The GECCO
August 11th, 2008, 10:04 AM
Hello all,
I would like to address the issue that was brought up at the Sunday riders meeting regarding the raceday schedule. One of the riders had asked Jim Brewer to take a poll to see how many liked the new "two days of racing" schedule and how many would rather go back to the "one day" schedule. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the new schedule. It was not unanimous, and I am not oblivious to the members who dissent, but we will never be able to please everyone and the operation of the club must be geared towards the wishes of the majority. Based on the feedback given directly to the board members, now backed up by the show of hands at the meeting, the majority of the members prefer the new schedule. I won't rehash the things we took into consideration when putting together the new schedule, but they are all listed in this post here http://forums.mra-racing.org/viewtopic.php?p=30448#30448
The other issue that was brought up was the idea of moving all the sprint races to Sunday and eliminating the endurance races so that Saturday could be practice only and turned over to the track to be run as a promotor practice (ie, the club does not rent the track on Saturday, the practice is run by the track). This idea was offered as being financially beneficial to the club because we would save the costs of an additional day of track rental, insurance, sanctioning, corner workers, etc. I think this is a bad idea, for several reasons:
- We go back to a long Sunday schedule and getting home later. Again, the majority of the members have to work on Monday morning so it's nice to have the raceday end around 4:00 rather than 6:00.
- Most of the incremental costs associated with the second day of running an event are not linear. Sanctioning is a flat fee per event whether it is a one day event or a week long endurance race. Insurance costs are similar, there is a hefty premium simply to aquire the policy, then a much smaller charge to add an additional days coverage to the same policy. In other words, insuring a two-day event does not cost twice as much as a one-day event. There are other examples but I won't bother to list them. All this goes towards saying that while going to a single day event would likely result in a reduction of entry fees for the racers, it would not be a 50% reduction as some might argue.
- Turning the practice day over to the track results in a loss of control over the program. We could no longer control, and be held accountable for, the quality of the workers and the procedures they follow, the ambulance staff, the structure of the sessions, tech inspection standards, whether or not non-race-licensed riders are allowed, etc.
- Turning the practice day over to the track also results in a loss of control over the COST of the practice day. Just for arguments sake, let's say that going to "one day" racing lowers your race entry fees by $100 (I doubt it would be that much, but I'm just throwing numbers out). Who's to say that the track won't charge MORE than that for their Saturday promotor practice? This actually isn't an unlikely scenario because the same weekend now has TWO separate insurance policies, both at the hefty initial premium. It also has two different entities (the MRA and the track) with various and separate overhead costs to service, plus the profit motives of the track may not be the same as the club, depending on the venue. So it is possible, even likely, that the total costs for the racer to ride both days will go UP, not down.
- Clubs that schedule two-day events get priority date selection over those that do single day events, so this would have an obvious impact on our ability to get the dates that make sense for us, or even to get dates at all.
- No one can guarantee that the tracks would actally DO a promotor practice. From a track operator's perspective it is a lot easier (and profitable) to rent to a club that simply comes in, runs their own show, writes a check, and leaves - than it is to organize an event. They would have to organize signups and collect money, contract ambulance services, find and pay corner staff, get insurance, sanctioning, etc, etc. If I ran the track and the MRA wanted to rent Sunday only and for Saturday I had the option of either running a promotor practice for motorcycles OR renting Saturday to one of the smaller car clubs that does single day events, I think that would be a pretty easy choice. Additionally, if the track DID schedule a promotor practice and there weren't enough signups to make it financially viable, nothing prevents them from simply cancelling it at the last minute.
So, those are my thoughts on the matter. I think this is a very important issue and I wanted everyone to know the possible consequences of the plan that was suggested, but I also didn't want the riders meeting to go on for an hour while we discussed it.
I would like to address the issue that was brought up at the Sunday riders meeting regarding the raceday schedule. One of the riders had asked Jim Brewer to take a poll to see how many liked the new "two days of racing" schedule and how many would rather go back to the "one day" schedule. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of the new schedule. It was not unanimous, and I am not oblivious to the members who dissent, but we will never be able to please everyone and the operation of the club must be geared towards the wishes of the majority. Based on the feedback given directly to the board members, now backed up by the show of hands at the meeting, the majority of the members prefer the new schedule. I won't rehash the things we took into consideration when putting together the new schedule, but they are all listed in this post here http://forums.mra-racing.org/viewtopic.php?p=30448#30448
The other issue that was brought up was the idea of moving all the sprint races to Sunday and eliminating the endurance races so that Saturday could be practice only and turned over to the track to be run as a promotor practice (ie, the club does not rent the track on Saturday, the practice is run by the track). This idea was offered as being financially beneficial to the club because we would save the costs of an additional day of track rental, insurance, sanctioning, corner workers, etc. I think this is a bad idea, for several reasons:
- We go back to a long Sunday schedule and getting home later. Again, the majority of the members have to work on Monday morning so it's nice to have the raceday end around 4:00 rather than 6:00.
- Most of the incremental costs associated with the second day of running an event are not linear. Sanctioning is a flat fee per event whether it is a one day event or a week long endurance race. Insurance costs are similar, there is a hefty premium simply to aquire the policy, then a much smaller charge to add an additional days coverage to the same policy. In other words, insuring a two-day event does not cost twice as much as a one-day event. There are other examples but I won't bother to list them. All this goes towards saying that while going to a single day event would likely result in a reduction of entry fees for the racers, it would not be a 50% reduction as some might argue.
- Turning the practice day over to the track results in a loss of control over the program. We could no longer control, and be held accountable for, the quality of the workers and the procedures they follow, the ambulance staff, the structure of the sessions, tech inspection standards, whether or not non-race-licensed riders are allowed, etc.
- Turning the practice day over to the track also results in a loss of control over the COST of the practice day. Just for arguments sake, let's say that going to "one day" racing lowers your race entry fees by $100 (I doubt it would be that much, but I'm just throwing numbers out). Who's to say that the track won't charge MORE than that for their Saturday promotor practice? This actually isn't an unlikely scenario because the same weekend now has TWO separate insurance policies, both at the hefty initial premium. It also has two different entities (the MRA and the track) with various and separate overhead costs to service, plus the profit motives of the track may not be the same as the club, depending on the venue. So it is possible, even likely, that the total costs for the racer to ride both days will go UP, not down.
- Clubs that schedule two-day events get priority date selection over those that do single day events, so this would have an obvious impact on our ability to get the dates that make sense for us, or even to get dates at all.
- No one can guarantee that the tracks would actally DO a promotor practice. From a track operator's perspective it is a lot easier (and profitable) to rent to a club that simply comes in, runs their own show, writes a check, and leaves - than it is to organize an event. They would have to organize signups and collect money, contract ambulance services, find and pay corner staff, get insurance, sanctioning, etc, etc. If I ran the track and the MRA wanted to rent Sunday only and for Saturday I had the option of either running a promotor practice for motorcycles OR renting Saturday to one of the smaller car clubs that does single day events, I think that would be a pretty easy choice. Additionally, if the track DID schedule a promotor practice and there weren't enough signups to make it financially viable, nothing prevents them from simply cancelling it at the last minute.
So, those are my thoughts on the matter. I think this is a very important issue and I wanted everyone to know the possible consequences of the plan that was suggested, but I also didn't want the riders meeting to go on for an hour while we discussed it.