Region News

Details

Hits: 4927

BoD Report, Program Boards April 2018 - By Bob Dowie

You haven’t heard from me for a while so I thought while we all waited patiently for spring I would talk some about how the Club functions at the national level to manage the programs. Many think the BoD makes the decisions but that isn’t really how it works. We’ll look at how they work and communicate with the membership.

When it comes to running the programs like road racing, solo, rally and rally cross those responsibilities lie with committees that are charged with making the decisions necessary to assure a safe, fair and desirable activity. Each of these committees have at least two liaisons from the BoD that listen in on the committees conference call to better understand what the membership asking for and to get a feel for how the programs are serving the membership. For this discussion I’ll focus on the Club Racing and Solo Events Board as they receive the lions share of member input and I’m most familiar with them. The other boards certainly appreciate input and if you would like to share your thoughts and opinions with the program leadership please send it in.

Each of the program boards have ad hoc committees that are responsible for their particular category, in some cases there are sub committees that take on the responsibility for a particular class. When a letter is submitted on SCCA.com to either the Club Racing or Solo Events board it goes to the appropriate committee first where they will discuss the issue and collect any incoming opinions on the subject and make what they feel is the best recommendation to the program committee. These recommendations could be in the form of a Tech Bulletin; this is a change that’s effective on the first of the month that the Fastrack is dated if no other effective date is included. These changes will generally include a specification change for one vehicle usually weight, air restrictor or tire size change hopefully making the car a better fit in the class.

You’ll also see clarifications and corrections listed; maybe to add model years to a listing or to better explain a rule where there’s some confusion on the intent. Not recommended is pretty much self explanatory, the committee and board felt the suggestion wasn’t right for the class or program.

The program committees have rule season guidelines spelled out in their operations manuals that have to be observed. Items considered rule changes are listed as recommended items that will be sent to the BoD for final approval. They try to get those recommendations out in Fastrack as soon as they’re sure that’s the direction they want to take so the membership has time to comment on the recommendation before it goes before the board. It’s important that you read the Fastracks including the preliminary issue for Road Racing paying particular attention to your class, errors can happen and it’s always better to identify them sooner rather than later.

If you are interested in serving on any of these committees please send a resume of your SCCA activity to whatever program board you feel you’re suitable for, members usually serve for three to five years. If they don’t need someone now the resumes are saved for the future. Yes it’s a bit of work, but the years I spent on the GT committee and the CRB were not only enjoyable, but educational. It’s a group of folks that like the same things you do and you’re talking about cars and racing how bad can that be.

Other news on the national level have already been covered on SCCA.com or Sportscar but worth mentioning has to be the National convention in Las Vegas we had over 400 attendees about 100 more then last year. It’s impossible to get to all the seminars but I was really encouraged by the ones I did attend. The Road Rally sessions were very well attended with regions looking to reinvigorate or start rally programs. To that end there are some resources available to these regions to help them along. Like anything else it takes a champion within the region to put it together, but it’s great that we have the resources and a willing Rally board and staff supporting the program.

The Solo program was also very well represented. The Solo events board town hall was well attended with lots of good questions and comments. They talked some about the challenge of finding and or keeping sites. The new spec class for Subaru/Scion twins got a good amount of attention; I think this will be a very popular class.

It was announced that the national office will increase its efforts in regional development with the introduction of Chris Robbins as leader of those efforts. This is evidence that the current BoD acknowledges that the strength of the regions is important to the future of the club. It takes strong regions to have a strong club.

Our new president Mike Cobb was well received at the convention and did a great job with his presentations. I can safely say that everyone was encouraged by his words and we all feel the future looks good.

Bob Dowie
SCCA Area1 Directory