Observation about Steve Davis's 2024 participation list
So SMX (now its own group now in the HSTs) had 298 entries.
FV and FF together were 316.
Maybe the BoD is using new math, bit I'm pretty sure 316 is still more than 298.
SCCA reviews letters first Tuesday of the Month - write now!
Write your letter this weekend so it gets reviewed on Tuesday!! Even if its short, they need to hear our energy!!
Here's what I submitted - you may not completely agree, and I'm fine with that. But I had to start somewhere - and right now.
Hello SCCA,
This letter is in reference to the decision not to include small formula in most of the Hoosier Super Tour events. We are concerned about the future of FV and FF in particular. Naturally, stability and knowledge of the foreseeable future is key to any competitor’s financial planning relative to participation in the sport. The current and future value of the equipment we own is critical to figuring out our next chess moves including staying put or selling current equipment to purchase a different race car. We need to avoid surprises that will cost us tens of thousands of dollars. We need SCCA’s help in understanding the landscape. With that, here are the three questions –
- When will the SCCA put out a five-year plan for the class structures?
- When will the SCCA put out a ten-year vision for the class structures?
- Can the SCCA commit to updating these each year?
A few opinions from us:
- We typically run 9 SCCA weekends (16 races) per year and only one of those is an HST.
- Not being included in one race per year is not a big deal
- But, having the class evaporate is a huge deal!
- Taking a reasonably close look a the HST points standings for 2024
- Not a single driver did every HST
- Two or three attended about 80% of the events
- A couple dozen more reached 50 - 60 percent
- The fields were mostly made up of people like us (1 or 2 events)
- We simply can’t afford the cost and vacation time to travel those distances
- I’m sympathetic to the schedule squeezes on the weekends. Given the fact that very few do more than six HST races per year, I’d suggest the following.
- Have a rolling class participation invitation solution for the HST’s to make them more interesting, take pressure off the event schedules, and serve all the club members. It would look like this –
- Each group would be invited to 6 HST events.
- 2/3 of the race groups at each event, 1/3 sits that event out.
- The next year, you go to three tracks you did not go to the year before, and three you did.
- Advantage to this:
- No one can commit to ten’ish events per year, but maybe six. This may increase total entries.
- Way more interesting to touch new tracks or seldom attended tracks
- More time for turnover/clean-up between groups
- Trains competitors that not everyone has to be at every race
- Few attend every race anyway, including their local events
- We believe that the SCCA needs to make a much bigger deal out of the Divisional and Conference championships.
- These are more financially and vacation time feasible for the majority of people
- People have work and family obligations
- The clubs need much bigger fields at these less prestigious events
- So, make them more prestigious
- We believe the current rules package for FF is reasonable and strong
- The spec tire is a big help to our budget
- We did 22 races this year on a $22K budget (some not SCCA)
- That is typical, and not ridiculous
- Entry fees and tires are 70% of our budget
- More event entries would lower this for us
- We sleep in our converted van at the track
- We have an absolute blast!
- We do hear people complain about the power advantage of the Honda engine vs the Kent. We know from the last two runoffs that his is not an accurate perception. But perception is reality. So how do we overcome the perception?
- Kent engines crossed the line first at the last two runoffs.
- But I wonder if it would motivationally help to reduce the Honda restrictor from 30.5mm to 30.3mm or so to encourage Kent cars to get out and race.
- Some complain about the cost of upgrading to the Honda engine
- We podiumed at the runoffs with a Honda engine that had 82 races since its last refresh. We are aiming for 100 and rebuilds are under $4K. $40/race is cheap racing and SCCA needs to advertise that.
- I’m under the impression that the Honda package is now about $18K compared to its original $11K price tag (a new Kent is around $12k I’m told)
- But I also hear it’s $15K for a decent Miata or B-Spec motor
- And it’s about the same for the SRF3 engine package
- The SCCA needs to inform people about this.
- SRF and Spec Miata/SMX are of not interest whatsoever to us
- The thread the needle driving experience is completely different
- If we want, we can do the same tweaking and development on our car as the F1 teams do. That makes it a lot more fun between races.
- A new SFR and SMX cost the same as a new FF, so why would we aim for a heavier and less precise driving experience??
- If a BoD member would like to try a FF on for size at a test day, we’d be happy to make this happen at no cost to them.
- We hate doing bodywork. And those classes cause a lot of that.
- Reviewing the Majors entries for the last two years about 70% of the entries are not SRF, FE2, and SM/SMX. So, we’re not alone in our choices.
