The state of the OMR SCCA Solo program entering 2016

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flogger
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Joined: Fri Nov 18, 2011 8:46 am

The state of the OMR SCCA Solo program entering 2016

Post by flogger » Mon Mar 07, 2016 10:32 am

The state of the OMR SCCA Solo program is good. Very good. We held 9 events last year and grew our total number of participants to 594, an increase of 42.4%. The previous year we held 8 events instead of 9, so that accounts for 12.5% of the growth, but still, our per event average # of drivers grew from 52.13 to 66.0. Impressive.

Some of this growth was as a result of things we purposefully did, like that our venue and courses are excellent, we made minor improvements to timing and scoring equipment which significantly improved reliability ( to the point where I see it as no longer an issue at all ), the institution of our annual tech program and cross training of volunteers and increasing the head count of core participants used for the heavy lifting. During the course of the year, I heard more and more frequently from newbies that they came specifically to our regional events because they had heard from their buddies that we really had our act together and run the best autocrosses in this part of the country. Good job, everyone. We made a better mouse trap and people came.

Some outside factors beyond our control helped, too. Gas prices were low, (I sometimes forget how much of an effect that has on these sorts of things) and we had minimal scheduling conflicts with neighboring regions (although we encouraged this to happen by setting our schedule early).

I figure we're in the lower range of the sweetspot for the number of participants for our events. We actually don't want them so big that they get out of hand for the size of our region and the number of key people that we have. A little more growth would be nice, but not so much that we consistently need 3 heats and wind up exhausted when we get home after dark each and every time. We'll do what we can to nudge us along in that direction this year. Another factor is that costs, both fixed and variable, are increasing. A little increase in headcount helps delay the inevitable eventual small increase in the price we're going to have to charge. We're doing our best to put this off, but there's going to come a day where prices will have to go up to reflect our increasing costs. Inflation marches on. Still, we're the cheapest SCCA region I can find wrt Solo entry fees.

One thing new that I'll try to line up for this year is a mentor program. We tried a novice school a couple years ago, and we had about 6 students and 12 teachers show up for a full day on a Saturday. That's a lot of volunteer time for the amount of benefit created. This year, I think we'll try assigning mentees to mentors. Rather than focusing on driving skills, like the school covered, lets start with the real basics - adequate air in the tires, wearing sunscreen, proper numbering on cars, how to work a corner, how to behave in grid, all the real fundamentals and then work up to improving driving skills from there. Anyone wanting to sign up as a mentee or mentor go ahead and email me at swoosley42@gmail.com . Mentees, please give me some background info about yourselves so I can match you up well. Mentors, I know you well enough, just sign up. ;-)

Also, I'm planning on continuing the new member promotion that we did last year even though I think we only got 4 or 5 takers. I'll run it by the board this coming Tuesday night meeting. We're a small enough region that an increase in headcount by 10 (I'm roughly extrapolating out to 2 years) is pretty significant.

Anyhow, get ready - the season opener autocross is less than 2 weeks away. Early registration is going like gangbusters and the first event of the year last year was huge. We had 101 drivers - an all time region record by 10! I think something similar is shaping up again.
Scott Woosley

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