gear companies are not lowering their prices.
Race fuel isn't going down to $5 a gallon.

If you believe the 70's were the heyday of formula racing I believe if you look at the value of the 1970 dollar as compared to today, racing costs about the same. What hasn't gone up in proportion is middle class incomes. Thus the growth in group 3 and the drop in group 1.

Economics 101

My unique perspective is that I live/have live literally 2 miles from Mid-Ohio for the better portion of my life. I was a club racer ever since 1999 but stopped several years ago as life and other responsibilities got in the way. Now I'm ready to come back. What I have noticed is that the sounds across the valley are mostly Porsche/audi/nasa/bmw club weekends and the SCCA events total 4 with one major, one restricted closed wheel regional, and two regionals. In my heyday, I could claim to run 7 weekends between nationals, regionals, and runoffs. I hope it returns to that.

I can only conclude that the cost per fun is drying up as a small formula car group,that once had 50+ cars in 2001 now had 7 last year. When I talk to the people that can afford to race, they go car club racing as "scca only crashes". NASA seems full, but that style of organization is not for me. I remember at Mid-Ohio we had a national with AMLS and every group was full, even f5 had 20 cars and ff was out the false grid.

The answer seems to be to find some way to subsidize the track rental and make an affordable entry price in front on people to try and justify a sponsorship. Easier said than done but the trans am national at mid ohio always had a lot of people.

As an idea, NASCAR xfinity at mid ohio has no Sunday event. How about a one day deal?

However, I think all road racing is suffering as even the vintage folks are having a tough time drawing entries here. Maybe I just need to get an M3.

Jns

One thing that confuses me is how the entries in FV have fallen in the last 10-15 years. You cannot go racing for less $$ than with a Vee.

Is it because it cost too much to run at the front?

Race costs in general?

Not fast enough?

Not modern enough?

Do we need a new super low cost class that is faster than Vee?

Please help me understand.

I ran FV for 50 years. While the cost of cars has gotten cheaper because of poor resale value and a bloated market of used cars the cost of a new car has risen substantially. (That is if you can even find the parts to build a new car.) The % of your racing budget that goes for travel,entry fees,club membership ,etc. is much greater in the less expensive classes.
A second reason why Fv and other open wheel classes are less popular is the perception that they are not as safe as fendered cars. With the aging of the club I believe lots of new racers are excluded from considering open wheel by their wives. The last runoffs I was at with a FV the cost of Travel was 75% of our budget. That was with bonly a 7 hour tow.

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Originally Posted by butch deer

I ran FV for 50 years. While the cost of cars has gotten cheaper because of poor resale value and a bloated market of used cars the cost of a new car has risen substantially. (That is if you can even find the parts to build a new car.) The % of your racing budget that goes for travel,entry fees,club membership ,etc. is much greater in the less expensive classes.
A second reason why Fv and other open wheel classes are less popular is the perception that they are not as safe as fendered cars. With the aging of the club I believe lots of new racers are excluded from considering open wheel by their wives. The last runoffs I was at with a FV the cost of Travel was 75% of our budget. That was with bonly a 7 hour tow.

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Butch,

I agree completely about the entry fees, travel, fuel make up the majority of my expenses in club ford as well. Entry, $600 a weekend. Travel and motel $200. Race gas $90. I get three weekends on a set of tires for $580. Reserve for engine rebuild is $300/weekend.

Of course, racing DFL, I don't crash much.:rolleyes:

Dan,
I know that your $1,400 per weekend is pretty low cost in the scheme of things.
(My average was $1,750, mainly because every track is at least a 5 hour tow.)

But, $1,400 per weekend is getting out of reach for most of my afore mentioned "group 1" racers.

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Originally Posted by Purple Frog

"If the per-race weekend total expense was cut in half most people would race twice as often. More entries brings more entries. "


Never going to happen. Dream on.

Engine builders are not cutting their charges in half.
Gas stations are not going to cut their charges in half for the hauler fuel.
Car insurance for the hauler isn't dropping to half.
Motels are slashing their prices to 1/2.
Tire suppliers are lowering race tires to 1/2 price.
Race tracks are not reducing their charges to 1/2.
Safety gear companies are not lowering their prices.
Race fuel isn't going down to $5 a gallon.

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Come on' Froggy. You admit to being part of the same frugal subset of folks that I am. You keep exhaustive records of all expenditures.

Make that engine last 4x as long between builds at the same cost.
Make those tires last 4x as long and cost only $600/set.
Do those two things and entries will increase by 25% or more....so reduce your entry fees by 20%

Keep all the other expenses the same.....

How much did your entire budget just get reduced? I'm guessing close to half.

It seams to me that we are all trying to make something that is inherently expensive into a cheap affair relatively speaking. You can try to cut costs all day long but in the end there aren't really that many costs to cut in SCCA. In a perfect world I'd say we could potentially cut $100-150 off of track/entry fees per weekend by running one less day, $50 less for race gas if using pump gas (my car can't use pump gas...) , $100 off tire costs per weekend from some magical tire supplier contingency and your still spending around $1000 minimum with mechanical/parts wear figured into the equation and that's if your running a cheap, spec class. How is a couple hundred bucks going to solve the cost issue? It's a drop in the bucket when comparing all the costs of racing at the track and in the garage.

