Offical Plan to Reinvigorate the Dallas SCCA Region
This is not my own personal plan, but an idea hatched at dinner one night last week among many of us TAMSCC Dallas folks. If you've been to a Dallas area SCCA regional, you'll know why this plan is necessary.
The DFW area has what? 3-5 million people? Yet there are but 2 event sites (that both have major drawbacks) and not so great turnouts at either. Pennington field is a small highschool parking lot (1st gear, 20-30 second events) and Miserable Wells is TWO HOURS AWAY (and coming apart). All this area, all these people, and 2 lousy sites??
The marquee clubs haven't had much luck in securing other sites, and their major drawbacks include lumping of non-marquee cars into a catch-all class. Not a competitive atmosphere and turnout, class rules and event smoothness is inconsistent in these clubs, typically.
There has got to be a large, uncluttered, concrete lot somewhere in the north Dallas area. We talked about using satellite photos to help locate potential sites (hey, Adam, hook us up!). I spoke with Houston's Roger Johnson (who has helped locate lots of race sites) this past weekend about getting a New Site Packet from the SCCA head office (I will e-mail that request soon), to help "sell" the idea of using a site for auto-x use to its owners.
This "plan" will probably need to involve a one or more of the TAMSCC Dallas people bidding to take over some officer positions within the Dallas SCCA region. This would help motivate the other Dallas SCCA folks into A) wanting to find another site and B) changing the regional rules to allow for better classing.
Different classes? Yes. The SCCA Solo2 rules allow SCCA regions to 'adopt their own classing structure of their choosing' (paraphrased). This means they can add classes, categories, and completely ignore the Naitonal Solo2 rules structure and class rules. THIS could be the key to forcing the SCCA to adpot new and better classes and categories and rules... something like Ramey proposed for overhauling/merging SP and SM. It could also set out new tire rules for Stock category to only allow 140 or greater treadwear tires ("street tires compounds"), like the ST classes now do. Who wants to drop $1000 on the new hoosier or kumho and only get 2-3 competitive events out of the set?? That's excessive and the tire situation has been spiriling out of control for years with little help from the SCCA.
All new regional class rules... Wacky? Maybe. But this is how StreetMod and the STU/STX/STS classes came into being: an SCCA Region(s) ran these classes first, they were popular, and the Naitonal office had to eventually look into adopting them.
It's just an idea, and it isn't mine alone. Please discuss here and let's see if there are enough motivated Dallas area people to try to make the Dallas SCCA a better group to race with, with better sites and better classes. As we've seen with the TAMSCC, just one person or a small group of people can make a big difference!
This is not my own personal plan, but an idea hatched at dinner one night last week among many of us TAMSCC Dallas folks. If you've been to a Dallas area SCCA regional, you'll know why this plan is necessary.
The DFW area has what? 3-5 million people? Yet there are but 2 event sites (that both have major drawbacks) and not so great turnouts at either. Pennington field is a small highschool parking lot (1st gear, 20-30 second events) and Miserable Wells is TWO HOURS AWAY (and coming apart). All this area, all these people, and 2 lousy sites??
The marquee clubs haven't had much luck in securing other sites, and their major drawbacks include lumping of non-marquee cars into a catch-all class. Not a competitive atmosphere and turnout, class rules and event smoothness is inconsistent in these clubs, typically.
There has got to be a large, uncluttered, concrete lot somewhere in the north Dallas area. We talked about using satellite photos to help locate potential sites (hey, Adam, hook us up!). I spoke with Houston's Roger Johnson (who has helped locate lots of race sites) this past weekend about getting a New Site Packet from the SCCA head office (I will e-mail that request soon), to help "sell" the idea of using a site for auto-x use to its owners.
This "plan" will probably need to involve a one or more of the TAMSCC Dallas people bidding to take over some officer positions within the Dallas SCCA region. This would help motivate the other Dallas SCCA folks into A) wanting to find another site and B) changing the regional rules to allow for better classing.
Different classes? Yes. The SCCA Solo2 rules allow SCCA regions to 'adopt their own classing structure of their choosing' (paraphrased). This means they can add classes, categories, and completely ignore the Naitonal Solo2 rules structure and class rules. THIS could be the key to forcing the SCCA to adpot new and better classes and categories and rules... something like Ramey proposed for overhauling/merging SP and SM. It could also set out new tire rules for Stock category to only allow 140 or greater treadwear tires ("street tires compounds"), like the ST classes now do. Who wants to drop $1000 on the new hoosier or kumho and only get 2-3 competitive events out of the set?? That's excessive and the tire situation has been spiriling out of control for years with little help from the SCCA.
All new regional class rules... Wacky? Maybe. But this is how StreetMod and the STU/STX/STS classes came into being: an SCCA Region(s) ran these classes first, they were popular, and the Naitonal office had to eventually look into adopting them.
It's just an idea, and it isn't mine alone. Please discuss here and let's see if there are enough motivated Dallas area people to try to make the Dallas SCCA a better group to race with, with better sites and better classes. As we've seen with the TAMSCC, just one person or a small group of people can make a big difference!
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