THSCC Forums

Now that the smoke has cleared, perhaps we can exchange opinions without having the thread locked. This should have been done prior to this years rules change IMHO. So perhaps an exchange of Ideas/opinions may facilitate a new change. Here's my take on the subject

Here are the five points Jim Feinberg stated in the spirit of the Club Cup.

What I would like to know is how the change in rules achieves any of these five points??


1. Have fun!!! Let’s face it, none of us are getting paid to do this.

2. It should provide an incentive for everybody to come out and represent their club in the biggest event of the year in NC. Everybody should show some pride in their club and want to play whether or not they think they have a chance to take home a trophy.

3. It should allow everybody in the various clubs to get out of their own sandbox and experience something different. Who knows, it may motivate people to travel to other clubs on a regular basis and show that we are all the same even if we do things a little differently.

4. It should raise the “game” of everybody in the state fostering better competition across the board. Let’s show some pride in our state and quit all this club to club bickering. We have some awesome drivers in this state so let’s work towards making *all* of us better. Is there anybody out there who doesn’t want to become a better driver? I didn’t think so…

5. It should reward individual members of the clubs with a greater sense of accomplishment than competing for their local trophies. While local trophies are great and all and I’m in no way trying to diminish their value, let’s try to focus on a bigger picture for a change.

This is my take on how the rules changes have effected me.

1. Have fun!!! Let’s face it, none of us are getting paid to do this.
( I had more enjoyment when I was involved in competing for the cup, watching our ten best drivers race for the cup just doesn’t do it for me. I certainly wouldn’t drive to an event to watch someone else auto-x.)
2. It should provide an incentive for everybody to come out and represent their club in the biggest event of the year in NC. Everybody should show some pride in their club and want to play whether or not they think they have a chance to take home a trophy. (I certainly wouldn’t drive to an event to watch someone else autocross. Representing the club means participation, the new rules have effectively cut fifty some odd members of the three major clubs from being a part of the Cup competition. That does not strike me as providing incentive.)
3. It should allow everybody in the various clubs to get out of their own sandbox and experience something different. Who knows, it may motivate people to travel to other clubs on a regular basis and show that we are all the same even if we do things a little differently.
( I don’t see how eliminating fifty some odd people from competing, more folks than some clubs had in attendance last year, will provide motivation for people to travel to other clubs. Anyone care to explain that to me???)
4. It should raise the “game” of everybody in the state fostering better competition across the board (Again I don’t see how reducing the number of competitors from, 109 in 2006 to fifty or so in 2007 will accomplish that. If anything it reduces it.)
5. It should reward individual members of the clubs with a greater sense of accomplishment than competing for their local trophies. (I don’t see that happening with this scenario either.I certainly felt a lesser sense of accomplishment with the new rules.The only ones to feel a sense of accomplishment are the the thirteen folks from our club that won the Cup. Anyone care to explain where the sense of accomplishment is for those not in the top ten????)

So in effect we have reduced the number of people competing for the Club Cup from 109 to less than sixty, to appease smaller clubs, and in the process eliminated almost as many people as the largest club had in attendance this year. Does this make sense to anybody???? If it does please explain it to me cause I’m lost. This makes absolutely no sense what so ever to me. If you can explain it please show how each of the originating five goals are being met!!!

I am aware that the argument is, we retained the cup, so what’s the problem. But think about this, the NCAC was held in our own backyard so to speak, and in Triads also, and attendance was down. Weather for sure was a deterrent, but I don’t think the new Cup rules enticed anyone to attend.
I believe that the more folks you involve the more will come, no one comes to these things to spectate. I believe there are better ways to level the field and still accomplish the ORIGINAL GOALS that Jim Feinberg published last year.

Did your keyboard break right as you began typing your proposal

Seriouisly, the attendance was higher the last few years because we made it a points event (at least THSCC). There was significant demand from our membership not to do that anymore.

Based on the LACK of complaining about this year's club clup rules, I'm inclined to believe that they are about as good as we can get. We're never going to satisfy everyone.

Honestly, I think we are getting as close as we can for a fair ruleset, and if we can't pull it off as it is, then maybe it's time to get rid of the club cup, not all experiments are sucessful.

I think a Tarheel-Triad challenge might be received a little better by the membership of both clubs, and could be a whole lot of fun. A 2 day event at one of the common sites, with one club doing day 1 the other doing day 2, got to run both days to score cup points. Leave the individual competition and bragging rights for the NCAC.

Scott

Move the event to October.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.

I think Bernie is missing a couple key points. First, it doesn't matter what you think about Club Cup rules since it's the hosting club that gets to make them up. So in essence your vote only counts in the year TH is hosting it, or you can go join the other clubs too. I'm not saying we couldn't try to get all four clubs to agree on some standard rules, and if you want to do that, fine. But that's a slightly different discussion. Not giving you a hard time here, just pointing out that you might need to be attacking the perceived problem from a slightly different angle.

Second, I don't think it's fair to tie attendance to the Club Cup rules. I doubt seriously that the fact that the Club Cup catered to smaller clubs caused a lot of TH people to not show. They may have been borderline and cited that, but if they had *really* wanted to race they would have raced. It was weather, timing, fear of the fact that it might be disorganized, etc, that did it (and likely other things, too).

My own opinion is that the rules *should* be taylored such that the smallest club still has a chance of winning. They were this time, and Highlands still came in last. If you look at the list of drivers from each club, I believe that drivers with top talent and cars carried the best clubs to the best spots. So what was wrong with it being skewed toward making sure the smallest club at least had a chance? If your answer is because more TH folks feel like they then have less of a chance of "helping", well, the answer is clear...they need to get better! Do you want to be a big fish in a small pond, or a big fish in a big pond? I don't think it's unreasonable to make part of the "competition" be within TH to *be* one of those scored spots. That's basically what people are shooting for in the "Top Pax" and "Top Raw" categories anyway. Some will make it in that top ten or whatever, and some won't. I don't see it as a huge deal to change it to top twenty or thirty, personally.


