I need to vent

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RnJ

That's awesome! People want to be involved or at least see it if they find out there actually is rally in this country besides x games.

Next step for them is going to be finding out how they can get into a car. I'd bet that a lot of people spectate before they build a car right?

I dunno, lol, my family went straight to building the car. My dad was asked "can you build me a rally car?" he said "what's that?" and after it was explained said he'd build the car if he could codrive. And that's how I grew up in rally.






re: the original subject
And, as for the people who race who don't work enough when they aren't competing, sometimes they have kids who do Really though, my parents volunteered for years and years after they stopped racing, but now my mom just can't bring herself to come out, it depresses her because she can't afford to build a car and get back out there again. She won't even come to rallycrosses because it makes her sad (and she's got no interest in running Todd's car even though he's offered because it's awd and she only wants rwd, stubborn woman) and dad drives long haul so it's pretty rare he can make it out to anything.

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12xalt
[but now my mom just can't bring herself to come out, it depresses her because she can't afford to build a car and get back out there again.

Poll recent drivers and this will be #1 cause of not going to races again. Car prep can be done over time, but then it comes to dishing out 2-3k for a weekend with no return other than smiles and memories. Those entry fees are just insane!!!


Maybe somebody that handles books can shed some light on this.

There's fixed costs if the rally goes on as planned with 10 cars or with 40 cars. How much of an entry is variable or per car cost?

Wouldn't 40 cars at 500 each be better than 10 cars at 1000 each?


Edit--That might be your problem getting volunteers too. Put on a show with lots of cars, people will come to see it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/26/2013 09:36AM by RnJ.

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RnJ

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12xalt
[but now my mom just can't bring herself to come out, it depresses her because she can't afford to build a car and get back out there again.

Poll recent drivers and this will be #1 cause of not going to races again. Car prep can be done over time, but then it comes to dishing out 2-3k for a weekend with no return other than smiles and memories. Those entry fees are just insane!!!


Maybe somebody that handles books can shed some light on this.

There's fixed costs if the rally goes on as planned with 10 cars or with 40 cars. How much of an entry is variable or per car cost?

Wouldn't 40 cars at 500 each be better than 10 cars at 1000 each?


Edit--That might be your problem getting volunteers too. Put on a show with lots of cars, people will come to see it.

Ryan, you're suggesting something that was obvious way back after the first rally I did when the then high entry of $55 or $75.....of course I was used to doing motorcycle enduros with $35 late entry---but 200-250 entries.

And more cars means more people in the 'circle of friends and aquaintences" where most of the volunteers originate from..

Sadly the offical response to any comments about entry fees has always been, and now is polished to perfection: The entry fees are a small part of the total budget, if you cant afford a mere ____________(fill in any number) then maybe you shouldn't be rallyracinging"

The way I look at it is we always gripe about paying for things we have no say in...YOU make the decision on what money you put into the car, the tires, the tow rig, the motel or camping of in the truck sleeping arrangement, and some like to throw away a lot on those things..

But you have no say in the mandated things like licence, mandated equipment, and entries so its natural to kvetch..

Anders green was nice enough once to discuss all the fixed costs and it is a LOT for somebody to lay out on the off chance that people MIGHT show up...
It sure shut me up about CLUB level entry fees...

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

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RnJ

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12xalt
[but now my mom just can't bring herself to come out, it depresses her because she can't afford to build a car and get back out there again.

Poll recent drivers and this will be #1 cause of not going to races again. Car prep can be done over time, but then it comes to dishing out 2-3k for a weekend with no return other than smiles and memories. Those entry fees are just insane!!!


Maybe somebody that handles books can shed some light on this.

There's fixed costs if the rally goes on as planned with 10 cars or with 40 cars. How much of an entry is variable or per car cost?

Wouldn't 40 cars at 500 each be better than 10 cars at 1000 each?


Edit--That might be your problem getting volunteers too. Put on a show with lots of cars, people will come to see it.

Yes, but if they are recent, they can still volunteer if they can't afford to race. Mom did service in the 70's and raced in the early 80's and then spent all of the rest of the 80's as a volunteer and into the early 90's. So, even if someone can't afford to race all the time, they can still come out and volunteer, at least for a while. It took her 20 years before she decided she just couldn't do it anymore.

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RnJ
Car prep can be done over time, but then it comes to dishing out 2-3k for a weekend with no return other than smiles and memories. Those entry fees are just insane!!!

That's why Lemons and Chumpcar have had such stunning growth. The cost to race might end up being similar or even more than a stage rally, but it is split 3-4 ways and the seat time has the potential to be way greater.

