James Achard

Is it my imagination or did the Club Race entry fees go up a bunch this year? Seems crazy when PCA has 600K in the bank Am I missing something?

James

MJR911

Interesting point.... the fees for track rental, etc may be going up as well. But when we shelled out $775 for Sebring registration (before the car sold) for enduro, sprint and two drivers it's starting to look like registration should be factored into the budget a bit!

For what its worth, the HSR guys pay a lot more than we do.

dgz924s

Both CR and DE prices go up yearly it seems. I believe you can blame it on the track owners greed and or upgrades to the tracks. New straight on my home track and the prices jumped around 75.00 more in less than 18 months. Dal

James Achard

I did a quick rough calculation an figured PCA brought in 100K+/- in entry fees for Sebring alone. I find it hard to believe Sebring is more than 20K a day to rent so where is the other 60K going? I know track prices have gone up but something is missing here. I wish upgrades to the track were the reason but I have yet to see any in my neck of the woods(Limerock comes to mind here). I don't intend this thread to bash anyone, I'm just hoping someone can shed some light on this.

Cheers, James

dgz924s

James I agree! It is at the point I may have to forgo CR/DE's due to constant price hikes and add the gas prices on top of it and that makes it harder as well. Dal

Greg Fishman

Someone please correct me if I am way off. The way I understand it is the hosting region collects the entry fees, then has to pay the track rental, ambulance, cornerworkers etc. Then they pay all of PCA's expenses for the scruits, tech people, etc. PCA does not get the entry fees directly.

I do agree the prices are a bit high. The big multi day races especially, but I am sure the cost to run these events are staggering also. The small "regional" races like Putnam and Gingerman are more reasonable but many of the expenses are just the same.... Not sure if other regions do this but Ohio Valley Region donates any excess profits each year to a charity or two of choice.

Juan Lopez

"For what its worth, the HSR guys pay a lot more than we do."

You got that right. We get a lot of take home stuff which is great but I'd rather get a discount on the fee..... My opinion anyway

M758

Well bring up entry fees to the hosting club.

My club hosted a Club Race. Since we are one of the smaller events (Phoenix) we are always close on budget. We tend to charge the standard rate for the entry which I believe was $385 with 60 min enduro for 1 driver. This is fairly common. Sure the biggest cost is the track rental, but depeding in the frills other costs can be quite high as well.

That said PCA events ARE more expensive then events hosted by NASA for example. NASA events for the same track run abotu $250 for two races (one each day), but without an endro. Then again they are little lower key and more business like. Not as many frills.

Cost is one major reason I have skipped the PCA race in California Speedway. Once I started adding things up the costs went through the roof. I figured abotu $500 for entry pit space (no even a garage) enduro. So I decided not go.

One thing I really don't like about PCA Club Races is that it really seems like they expect that you have the bucks if you come to play in PCA. Heck I don't which is one reason I race a cheap car. Makes it a bit harder. NASA events seems to be geared less torward the high rollers and more torward the guy who wants to race, but is doing it on a tight budget. I have not race SCCA, but I'd gather a similar experiences.

Alot of money is spent in PCA club raceing. I'd guess that it is the most expensive form of club racing except for certaing historic/vintage racing orgs.

Bill L Seifert

I changed to SCCA partly for that reason, plus there are more SCCA races in my area. An entry for SCCA is about $250 for 2 sprint races. I ran at 3 sprint races at the Turkey Trot Race at Sebring last November, and though I cant find the entry in my check register, I know the entry was less than $300, for three races on the long course.

Everybody that wrote on this thread, can run SCCA. The 924S would run ITS, and the others could run ITE. I went to a SCCA race last weekend in St Louis, and there were 5 PCA cars entered. 1 in ITS and the rest in ITE. The ITS car got 4th, and one of the ITE cars got 3rd.

Even if you don't quit PCA, run SCCA occasionally, it is a heck of a lot cheaper. (One warning though, NO 13/13, rule, you can get hit by another car, and it does make dents.)

Bill Seifert

1983 944 Race Car

Adam Richman

My experience with the SCCA is similar to Bill's. Its very much track dependent in the SE (South Atlantic Region) but IIRC, sprint races are somewhere around $150 and 1.5 to 2 hour ECRs are in the 200 range - typically a price break on doing both (or some other race - Pro-IT, CCPS). From my understanding, the MARRS fees are higher than ours and NASA's are somewhere between the two. I am ususally in for $300-350 for a SARRC and ECR w/ co-driver fee (30 minute sprint, two driver 1.5ish hour enduro). Heck, the Pro-IT paid out somewhere around $4,000 to the winners in each class last year IIRC and their entry fees are only marginally higher than the SARRCs (and they are 40 minute races).

