How does this happen

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john vanlandingham

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derekvincent
Keith as an organizer of one of the Ontario events I would say we need to be carful in saying that Ontario events are doing better. We have benefitted slightly from the ECRC and I budgeted my numbers for the last two years on 12 entries with an expected loss.

I do not think the mess in PQ helps with getting entries out but we have been suffering in general in eastern Canada for the last five years when a regional can have 25 entries and a waiting list.

Hell end of the day things like the Pines are down significantly.

D.

OK the what is clear..Why is the important question? Whaddya think why?

Well Ontario has made it damn near impossible to get a rally car on the road and insure it.

The economy here is just not that healthy and the provincial government is trying is best to make it worse. Sky high electricity rates.

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derekvincent
Keith as an organizer of one of the Ontario events I would say we need to be carful in saying that Ontario events are doing better.

My comment was purely in comparison to the CRQ events, which seem to be shedding entrants an a MUCH higher rate than the RSO events. You're obviously closer to the situation though.

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derekvincent
We have benefitted slightly from the ECRC and I budgeted my numbers for the last two years on 12 entries with an expected loss.

when I started organizing events we budgeted on an 8 car break-even, couldn't do that today very easily without a significant change in how we do things.

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derekvincent
I do not think the mess in PQ helps with getting entries out but we have been suffering in general in eastern Canada for the last five years when a regional can have 25 entries and a waiting list.

Seems to me that I heard that RSO was going to do a phone campaign where they would call out to every competitor in the region who had been licensed in the past so-many years and try and have an open discussion about why they aren't competing. Do you know if that ever happened? (Or is that one of those projects that every one thinks should be done but is so big of a task that no-one takes it on?)

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Keith, Ontario is already at the bottom (or very close) and has been for a couple years... So agreed RSQ is shedding entrants but they will bottom out as well sadly... I do not think the confusion and the way the regionals have been run help anything...

As for budgeting I drop the number of cars every year... 6 years ago Ontario events would have 20-25 entrants often hitting the cut off... Last year Bear had 11 and this year we had 14 which sounds great but considering that 60+% of an entry fee now goes directly to the Series, the Region and CARS and since municipalities are all hurting and want their share of the pie it is hard... I raised entry fee marginally this and would start taking a loss at 11 or under entrants... It make it hard to plan events people want to come to....

As for the competitors (past, present, and future) survey it is talked about about and a draft was written it simply has not happened yet...

As for John's questions for me as what I the whys are...

I think it is complex but boils down to a number of factors in Ontario:

1. We have a sport that at best is on the fringes and never had a huge uptake
2. Organizing costs are going up across the board so entry fee are going up and competitors are getting less for their money.
3. Roads permissions are harder to get and retain
4. The Ontario Drive Clean program is a sham provides little gain and changes to it last year are killing rally cars since you need one every 2 years and if your car originally came an OBDII port you can essentially only pass if they can hook up their computer to it read the expected sensors.
5. Insurance in Ontario for things like Rally cars is expensive and can be a pain to get... Generally if your honest you will only be insured with Facility Insurance (government mandated insurance of last resort generally used by folks who are uninsurable normally, ie. DUI, Street Racing, etc.). Facility is hard to get to start with since most people asking for it for a modified technically should be normally insurable (you need to find a broker who write the request correctly) and as I said expensive. I think what we pay for the Talon insurance is the same for my other 3 cars.
6. Volunteer and Competitor apathy
7. Economy, work and available time
8. Sponsorship
9. Media coverage

A bunch of the thing above are related... Since the sport is not well know or popular we have a hard with sponsorship, and working with the government on exclusions for rally cars, or working on group policy insurance.

Costs are going because they always go up, and the insurance, keeping a car on the roads, events being pushed further away the population means towing and time off work to do events is increasing...

We have a number of issue we can not control and issue we can control that I am not sure will make a huge difference... I have been thinking and talking about this for a number of years and I see no silver bullets...