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Grant Hughes

I think one of the problems BRS is having is due to not having enough promotion at CLarkson. When Angela Cosner was still in school, she promoted the hell out of the event and there were huge numbers of volunteers from the motorsport club there. Fort Drum, which is less than 15-20 miles away has a lot of car enthusiasts that ask me a lot of questions when we stop by Watertown to buy fuel/food/coffee. There have been military guys volunteering but volunteered beside me are usually to be deployed not long after the rally so the word doesnt get around much and they live 20 mins away. It would be a good idea to keep channels open with Ft Drum as well which falls on the volunteer coordinator.
I too was gonna head up helping a friend out to crew but he withdrew. I have volunteered or competed @BRS every year but one (birth of my daughter) since 07 and really didnt feel like driving 6+hrs. Instead I spent time working on the car which I was hoping to run BRS (now TP) and spending time with my 2kids and family.

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rally gods would turn in their graves if they ever knew Lada's were now part of EU rallying!!!

One last reply from me. No offense. But Clarkson, Fort Drum, locals, don't get you (in most cases) experienced people to run start/finish/assistant stage captain to man the other end. I can do one end with myself being the only experienced person, but not 2 ends. And I'm not ragging on the people that do usually attend, compete or work. It's those that NEVER give back.

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Don Kennedy

Do you remember when the earth was about to blow up, and we all got on the Giant Space Ark and moved to our new planet, and they said don't tell the dumb people because they will never know we moved?

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"Talk about drugs. Driving a car like that, going that fast, it’s like all the drugs at once." - Tommy Byrne

"Now, Pinky, if by any chance you are captured during this mission, remember you are Gunther Heindriksen from Appenzell. You moved to Grindelwald to drive the cog train to Murren. Can you repeat that?" - The Brain

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wvonkessler
Do you remember when the earth was about to blow up, and we all got on the Giant Space Ark and moved to our new planet, and they said don't tell the dumb people because they will never know we moved?

No.

(wait a minute...)

...

Is it bad that instead of plopping me in front of the Tube when I was a toddler, my mom would let me listen to her Steve Martin records?

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Pete Remner
Cleveland, Ohio

1984 RX-7 (rallycross thing)
1978
Silence is golden, but duct tape is silver.

Some BRS observations:

1) I paid to bring an experienced worker - lodging/food/etc - that person was stuck at borderline BS marshalling post. Can't be sure why, maybe girls aren't good at math? (extreme sarcasm since some are dense on here)
2) An experienced worker failed to count me down and then yelled "go" - so I'm not so convinced experience is that big of a deal.
3) BRS this year suffered from miserable weather - everyone that looked at weather.com knew the weekend would have shitty weather and I think that killed both worker and press participation. Working sucks even more when the weather sucks that much.

Some NRS observations:
1) Since this is grassroots - offer shakedown stage and let workers ride - the drivers will be happy to knock the dust off scaring the workers. When I was a noob worker I'd have killed to ride in a "real" rally car.
2) Since this is grassroots - make the championship 1 mandatory working event - how often do competitors have a broken car/etc? This gives incentive to show up and work the event when the car is jacked or to save some money on the CC. If everyone does it - no negative effect on championship (wash on points for everyone) - and safer events staffed with people who are more experienced with procedures.
3) Charge for teams that don't bring a worker, or rebate teams that do (whatever PRs better) - at least until it's fixed - I can't remember the last time the teams with an 80k+ car, 4+ sets of new tires , motor home/etc brought a worker to the event.
4) When someone wants to park a motor home, enclosed trailer, or other high-end crap in the service add a surcharge - use it to pay workers for rooms/gas.

I'm sure all these ideas will be shot down and I'll be told "why don't you work/pay for a worker/find a solution/etc - I did all that stuff already and the problem stands. Time to enforce it through the events/rules themselves.

*All opinions created and supported by Jack Daniels - so I might not remember this post.

I think I'd be pretty annoyed at an event that required me to bring an extra person - enough that it would probably make me not go. I tend to do events with a pretty minimal crew as it is. In fact, generally I self-crew.

As a former organizer, I don't think I'd want to try to sort out who's bringing whom and what their knowledge and skills are at the last minute. I spent a lot of time trying to make sure that I had people with known-experience spread out into the critical spots. Names I didn't recognize or people who signed up at the last minute would generally go into filler spots.

I can see the potential of a series that requires competitors to work at least one event in order to qualify for season points, but even that has problems. There'd have to be a way of making sure that everyone didn't sign up to work the same event. It also might mean that early events were undersubscribed from a volunteering standpoint and later events oversubscribed. Finally, there would have to be a dispensation for people who run every event in the series, as generally it's preferable for someone to sign up as a competitor rather than a worker.