And yeah, there is plenty o' room for some Porcheys Regionally in the SCCA:
ITS:
944 2.5l
944 2.7l
944 S*
924 S
911 (68-73)

ITA
924
912 E
914 2l

ITB
914 1.7l
914 1.8l

* I think could very well be a top 3 car at the ARRC with the right time, money and driver.

Manny Alban

Comparing SCCA to PCA, at least as far as Summit Point goes, is apples and oranges. With PCA you get more track time, consequently, there is less cars. I'm always amazed how frugal SCCA drivers are with regards to space at Summit. They squeeze in anywhere. As opposed to the PCA racers, where some drivers take as much room as 6-7 scca racers in the paddock.

On a monetary note, Greg is right, National PCA doesn't collect a dime from the region entries. Their income is from National sponsors and your licensing fees. Many times, a region can make more money from a DE event than a club race. Track rentals, corner worker and volunteer costs, insurance have all gone up.

When I helped to chair the VIR race in 2002, we actually lost about $500 even though we charged $400 an entrant. Why, we'll, out of the $400, we had to pay the track $300 for entrant, then we had to pay for insurance (which is much higher than DE), buy the trophies for eveyone, pay for a catered dinner, water for the racers, coffee, muffins in the morning etc. We also had to pay for part of the program. Suddenly , our profit margin was very very low. Yeah, we could've charged more, but this isn't my business and we just wanted to break even and have fun (having fun is the reason why we're doing this, right?). We had to pay the expenses for the national staff, but it was all of it. We paid their hotel and meals, but if I remember, National reimbursed them for their flight and rental cars. I must say that they ate very cheaply and tried to save the region as much as possible. Can't ask for more than that from volunteers who give up weekends to fly to races and not participate

DERSIX

Manny is right on...most of the club races do not do well financially, but the races are put on by the regions who want to offer their members the complete PCA driving package..DE, Club Race and X-crosses. Track rental is the single largest cost..at Wakins Glen the club race track rental is 20 K per day which is twice the DE rental...why..because they can.
Pete Tremper

924RACR

Agreed, my experience running both SCCA and NASA is rather similar - a more no-frills focus on the racing. One advantage, tooting our own horn here, with running NASA is that both the '44Cup and GTS Challenge (and 944 Spec out west, I think?) run a form of the 13-13 rule, unlike SCCA.

Additionally, unlike SCCA - ALL PORSCHES ARE WELCOME AND ENCOURAGED in GTS Challenge! There is still some not insignificant degree of uncertainty as to the, shall we say, friendliness, exhibited to Porsches in the SCCA. Want to win? There may be marques you'd be better off driving in the SCCA. OTOH, the landscape may be changing within IT, so we'll stay tuned and see what happens...

M758

The Phoenix Race is very similar. After each year I hope and pray that we got enough to cover expenses. PCA club races are fun events to hold, but from a region perspective talk alot of time and are big cash risk for the club. Clubs like ours have to put up alot of cash to ensure the event goes off and every year it has been tight and it takes alot of work from non-race club members to get alot of the ground work done. At the end if we can breakeven or at worst lose just a little money we consider it a sucess and plan for next year. It is by far the biggest event our club does. We take pride in being able to pull it off and that is one reason we seem to want to take it on for the next year.

One of factors involved with PCA race cost vs SCCA or NASA is that to the tracks PCA is often a 1 time rental (at least locally). Due to funds we do not rent our local "big tracks" very often due to costs. There is a smaller track we have rented for DE mostly because it cheap. What that means is that we often have less clout with Track Managment. Thus making it harder to get good dates and it may impact our rates. I have not be involved with these discussions so I don't know for sure about fee changes, but I do know that orgs that rend the place 5-6 times per year have an edge on schedules.

So while on the one Hand I complain about PCA club race costs for the racer on the other I know how hard it is to make these events happen and ensure the club does not take it in the shorts big time.


When they announced the PCA Challenge Cup car series I was looking forward to it since it would help our event by bring a number of cars that may not have otherwise attended. When you have 30 to 40 car total PCA racers adding another 10-15 is huge to help the finances.

JC in NY

I would prefer not to have my club racing and my donations to charity mixed up. I can manage both on my own just fine, thank you.