FAST Classic Events -- Your Thoughts

[Loren]

We've been doing Classic events since January. By this time tomorrow, we'll have done a total of 5 of them. We've been experimenting with different ideas and different formats. But, all events have had the same basic "3 run-group" core and the goals of not starting too early; not putting a lot of time into novice-related stuff (course walks, driver's meeting, etc); enjoying a good course, good people and good lunch; and getting done early.

We started with a typical Brooksville course. (9 runs on a 42-second course)
We did a course + skidpad/figure 8. (6-8 runs on a 44-second course, plus lots of skidpad time)
We did a course + practice slalom. (6+ runs on a 41-second course, plus lots of slalom practice)
We did a really fun rain event. (8 runs on a 33-second wet course)
We did a long course event. (5+ runs on a ???-second course)

Overall, I think we've satisfied the intent of the series: Casual events that provide a lot of seat time without requiring us to get up too early, work too hard, or stay too late. We'd like to see slightly better or more consistent attendance, but we expect that will come in time as we pin down the format and people know what to expect.

We've made a mistake or two, which made some events run less smoothly than they should have... and we've learned from them. So, let's not waste a lot of time rehashing that. Otherwise... to help us decide how to proceed with future "Classic" events, we'd like your input. What do you like? What don't you like? What do YOU want the FAST Classic series of events to be? If you WANTED to attend more of these events than you were able to, go ahead and vote and share your thoughts. Your opinion matters!

Vote. Discuss.

[Loren]

BTW, this poll is set up to allow you to change your voting. It's open for 10 days.

[Native]

And the input we get will be used as we determine next year's schedule, something we are starting to look at now. So do please chime in!

[twistedwankel]

Overall, I think we've satisfied the intent of the series: Casual events that provide a lot of seat time without requiring us to get up too early, work too hard, or stay too late. We'd like to see slightly better or more consistent attendance, but we expect that will come in time as we pin down the format and people know what to expect.
Vote. Discuss.

Yes you did. I think you've covered all the various scenarios in your poll. I personally voted for several points I think are well stated. Realistically I probably won't attend more than 1/2 these as other events will interfere with plans AND I don't want to buy more than one set of tires/season/car.

Hmmmm? Now if I used that set of mounted 225's with 300AS performance rating for Classic events occassionally? Not crazy about changing tires often but this idea has merit for me to use up those nearly new tires on a shelf. These are the type of tires I ran initialy when I started racing again for a couple seasons. Run one car in the Classics and one in the FAST Points events with sticky tires so I don't have to change tires very often. Hmmmm.

[Rosko]

I did not see an appropriate item to check.

I've only been to one classic event. I would've gone to more, but the part that I cannot get past is the nearly $50 price of admission. I have not been autocrossing as long as some, but the $25 entry fee is pretty clear in my memory less than 10 years ago.

If one attended both FAST events, the total price of admission would be about 85 clams. Unfortunately, Google still won't answer my requests for sponsorship.

[Native]

Thanks, Chuck.
What we can take from that, if I may paraphrase, is Classics = yay! Classic price = boo!
Is that a fair summary?

[Bodyrollin]

Personally I don't know that my opinion counts since I don't really run these events, but in my opinion, you should do this: with these "classic events" in which only "experienced" drivers are allowed...call them "pro" events, and have a second championship...so you have all your regular championships, and award like "rookie of the year" etc...but run these "classics" and call it "pro" and have a separate FAST pro championship...run the pro events off of legit SCCA classes, and lump every driver in to one single class, apply the PAX index and let that time determine finish position, so all drivers in one class (like the expert class in SCCA, or X class) not only will this make people interested in running each one, but it will make them want to compete for a single championship, that at the end of the season only 1 person can win...

[Loren]

We've had similar notions to that, Chris. Doing a "pro series" was one of the ideas we had from the beginning, but for various reasons, we decided to keep it casual. Our main concern (back in December, before we'd ever even done the first Classic event) was that making the Classics a "competition series" might take away from our regular series. We don't really want to do that. But, if enough people are interested in "competing", we may try to incorporate some sort of "pro level" competition into it.

[Loren]

I did not see an appropriate item to check.

The item you were looking for was the next-to-last one. The only way we can lower the entry fee is to allow more entries, and we're not likely to get enough entries without opening entry to anyone. In short, it would change most of the "flavor" of the events. Most of what we think makes the events "special", "different" or otherwise attractive to people would be erased by adding more cars and making them more like a regular FAST Championship event.

