Membership Magazine of Oregon Region Sports Car Club of ...

Let’s start with the easy, noncontroversial
stuff first, Runoffs
and Insurance.
The Runoffs will be at Road
America for this year 2012 and next
year, the 50th anniversary in 2013.
Beyond that it’s open. A subset of
the SCCA Board of Directors and
Club Racing office in Topeka will
be meeting to put together a package
and process to select the next
Runoffs track. The next track and
next Runoffs format ideas are as
varied as driver input on rules and
classes. Same schedule as last year,
shortened schedule like this year,
different schedule. Split the classes
on weekend, don’t split the classes
on weekend, everybody is invited,
only the Top XX classes are invited,
alternate tracks East Coast/West
Coast or stay in one place for a few
years. This process gets underway
in mid-August and results should
Directly
Speaking
By Todd Butler
SCCA Area 13 Dir.
be out by SCCA convention 2013.
Why should average SCCA members
care about insurance? If you
are a volunteer or participant and
you get hurt, you want the best
insurance money can buy. If you
are a region official, insurance is a
huge part of the weekend cost of
putting on an event (example insurance
alone for the 3 day July Double
National and Super Tour event just
held was in excess of $4000) and
costs have to be passed on to participants
entering the events. And if
you are a driver, you pay the entry
fees, a chunk of which goes to pay
insurance. SCCA is looking for competitive
insurance offerings. This
includes a solid competitive bid
process, and evaluating different
ways to structure insurance (buy in
bulk or have each venue like race,
solo, rally buy their own). A RFP
committee has been formed with active,
hands on Regional Execs from
2 of the big SCCA regions involved.
Bottom line we should get the best
4 Oregon Region SCCA
deal possible and get it in an open,
transparent way. This should be
completed in time to announce in
October so Regions can plan 2013
budges for events accordingly.
Ok now to controversial subjects….
The Majors…what’s it all about?
Here’s my view from the cheap
seats. Not everybody shares the
same vision below, including not
everybody on the present SCCA
BoD and I’m sure not in NWR, SFR
or OR Regions.
It’s about fixing National racing.
Over the years it has become apparent
to even the casual observer that
there are too many National events.
Too many events means typically
poorly subscribed events and pretty
soon National racing becomes just
another race. Particularly on the
West Coast, it typically just means
way smaller fields because we sent
a big chunk of the normal Regional
and all the vintage folks away that
weekend. The creation of Rationals
is a baby step towards fixing Nationals
where all regional classes
can compete with National classes
on track at the same time. The Majors
is the next, maybe not so baby,
step.
The Majors are essentially invitational
events, where the top 10
classes in a Majors Zone are invited
to race for a weekend. The intent
is plenty of track time, large fields
and no more than 2 classes per race.
Each zone has a fixed number of
races (no more than 6) and single,
consistent race series Chief Steward.
What is a Major Zone? Think multiple
SCCA Divisions combined. The
Western Zone for 2013 is essentially
everything west of the Rockies.
Scheduling for Majors is controlled
and managed by Club Racing office
in Topeka and a gentleman by the
name of Butch Kummer has been
hired to run the Majors program
(Butch has experience running and
building the ARRC, as a past At-