D

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RallySputnik
www.rallysputnik.com

I've been thinking a bit lately about what the ideal number of events to make up a championship is.
Our local hill climbs are 5 events in basically 5 months. I find it to be almost too many in that short period. There were two added "rally" type events at the closed course with around an hour competitive seat time. I'm curious how many people will be burnt out.
To make matters worse, I bought a 2002 Accent at auction yesterday. Hornet circle track racing or budget rental rally car...

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Grant Hughes

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NoCoast
I've been thinking a bit lately about what the ideal number of events to make up a championship is.
Our local hill climbs are 5 events in basically 5 months. I find it to be almost too many in that short period. There were two added "rally" type events at the closed course with around an hour competitive seat time. I'm curious how many people will be burnt out.
To make matters worse, I bought a 2002 Accent at auction yesterday. Hornet circle track racing or budget rental rally car...

I personally believe a regional series should be shorter than a national series. 6-7 events nationally seems just about right, especially if you want to give teams a break in the summer (july/august) and winter (dec/jan). Anything more than that becomes silly as our countries are so big. Anything more also demands way too much work out of the volunteers that make this sport happen. I don't know how Keith does it honestly.

For regional teams, if anything happens to a car besides wear and tear, reprep is at least a month if not two. I basically only get weekends to work on the rallycar, so if it needs to go anywhere for work I can't perform, or I am waiting on parts, the weeks disappear quickly. I really like 5-6 regional events per year that are spread out evenly, keeps the rust away, and allows (hopefully) 1 month for reprep and cash hoarding.

5 events in 5 months of anything is too much for a joe schmoe, be it drag racing, drifting, road racing, etc. It really taxes the typical person and their other priorities in life (family, vacation time, other hobbies) to do that. Between Headwaters, Rocky Mountain Rally, ChassisFlex Motorsports, and my full-time job, I basically didn't sleep in my own bed May/June.

5 events for some in motorsports was a typical month. A good month was 6 events..
Approx time per event typically 3 rounds of 30m, 30m, 35minutes--and 1/2 hour or more training.

And there is some training in between. And 8,000-12,000 km /month average to get there

being a lightweight weenie-boy I could only do that for 2 years.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

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My only times to work on personal cars is 6-8 am and maybe an hour to ninety minutes afternoon when the two year old is napping IF the for year old is up for it. One month between after my wreck in July was just enough time. I drive car for first time as I loaded it into trailer.
More events is more tires, pads, and other consumables.

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Grant Hughes

Though our regional stuff is unique in that hill climbs and closed venue events make up a larger portion. These are great driver building events as you get lots of practice repeating sections and learning how the car handles and especially at the closed venue, the consequences of pushing past the limit are much less. At the last event I had four fairly big events that could have been disasters anywhere else.
Here's three.


?t=43s
In the first one, the note was copied from someone else as a 5-. In reality it's tighter, blind and the road drops away into bad camber quickly. I came in way wrong at 65 MPH. It was the 2nd run of the weekend and the first run was without any notes and was more a warm up.
The second slide off was too much speed with too little yaw. Corner was tighter than I thought and I cut in too early. No big deal, didn't cost much time.
THe final one was the same corner as the first but was on the 5th run of the weekend. I had progressively been increasing my cornering speed. This time was coming in at 67 MPH. Got a little more sideways than expected, then I was overcorrecting when I dropped into the bad camber and voila, sucked right off the road. Didn't really lose much time and bumper cover got a little more rally street cred.

Anyhow, I've thought that if each region strived for 3-5 single stage sprints/hill climb type events and 1-2 proper stage rallies per year it would make for better drivers and better competition. 5+ 60-100 stage mile events is a very expensive proposition, even if they were all within a few hundred miles. Build everything to survive solely on local competitors. Offer a virtually free entry to the extra competitors that are willing to make the tow to experience your event.

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Grant Hughes