Rally America Serious Problems

Has anyone seen this? Thoughts?????????

http://openpaddock.net/2014/01/11/rally-america-serious-problems-ahead/


Never heard of this site or Podcast, but it does raise some points....

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Rob
Devil Bat Racing
Grand Rapids Mi
Planet Earth

https://www.facebook.com/devilbatracing

http://www.robsackyta.com/

yea just read through it. Sounds like nothing surprising. Costs are high, and potential for sponsorship is low. Like way does the car number, event organizer, and event name need to take up essentially the entire side of the car? That would be great area for sponsors for teams. If you know, rally was televised or had any exposure here.

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First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023

Normal cyclical participation. Nothing new to see here, move along. Rally is expensive, mmkay?

And takes a tremendous amount of time/money to do a lot of events. If you don't have money, it takes a ton of time, including many long nights prepping the car, travelling, re-prepping, etc. The actual event costs are only a fraction of the budget in the big scheme of things. I know I personally could not do more than 3-4 events a year without just being mentally burnt out on the racing due to how much time it takes.

The whole us formula is tired. I'm five beers into another perfect Maui day. Beach and snorkling once kiddo finishes lunch. There was over a foot of fresh snow in mountains past few days. Biathlon races today and tomorrow. As long as the participant focus is on achieving some dream of professional or career we will see the same shit that's been occurring. Any championship with greater than 500 mile radius and more than one weekday committment will flounder and remain virtually parasitic. I'm in paradise and mostly thinking, meditating, and refining my vision for what is next.

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Grant Hughes

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Doivi Clarkinen
Normal cyclical participation.

(Dave, not just addressed at you, lots of people have opined this over the years.)

I don't believe that. It's an explanation that has no basis. The claim of "cycles are natural" has these two claims underpinning it:

1) There is something inherent in the sport that means that cycles will come and go. Like the moon makes tides. No one has described such a force or law.

2) Nothing racers or organizers or sanctioning bodies do matter. The sport has a cyclical nature, which cannot be altered.

Claiming belief in a cyclical nature means that one needs to believe both of these. There is a HUGE difference between "I have observed cycles" and "cycles are some magical or natural underpinning of the sport".

What I have seen is that any time REDUCED participation is discussed, "it goes in cycles" is trotted out. When INCREASED participation is discussed, "I think X is causing the increase" is used, where X is TV exposure, the economy, Ken Block, Gymkahana, honey bees, whatever.

Also, falling back on "it goes in cycles" means, in effect, "nothing is wrong, do nothing, change nothing, try nothing, and everything will eventually be back where it was, because, well, cycles". The idea that no one should even bother to TRY to figure out what's causing problems, or even to figure out IF there's a problem, let alone try to FIX them, is entirely short circuited by the acceptance of the cycle hypothesis.

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

no ken block is good in john's book, not so good for publicity, the little it recieved just lost more, believe it or not ripley..

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All bridges burnt, island life is beauty

I thought the cycle theory was based on the economy?

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

Not in this crowd. It's based on "some old timer said it, and I haven't bothered to think about it, so I'll say it too."

Consider this: till I started compiling the results about four years ago of US participation, there existed, to my knowledge, NO comprehensive count of stage rally participation anywhere, by anyone. When I was an SCCA committee member fifteen years ago, discussing how to increase participation, the SCCA didn't have this data.

So if NO ONE has had any data... how could they come up with the "it's a cycle" hypothesis and have it backed up by anything more than "Well, I remember we used to have some big events. Remember those three big events we went to?"

There's nothing more to it than it SOUNDS like it explains it, when really it only observes it. It's like standing outside on a rainy day and saying "Well, rain comes and goes." Uh, yeah, it does. But that doesn't explain why or how, it is only the most cursory verbalization that a person, while wet, is smart enough to remember they were dry once.

Anders

ps by "comprehensive", I absolutely mean everyone going racing, and I'm aware of some of the stats of national only on rallyracingnews, and those are not "comprensive" because regional racing is not included and it really needs to be if you want to know how many people are racing.

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 09:25PM by Anders Green.

I'm planing on buying a car that won a rally National Championship a few years ago.
I only plan on running it in Rallycross and NASA Road Racing where it will be eligible for Manufacture and Contingency programs worth $3500.00 a race weekend.
All events are a 1 hour tow from my home.
Money Talks.

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2WD...Less Traction More Action!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/2014 11:54PM by stgallagher.

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Anders Green
I don't believe that. It's an explanation that has no basis. The claim of "cycles are natural" has these two claims underpinning it:
1) There is something inherent in the sport that means that cycles will come and go. Like the moon makes tides. No one has described such a force or law.