I've only been to one classic event. I would've gone to more, but the part that I cannot get past is the nearly $50 price of admission. I have not been autocrossing as long as some, but the $25 entry fee is pretty clear in my memory less than 10 years ago.

And, I hear ya, man... $45 is a lot to me. Hell, so is $35. it's a by-product of being "middle-aged". You start getting into that mindset of "things didn't used to cost so damned much". The first year that I autocrossed (1995), entry fees were $10. The next year, they went up to $15. When I moved here in 2002, where autocross sites are expensive (5 of the 6 sites we used when I was in KS were either free or ridiculously cheap!), entry fees were in the $20-25 range. Lunch was not normally included lunch back then, either.

We knew from the start that charging $45 for the Classic events wouldn't fly with everyone either due to actual budget constraints, or just the perception that "that's almost $50 and it's a lot of money". Starting out, we had NO IDEA how many people would attend these events, but we knew it would be significantly less than our regular events no matter what the entry fee was for a lot of reasons. (some people only want to do the competition series, some can't afford more entry fees, some can't afford to use up more tires and expendables, some don't want to spend another weekend day away from family, and some just plain don't have time) We have to budget for the worst case. We figured worst case for our budget purposes was 30 entries at SPC, which would just barely break even with a $45 entry fee. (we lost out butts on the last Classic at SPC with 17 drivers)

We struggled with the idea of putting on events for $45, but a few things pushed us over the line. First... the year that we were part of "NASA Florida", our regular event entry fees were $40. That was 8 years ago! Nobody batted an eye at that, it was a very healthy year. But, as soon as we ditched NASA, we cut back to what became our standard $30 entry fee. Then there's what other clubs are doing. Most other clubs in the area charge $30-35 for a regular event, as do we. SCCA even requires membership, which runs about $85/year last I checked. (and you can talk about the other perks of being a member and all that... but it still amounts to $7/mo... and if you do 12 events in a year, that's $7 you need to add to each SCCA event entry fee to get an accurate comparison to FAST)

The biggest hurdle for me was coming to grips with the fact (really, this IS a fact) that $50 really isn't all that much money any more. When you and I were teens back in the 80's, if we had $20 in our pocket, we could buy a tank of gas, go to a movie, grab a burger at McDonald's and still have some change. Today, if you have $50 in your pocket, and you drive a MIATA, a tank of gas costs you $40 (it costs me $60 to fill my S10). If you catch a matinee, you might still get in a movie... but you won't have enough money left to buy a Big Mac, that's for sure! $50 is the new $20! That's the harsh reality. (And as much as people gripe about the minimum wage... it jives with that... it was $3.35 in 1984... it's $7.93 now. That's a 236% increase. Going by that... twenty 1984 dollars is $47 today... and a lot of people say that the minimum wage needs to be higher.)

Whether you think $45 is "a lot" or not, it is more than our standard event entry fee (because it has to be, as mentioned above). We like to think that we're offering a "premium event" for that "premium price". It's not just an event that "might be" small, it's guaranteed to have no more than 60 entries (and we're leaning toward making that 45 or 50). It's not just an event that you "might" get 5 minutes of seat time at. You can count on something like 8 runs on a 40-second course, or like yesterday, 5 runs on a 60-second course. It's an event where you don't have to sit through a 25-minute driver's meeting or wait for a novice walk to happen, or have a bunch of first-timers working course, because it's restricted to drivers with some experience. It's not an event that "might" be well-run, everyone knows that FAST tries to run the smoothest events possible. And all Classic events include lunch and take just a little over half of your day (6 hours... 8am-2pm) to deliver all of that.

Even if you JUST look at seat time: At a standard FAST Championship event, because we have 90-100 drivers, you'll get 4-5 runs on about a 30-45 second course. At a FAST Classic, we try to give you the equivalent of 8 runs on a 45-second course or more. So, best case, 5 runs at a regular event at $35 = $7/run. If we give you 8 runs at a Classic, it should be worth $56. $45 is a bargain if you look at it that way.

But, if enough people scream "let more people in, give us fewer runs, and lower the entry fee"... we'll listen! That's why this poll and this thread are here. So far, the most obvious thing I'm seeing from the poll is "give me seat time!", which is one of the things I expected.

