LuigiVampa

My hope is that PCA CR will seek input from drivers before making changes. As you said, you can't make everyone happy, and no one knows that better than me, but if the changes to the 13/13 rule are any guide to PCA's rule change thought process, it leaves out input from drivers.

erliuic

I just did a NASA race at LRP. I still needed to do medical and the licensing form to get a provisional license despite having a PCA license.

Estoril

jerome951

I started racing w/ PCA back in 2004 and have seen several change over that time period.

In all of that time, though, I do not recall being asked by PCA National to participate in a survey inquiring what I like/dislike about the program, if I race with other orgs, why I don't participate in more PCA races, etc. PCA has thousands of potential inputs (2000 currently-registered racers plus hundreds who raced in the past) to generate data to make decisions on how to change for the better. As mentioned above, there are a lot of reasons why participation is down, and polling a wider audience than Rennlist may yield some interesting results..

Nizer

In terms of what PCA can control, it's down to cost, track time, and officiating, with the latter representing the greatest low hanging fruit. Unfortunately, progress on this front requires listening to your customers.

And P.S., I'm not worried about getting hit by a flying CPAP machine. Bin the stupid medical requirements. The reality is they're all about PCA covering their own butt and have nothing to do with keeping us safe.

Difool

I haven’t ever received a feedback form, but we are all asked to provide suggestions every year (rules changes) and I’ve had several stewards bounce ideas or seek feedback from me, and others, in conversations.

Personally, I think PCA has an opportunity to excel at sprint racing. Not easy. There in a better position than most other car clubs. Just one person’s pre-coffee musings:

• Introduce several power/weight classes and transition many of the lower car-count classes into these
• Allow BMWs and other car types into those classes, perhaps in conjunction with BMW-CCA. Yeah yeah, but lower car-count races are already partnering with others.
• always have an advanced DE and always make it a damn good one with pro coaches, and put your licensing THERE. Interested? attend a race in the DE and get evaluated for a provisional license there.
• Make it slightly easier to use other race licenses (for provisional PCA licenses)
• get more vendors and sponsors into the races
• livestream broadcast the races with amateur commentators
• open up spectator registration, enough to cover liability
• Oh, and kill the enduros to make room for more sprinters. Enduro may have been a valuable experience 10 years ago, but nowadays you can do it right in 5 other race series and most of us do. Focus on sprints and maybe extend some or all of them a bit.

Jas0nn

Great ideas - nice to read solutions/suggestions instead of complaints!

Nickshu

These are all excellent suggestions. For sure, IMO, the #1 thing PCA CR needs to do is wipe out all current classes and just go to a HP/Weight ratio. Max of maybe 5 classes total.

Drivers Eye Live is an amazing amateur race comminating group. They stream on Youtube.

LuigiVampa

God knows we can't have that! Look at what happened to the last guy who made a complaint.

LuigiVampa

Interesting to get rid of enduros, but if that did happen, maybe replace them with a few long format enduro only events like AER and Champ.

PCA started the vintage class a bunch of years ago with a few races. It would be cool to see at least one 6 to 8 hour PCA race as a test for the concept using existing classes.

Kein_Ersatz

Do not lose sight that the CR event "risk" is with the regions, National is always kept "whole". Marketing efforts and financial risk for a particular event are at the region level, while National remains insulated and only markets the overall program. So National has yet to "feel" the pain dealing with financial losses at the region level and isn't set up to help struggling venues/regions, but with regions after losing monies over multiple years, even after adding HPDE run groups to events or even partnering with BMW CCA, have started dropping / cutting back CR events from their calendars. PCA CR use to be a cash cow for the regions, those days are gone for most regions and have been declining for years (with no help from National). Talking with National about the concerns from the region point of view has been less than productive. They see everything as fine (probably because their budgets and perks remain intact) and continue to just fiddle and offer no assistance/incentives to regions to stick with it.

For just one simple example, want to advertise your regions CR event, the region needs to find someone with such graphics art skills to make the actual ad / flyer to be placed. Talk about failed branding... no two event adds look the same. All Le Mons ads are the same format.

PCA CR can't (won't) cater to the low end / entry of the racing market, so you have Le Mons / Champ / AER who become the ever growing entry points. Endurance racing (4+ drivers 1 "cheap" car - 12 to 16 hours of track time in a weekend) is a much more cost effective / low budget / we are in this together (and no Gray Poupon to be found in the paddock). Don't underestimate the feeling of not belonging when you show up with your modest investment in racing and you see car corrals with hostess services while you struggle to get ready for you session. Show up with a beater 924/944 to a PCA CR event and you will not feel the love or have much class competition. Show up with the same Porsche to Le Mons or Champ in the same situation, you feel part of the collective. If you do not start with PCA CR, it will be even harder to get you to switch later. No CR feeder series / strategy for the less well healed, than other race series will beckon and will retain those recruitment investments (see SM).

And over the years, HPDE drivers see how at mixed events they are the second class citizens as CR schedule takes precedent over HPDE run groups, which in itself is not an incentive for A-DE drivers to see CR in a positive light. And recruiting of volunteers to run the events is a growing challenge as the racing is not that exciting / easy to follow as a spectator.

And whatever new ideas come along, the risk is left 100% with the region, few if any will be willing to take that risk. The historic racing class efforts of late are a perfect example of am attempt left to the individuals and regions which failed to take hold as no underwriting from National to grow the program, regions can't take those losses waiting for the program to catch on / grow / succeed / "spread" across regions. That investment needs to come from National with support to grow it.

Under the current model CR requires regions to step up, there is little incentive to do so and as car counts drop, so will regions hosting events. National has offered no solution to this either.

When partnering with BMW CAA, one model is they buy the run group from the PCA region. Maybe National should keep the racer fees and "buy" the run group from the region, that way they take the risk / reward on car counts and make the call on how many run groups at an event and pay their own race costs. That eliminates the risk to the region and would laser focus National on running the Club Race program for growth and profit.

jscott82

100% agree with every one of those suggestions.... Id take any one of them individually, but taken as a group they really make sense together and should eb the roadmap for PCA...

Erik for President !!!!!!

Jared Rodeheaver

These are awesome suggestions!

While I do like the idea of the enduro 65 minutes as was the length at the Glen isn't really an enduro so either make them 90 minutes or get ride of them. Sprints could become 40-45 minutes or add more of them to get the same amount of track time.

Jas0nn

I've always thought these would be better billed/marketed as the "Feature" race ... make them longer than the rest of the sprints (under an hour, no stops) and make them worth more points ...

tgsmith4845

You make some excellent points here. There’s opportunity to start treating PCA Club Racing as a one maker series, rather than a collection of individual events put on by individual regions. And yes, PCA CR National should definitely have a stake in it. After all, racers have to join PCA to race.