The biggest problem is there isn't much being done in the way of proper research of the people or trends in the sport. (in any aspect be it crash data, what attracts new competitors, why people leave, etc) That leads to a lot of anecdotal analysis and 'feelings' about what's going on.
Another problem is we are looking at relatively small numbers so defining a significant factor becomes a bit harder.
In several activities I've been involves with there has been a normal cycle to participation. I'm a member of a national association and the data has been mined and shown a typical involvement of 3 years. There are a reasonable number of 'lifers' but the vast majority of members are in for 3-5 years and gone. They came, they saw, they conquored (or were defeated) and move on. It's in our nature - even more so today, I think, than historically.

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Anders Green
2) Nothing racers or organizers or sanctioning bodies do matter. The sport has a cyclical nature, which cannot be altered.
Claiming belief in a cyclical nature means that one needs to believe both of these.

But I don't think Dave, or anyone, was saying participation cycles were either of those, but only saying there have always been cycles in participation. Arguably, you could say the cycles exist because no one is making an effort to understand why they exist but what you seem to be suggesting is they only exist BECAUSE no one is making that effort.

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Anders Green
The idea that no one should even bother to TRY to figure out what's causing problems, or even to figure out IF there's a problem, let alone try to FIX them, is entirely short circuited by the acceptance of the cycle hypothesis.

The real problem is there isn't an obvious or easy fix for cyclical interest and I also think that you have to recognize looking for a fix is also looking for a way to change natural behavior.

I took a quick look back 3 years at Big White, an event that had more than double the entry this year than in 2010. It would be easy to look at that as growth and 'positive' for the sport but... only 27% (7 of the 26 individual competitors) who started 3 years ago started the same event in 2013. Only 46% who started Big White in 2010 entered any events in western Canada in 2013. 35% are no longer competing. (maybe more startling is that even though the event started 50% more cars in 2013 than in 2012 - 50% of the individual competitors from 2012 didn't start the event in 2103.
Only 27% of the individual competitors who started in 2011 started in 2013.

Admittedly what I've said is and isolated sample, far from comprehensive, and in desperate need of more analysis but... an event that is being seen as nothing but growing and positive has 'lost' over 60% of its participants from 3 years ago.

One truism of sales is that it is much easier to sell to someone you've sold to before. Clearly, examining how we can improve competitor retention and longer term sustainability for the competitor can bring incredible gains.

Are events positioned to handle those gains? That is a completely different question.

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First Rally: 2001
Driver (7), Co-Driver (44)
Drivers (16)
Clerk (10), Official (7), Volunteer (4)
Cars Built (1), Engines Built (0) Cages Built (0)
Last Updated, January 4, 2015

Quote
john vanlandingham
Blame is for idiots. losers.

I have seen two reasons for the people leaving within 3 years. Ego, Money, combination of both.

A vast majority of competetors are Alpha personality types. They expect to win, and when they actually realize they are not the cool kid in school, cant buy their way to that level, they are gone. The other personality types either have a natural ability to drive (this drives Alpha types nuts) and or have very very deep pockets. The true lifers are the ones that when they run out of money they come to every event to volunteer. Just cant be away from the sport.

So finding a way to keep the Alpha types engaged (good luck with that), or making the sport cheaper for people to run (not going to happen). Everyone bitches but if the money was not put into event costs, repairs, towing etc. It would go into buying the next best piece of gear for the car, because everyone knows its not the drivers fault for being slow. Alphas cant cope with that fact.

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Intercom and electronics dude. www.zerodegreec.ca

I don't believe so much in 'general cycles' as I do in the random alignments of individuals' 'cycles'. Looks to me that you just have a year when a lot of teams have 'cycled out' of the sport for a while for a particular series, and with a small sporting field, it only takes a handful to make it look like a big deal. If it ain't a steady job, it's gonna be that way for most individual participants, regardless of level. Remember when there was such a great peak in participation about 10 years ago? Have people run out of interest/money/have kids, throw in the finanacial pressures of a struggling economy with more peole than normal being cautious or just plain not making a decent living, add in some journalistic hoo-ha, and you have a dramatic turn-down within a general turn-down.....works the same for the 'pro' teams, when sponsorship sales are erratic.
Mark B.

Please keep in mind that alpha/beta personality typing has just about zero empirical backing and myriad reasons to be ignored. It's for pop-psych books, women's magazines, and websites. It's not for actual use.

With that said, I know the folks that you're talking about as you see them in just about any form of "individual" competition (note the scare quotes). They are much worse in cheaper forms of racing, such as cone-dodging. But I don't think that you can give them credit or blame for overall rates of participation, because there seems to be an infinite supply of these people. As they say in the Lay's potato-chips ads: "we'll make more" (although getting lay'd more often might keep some of these folks at home on Sundays).

Sampling bias.... .... .

: :
There is an inherent sampling bias with the existing structure and rulebook. There is limited to no support for growth or driver development or advancement. It'd be like going skiing and instantly capable of dropping and riding a big gnarly chute. Or taking your first surfing lesson at Jaws.
Reinstate a seed system. Restructure all classes and require more coefficients linked with success in regional championship to move to faster classes. I've got more but typing on phone sucks...

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Grant Hughes