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Self-righteous douche canoe

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cbombara
Some BRS observations:


2) An experienced worker failed to count me down and then yelled "go" - so I'm not so convinced experience is that big of a deal.

Did that have anything to do with the rain and the nooks we were using for timing/count down clock? It seems it might have been a possibility. I know at least once I was caught off guard fooling with the nook to get the info in and all of a sudden it was maybe 13 or 18 seconds before the clock counted down to 0. I didn't like to give them that short of a notice but it's what we were dealt. We probably should have ditched the nooks being the first time they were being used and it was raining (Saturday),

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Don Kennedy

No i havn't read this entire thread.. but the few posts at the beginning had me peaked enough to mention this.. I have worked a few rallys here and there (total of probably 8) when time has permitted. I find it a complete PITA to work at a rally: the number of times I've signed up for a saturday and sunday gig and then been told the week before they've got me down for friday too, or that I need to be with person X because I'm in their car and then finding out a week before we're separated. Or it'll be saturday at 4am in the middle of know where saturday morning, yes found out the week before.

Firstly I hate saying sorry I can't do XYZ to a volunteer setup (specially when its something like supporting rally) and the guilt trip from saying I can't make it that I have received in the past was a HUGE turn off.

Secondly why do you ask what days, special requirements, etc when you never follow them? Maybe i'm the rarity on this one.. but its been too common for me not to say anything.

Third, a week before doesn't give me any chance to plan, to take off the friday if needed, to leave at midnight to be up there at 4am because I couldn't get friday off, or to plan a different ride because me and my buddy have been asked to be separate, because I was told one of us should just ditch our team and that would be alright because it'd be "too hard to reorganize this close to the event". Sorry but I don't want to be put down as the guy who didn't show for a worker assignment in a sport I want to be respected in.

And this is how I though it was everywhere...

Till I worked the Mt. Hood Rally... 3 or 4 weeks notice on where and with whom I was working. Everything was listened to, it was a dream. I woke up at 4am to get there on time one year and slept in my truck the other. I was shown respect for giving my time to the event, not only by the racers which always do but by my team leader and other organizers. I made some good connections and friends at these two events. I would if I could fly out to work another mt.hood if I could afford it (I moved back to boston)

In the end the swag is a nice perk, food great (if your not a celiac like me) but really I'm giving you (the organizers and racers) my time.. as much of it as I can spare. I don't want anything but respect back, nothing i've really felt from the organizers in the NE area.

One thing that never seems to end up in these discussions is the impact of regional clubs on rally organization. SCCA had the one big advantage that each event belonged to a region. Those regions always had a core of region people who typically worked together all year on more than one event. That did not provide all the workers by any means, but it did provide a good core event team and that made up time to do more on organizing volunteers. Seems like this is one advantage that the Ontario series rallies havae (or have had).

Not thinking this will happen for NASA anytime soon. And R-A does not havae this, tho' many events have a core group that is SCCA region centric.

And I always have to wonder what has happened; most of you guys have not been around long enough but Don surely has. Geez, POR ran to 2 AM on day 1 and then re-started at noon; SPTR and HIS ran all nigth long 'til sunrise; Sunriser 400 ran all night 'til 7 or 8 AM, and even the Tulip 200 ran to 1-2 AM. A lot of the old MI rallies ran way into to the wee hours. Never heard too many complaints. So what has happened that the volunteers don't want to be out as much or the organizers are over-working folks?

And no offiense at all, Don , but IMO a stage captain is gonna work extra hard every time. It just goes with the territory.

Yeah, I don't get the workers don't want to work at night either. But then, maybe it's because I grew up around rally and back then most of the events I went to were held at night. It's rally, I'm good for any time of the day or night and any weather conditions (though I really hate it when it's hot an dusty, gimme rain or snow any day over heat and dust).




And, to sort of answer the question about why people aren't kept to doing what they signed up for and with who, etc, many times too many people sign up for the same things and not enough for the other things. So, should they just cancel the rally then? Or move people around as they can to make it work? My friend and I hit this problem all the time. We always want to work together, but I have lots of experience and she has an autistic son. So, we get split up at almost every event. They try to keep us together, but she can't work controls because of her son (though they keep trying to have her do it). Roadblocking is all she can do till he gets older and more in control (don't want a worker walking away from flying finish, etc to take care of a kid throwing an austistic fit). Or, if she has her husband with her, they can take turns at controls while the other is with the kid. Now, he's pretty high functioning, but still unpredictable. Should she just not go? Or spectate only? Well, we figure it's a person willing to roadblock, so she still signs up.