Thank you,
Tazio and Tony Stefanelli
Small Formula weekly Zoom Thursdays 9pm Eastern
Team, per encouragement here -
Set up a Zoom call where we can all meet to discuss how to improve small formula participation. At he moment its an open brainstorming. We'll figure it out as we go. Starts tomorrow night and weekly for 20 weeks. We can extend it to our hearts content.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/82013141123?pwd=6fYy6kZCrpFsUTp9IyE2YweV8a3HBw.1
Meeting ID: 820 1314 1123
Passcode: G5G7wm
Zoom meeting action item - email address
Team,
I will post meeting notes tomorrow. It was well attended and very productive. We all learned a lot. One of my action items is to publish the following email address. For those not on the call, you'll learn the importance of the email address tomorrow when we publish the meeting notes here.
formulafusa.gmail.com Note: all lower case
Zoom Meeting minutes November 21, 2024
First Zoom meeting notes – please at least read the short action item list at the bottom
Big picture notes:
- 22 participated
- From the start all agreed that increasing participation in 2025 was THE topic of the meeting
- The meeting stayed very focused, productive, and friendly the entire 2 hours
- An amazingly knowledgeable and helpful group of people
- We made serious progress and agreed on a short-term plan to increase participation in 2025
A few details:
- CRB member John LaRue shared the details of the SCCA’s decision of why to not have small formula participate in most Hoosier Super Tour (HST) events.
- There is strong support and fans of FF and FV throughout the SCCA personnel and decision makers. We should not worry about the classes being eliminated. He noted that the SCCA could have done a better job communicating this point.
- There are only so many hot track hours available over a weekend, so that limits the number of possible race groups.
- The decision was made simply due to the SM/SMX class being too many cars for one race group, so they had to split it into two (SM and SMX).
- And since the resulting SMX only group was going to be larger than the average small formula group, they decided to go with the group that averages more entries.
- The SCCA wants to keep small formula healthy. Their best guess on how to make up for the HST decision was to make some of the regional events extra special for small formula groupings by giving them Majors points and importance.
- In the last days, the SCCA has changed the target Major’s participation number for automatic qualification in the runoffs:
- If a class is over the Major’s participation target average, the class is automatically invited to the Runoffs
- If the class is under the target, there is an internal SCCA discussion on whether to include the class or not to include the class.
- This is too subjective and risky in the opinion of all who participated in the Zoom meeting. Hence everyone fervently agreed our mission is to drive more Majors participation in 2025.
- The rule update is – the two year participation rate for all Majors and Runoffs combined needs to average over 5.0 cars per race.
- It was 4.0, now is 5.0
- It’s evaluated January 1 each year. If over 5.0, the class is automatically included in the runoffs.
- For 2024, FF average was 4.3. 151 total entries
- To meet the new target, in 2025 we need over 200 total entries in all majors and the runoffs combined. A 30% increase (50 more entries).
- There are 32 events (weekends) that count. Each event is typically two races. The events are listed in the “files” tab of the Formula F USA Facebook group.
- The first three events are 43 days from now (January 18, 2025)
- The Zoom participants were optimistic that we can make this happen.
The action items for all of us:
- Focus on reaching 200+ total entries at Majors and the Runoffs
- We’re going to keep track of the counts relative to the target
- Each of us is committed to running more Majors in ’25 than ’24. Many are doing a couple more, some three more.
- Hopefully those who could not attend the Zoom will join us at the track to do one or two more Majors.
- The BIGGER opportunity is:
- Recruit regional runners, non-SCCA drivers, and idle cars to run a Major or three.
- To make recruiting possible:
- We need to make a list of all cars we know about, active and inactive, SCCA or not.
- EVERONE PLEASE Email us a list of all the cars your aware of to formulafusa@gmail.com
- Owner name, state, and phone number and/or email address
- We will not sell or share this list, it’ll stay private
- A subset of the Zoom group will contact everyone to find out how we can help get these cars to one or more Majors
- Some of these folks will need technical assistance to make it happen, we’ll help coordinate that.
- Once we learn what the barriers are, we’ll make plans to address them. We have no idea what that looks like until we learn more.
So in summary, please email us a list of drivers/cars that you are aware of so we can help those who are willing and able to get to a few races. Maybe they are just having a hard time finding crew to go with them and belt them into the car and jump start them on the grid– in that case they can paddock with another crew and get that help. Maybe they need help converting their car to running the radials – we can help with that. Maybe they need some take-off tires to help with budgeting – we can help with that. Maybe they just need to be asked…
formulafusa@gmail.com
Decline of FF in North America?
I hear the reasons as to why there is a decline in FF in the US but from appearances FF seems to be very vibrant in the UK. They face same challenges on cost and income, in fact the UK average income is significantly less. Also, FF is sort of a dead end road to professional racing, so it's mostly amateur racing both UK and the US. So why the differences in the two markets?