If one attended both FAST events, the total price of admission would be about 85 clams. Unfortunately, Google still won't answer my requests for sponsorship.

If we made both events in a given month "regular events" with a $35 entry fee, the total would be $70. As it is, that total is $80. (the difference in CC fees is negligible, you're gonna pay them anyway) So, if you want to spread it out over 2 events per month, you're still only talking about a difference of $10... or an average of just $5 per event.

Sorry for the rambling.

[BrilloHeadBen]

I personally like the classic events just the way they are and I'd actually be less inclined to attend a second points series, especially one aimed at the much more serious and experienced autocrosser.

[puncturina]

Never thought I would see an economics lecture in this forum...

But, sad to say, inflation continues to nibble away at our buying power, while most of us are stuck with stagnant earnings.

[Loren]

I know, sorry. Since I, myself, had (am having) such a hard time coming to grips with the value of a dollar vs. my PERCEPTION of the value of a dollar, I thought it was worth a little discussion.

[Loren]

Ben, I hear ya. If we do make a "pro series", it won't in any way change what we're doing with the events. They'd still be run the same way, we'd just be adding season awards to it for those who care to chase them. There are a lot of ways we could go about it.

[shakedown067]

I enjoy the classic events as is. They are great as a test and tune, plus you get plenty of chill and chat time. They are also a bonus if you can't make a points event so you can still get your monthly seat time. Super bonus if you get to make both the classic and points events.

[Solar]

But, sad to say, inflation continues to nibble away at our buying power, while most of us are stuck with stagnant earnings.

I agree ! In the last 7 years not only hasn't my salary gone up, but it's actually gone down, no lie. Though I do get to work from home most of the time, so I save on gas and wear and tear on my car. I have finally come to terms with the cost of auto crossing, I know that the corvette and BMW clubs charge $40 for non members so it's not just FAST.

Okay, now back to topic, I agree with Ben's comment about keeping it a non points type of event. The classic events need to stay laid back, at a few passed classic events you could run as much as you wanted when you weren't working. I'm sure we might have that option again in the future, but if we made it a points event we couldn't do that because we would be limited to a certain number of runs to keep it even.

[Loren]

Negative, sir. If it becomes "competition", then only the first x runs will count toward competition. Anything beyond that would be practice. It would in NO WAY limit the number of runs we took! (being a "pro" series, we'd probably say that the first 4 runs were competition... the SCCA guys always say if you can't do it in 3, what's the point?)

As I said before, the "pro series" aspect would almost be a side-line to what's already happening. Almost like a side-wager, but a bit more organized.

[jbrannon7]

But, sad to say, inflation continues to nibble away at our buying power, while most of us are stuck with stagnant earnings.

I agree ! In the last 7 years not only hasn't my salary gone up, but it's actually gone down, no lie. Though I do get to work from home most of the time, so I save on gas and wear and tear on my car. I have finally come to terms with the cost of auto crossing, I know that the corvette and BMW clubs charge $40 for non members so it's not just FAST.

Okay, now back to topic, I agree with Ben's comment about keeping it a non points type of event. The classic events need to stay laid back, at a few passed classic events you could run as much as you wanted when you weren't working. I'm sure we might have that option again in the future, but if we made it a points event we couldn't do that because we would be limited to a certain number of runs to keep it even.

I am in the same boat, the "company" keeps finding ways to reduce my total compensation while increasing my contributions to health care. I have some retired friends that complain about being on a fixed income, I wish, I am on a diminishing income.

Joe

[RedBRZ80]

Would love a PAX pro series, one event every other month or so. I'd sign up for a season of that. The blessing and the curse of living where we do is that there are so many different clubs running. I run as much as I can, but not enough in any ONE club to qualify for points. Maybe in 2015 I need a plan..

[Loren]

For those of you not paying attention: The FAST "2015" competition season begins in September.

[Dave]

My issue is not the money, but the time. Like most, I love all the seat time I can get, but unfortunately, the ins and outs of daily life, and maintaining a family and home restricts the monthly time allotted for my racing activities. I support continuing these particular events if possible, but due to time and distance, only the occasional SPC "classic" events for me.

And if the "classic" events continue, I'm for just maintaining the "run for fun" aspect. As evident from many of the previous posts, money is an issue, and a second points series not only increases our racing budget, then those that also take their position serious have the additional competitive mental strain as well.