If you could eliminate half of the entry fee through sponsorship, have cheap RACE gas available, and cut tire costs by 25% then you would most likely have guys going to the same amount of races but in more expensive classes rather than guys going to more races in the class they are currently in. Let's be honest, most people didn't get an A in economics judging by their life choices.

This is all coming from a guy who makes a very average annual income and has a stay at home wife and child. I have every reason to want to make racing cheaper but I just don't see how it's possible since the same ideas are rehashed over and over. Reminds me of the bullet points for the Presidential candidates of our country for the last 100 years..... there are all claiming to have answers to the same damn problems and sure enough nothing ever gets done no matter who's in office.:ha:

In the interest of figuring out how to reduce event costs, I would like to hear from other Race Chairs. How do you make it financially feasible?

For the 2 day race weekend at Barber, our race budget looks like this:
Track, wrecker, EMT - $30,300
SCCA (Ins, Sanction, Vol Fees, etc) - $6300
Worker (payments, purchasing outside workers, lunches, Social, beverages, shirts) - $16400
MSR Fees - $2200
Misc (Tech Tent, scales, trophies, etc) - $3700

As you can see, the big numbers are the basic track costs and the worker costs.

Entry fees are calculated based on average driver entries.

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Originally Posted by dsmithwc04

If you could eliminate half of the entry fee through sponsorship, have cheap RACE gas available, and cut tire costs by 25% then you would most likely have guys going to the same amount of races but in more expensive classes rather than guys going to more races in the class they are currently in. Let's be honest, most people didn't get an A in economics judging by their life choices.

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While I agree with your last sentence, I disagree with the former.

If that were the case we'd have many more people racing FA or GT1 one or two events a year.
People have found a balance they can justify. Get the entrant numbers up and the entry fees go down. Get the costs down and the entrant numbers go up. You figure out whether it's the chicken or the egg ;)

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Originally Posted by Peter Olivola

Jay,

Besides the Runoffs, what other events have you been required to use track fuel?

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The june sprints

Most likely this wont work for a lot of drivers but one of the ways I keep costs down is by loading several cars in my trailer. Even if you only have room for one more car that equals out to half the travel expenses. Try posting up a "trailer space forum" and see who's nearby that would work out. I have had to give up my golf cart in order to make space for other cars but its either race and have to walk to places or not race and set at home. I carry four cars to every event I go to now and the financial impact for everyone involved has been great. Again, not for everyone but if only 25% could make it happen that's a lot more racing that could be done.

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Originally Posted by Peter Olivola

Jay,
Besides the Runoffs, what other events have you been required to use track fuel?

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Originally Posted by clint

The june sprints

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Was that your particular class? I've never been required to use track fuel at the Sprints.

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Originally Posted by David Locke

Was that your particular class? I've never been required to use track fuel at the Sprints.

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My class is F5 and we were told at tech there would be fuel testing at impound. In fact there was after the race. I'm pretty sure it was for everyone because the tech guys didn't know which class I was in at the time. I have been to the sprints twice and bot times this was the case. If they weren't going to check for the color of the fuel my fuel would have passed tech. I don't disagree with having to use track fuel, but I do disagree with the 100% up charge just because of the color of die in it. Its like saying " we have you by the B@LL$ and theres nothing you can do about it". Like Jay said, the same performance of fuel can be purchased a lot cheaper.

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Originally Posted by clint

My class is F5 and we were told at tech there would be fuel testing at impound. In fact there was after the race. I'm pretty sure it was for everyone because the tech guys didn't know which class I was in at the time. I have been to the sprints twice and bot times this was the case. If they weren't going to check for the color of the fuel my fuel would have passed tech. I don't disagree with having to use track fuel, but I do disagree with the 100% up charge just because of the color of die in it. Its like saying " we have you by the B@LL$ and theres nothing you can do about it". Like Jay said, the same performance of fuel can be purchased a lot cheaper.

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I've run the Sprints the past four years and haven't ever been required to use track fuel. (There is no requirement of track fuel in the supps, which are still available online.) There was fuel sampling done in 2013 at the Sprints, in preparation for the Runoffs, but there was no requirement of using track fuel. The gentleman who tested my fuel (Sunoco 260 GT) at the Sprints told my engine builder and me that the fuel was perfectly legal, but it wouldn't be permitted at the Runoffs simply because it didn't come from the track's supply.

Other than SRF and SM, I cannot recall any time the Sprints required track gas, and both of those were short lived experiments at the request of what I believe was a majority of the drivers attending in class.

Fuel testing takes place (or is supposed to) at every national (now majors) race. The track gas is tested, and cars are tested.

Nothing I know of says you must use the track gas, even when the track gas is tested.

And if anyone thinks the Regions putting on the various events get a portion of the "track gas" sales, you are grossly mis informed.


farrout, what are "payments" and "purchasing outside workers"?

Thanks

I can answer "paying outside workers".

It has become very hard for regions to get enough volunteers that will dependably show up to cover all of the flagging stations.

Meanwhile, since most tracks in the SEDIV run seven days per week, the track: (1.) either has on staff a population of corner workers. or (2.) private companies have been established to provide corner workers.

In Barber's case there is a private company that provides workers when needed.

Interestingly, at some of the tracks I have visited the private companies are hiring, or are run by experienced SCCA flaggers.