--Donnie

Drop the cup!

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In need of car.

It was not many years ago that THSCC wanted to pull out of the NCAC. I remember those days cause I was and still am a champion of the cause for the NCAC. The NCAC always served as good first step to gauge your ability against competition outside of your local club. Plus it provided a nice opportunity to meet other AX competitors in the state. That serves you well if and when you decide to step up to divisional or the national level. There is nothing better than traveling 6-10 hours and seeing some familiar faces.

As for my take on the NCAC; first and foremost, it is an individual award. You have an opportunity to become the state champion for a year. It used to be a lot more difficult to become the champion. Now, it is a one shot deal.

As for the cup, it is one of the dumbest ideas out there. It has generated more animosity in the past two years than NCAC has generated over the nine years I have been doing AX.

If the cup continues, then the current scoring was pretty good. Geez, the final scores were pretty darn close. Should a 20th place driver who finished 3rd in their class have any impact on the cup...hell no. They are not even a state champion. I think only winners should qualify to score points toward the cup.

No offense to Bernie, but if the cup is important to you. Then work your butt off to become a top 10 driver. Set that as your goal for 2008.

As for the cup rules impacting participation, I doubt it had any impact. As stated above, there were other variables involved. Add to the fact the general decline in participation over the past few years.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

All your answers are well meant and intentioned but none of you answered the question I asked... How did this years rules change enhance any of the five points that were the reason for fostering a club cup in the first place.
Everyone that responded missed the point, and that includes you too Donnie. Having only the best of the best DOES NOT foster more participation And that is the point.

Bernie, if there wasn't a Cup, would you still have participated?

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

I think we've lost sight of why I outlined those points in the first place. Keep in mind that what I wrote was never intended to be THE guide to the cup-- it was more intended to foster discussion regarding how we could make the NCAC relevant again. It was simply my opinion on the subject but somehow it morphed into the basis upon which a lot of people felt the cup was established. While most of you don't know me very well, if anything at this point, you should know I tend to have "unique" opinions on various subjects good, bad or indifferent.

So what was the original goal? In my little pea brain, it was to simply increase participation in the NCAC. Without rehashing the history related to how the NCAC became one single event, I tend to think the last 4 years have been fairly successful. Granted, we've had a few bumps along the road but by in large, attendance has increased every year since we started the single event format with the exception of this year. I don't think it's Highlands fault that this year's attendance was down as they had to deal with a lot of issues that were beyond their control.

Instead of bickering about the format of the Club Cup, I think the clubs need to take a step back and revisit the entire NCAC format going forward. Do we continue the single event format? Do we go back to multiple events? If we keep the single event format, can we do more to help the "host" club as a whole? How can we *all* work together to make the individual club's members more inclined to participate in the event(s) each year? Stuff like that...

I have some strong opinions on the subject but rather than bore everybody with them, I think it would be best if each club's current officers decided how we want to proceed and go from there. Perhaps we should form a new committee appointed by the officers from each club as was done in the past to take some of the burden off of them? I know we won't make everybody happy all the time but I don't see any reason why we can't make a majority feel comfortable with the direction the NCAC is headed whatever that may be.

All I know at this point is that I look forward to participating in the event every year. I also enjoy seeing people who don't normally interact/compete with each other have a chance to do so. Despite some of the logistical issues, the majority of the people I've talked to seem to feel the same way. I tend to think that is a good thing.

The Club Cup may not have met its original goals (whatever they were) but it definitely sparked some discussion regarding participation and it certainly seemed to raise awareness of the NCAC itself. I look at that as a positive as well.

Jim

Do you mean way back when there were prizes and stuff? That in itself was a major incentive for people to travel but once that went away, so did "most people".

In the few years immediately preceding the single event format, it was *much* easier to become the champion in my mind. It became a "participation award" since few people were willing to travel to all the other clubs in the state throughout the year to follow the series. And when you did follow the series, the competition was often limited to whatever locals happened to be there and, no offense to the "locals", but it usually wasn't that hard to beat them. At the very least, even if you didn't win all the individual events, you could simply become champion on a "law of averages" type of situation.

If you mean that is was harder to win because you *had* to travel around, I can buy that argument a little better. But that still doesn't address the fact that at most of the events, the competition was watered down.

Since we've gone to the single event format, I think it has been much harder to win a typical class. Sure, some of the classes are still lightly attended but it's hard to argue that you haven't accomplished something when the likes of Eric Peterson, Jinx Jordan, Goeff Zimmer, Steven Rankins, Scott Sawyer or a host of other "fast guys" are in your class.

Jim

Here is an idea so that those people who either don't have the skill level or the equipment to be at the top of PAX can help influence the cup outcome. Add points for some random element such as who had the biggest bar tab on Saturday night. Or perhaps a Big wheel race.

I personally looked forward to two day events because there was usually either an organized party or at least people gathering around the pool to socailize when the pressure of getting your runs right was over for the day. Back then we also helped equalize the competition by making sure our compeditor's glass was kept full of beer.

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George Bright Member # 141
One of the youngest of the old farts.
Yes I voted against you joining the club.

Story time with Randy by the pool in Danville FTW!!!!

That night was my brother's introduction to Randy Melton. It is amazing what first impressions can do!!!

I haven't laughed so hard since!!!!

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

What I find really interesting and funny about this "5 points for going to the NCAC". If you wouldn't have said "Club Cup". I would see those 5 points actually are the reasons you should attend on a personal level for individual competition.

The Club Cup, if it is kept, should be nothing more than a secondary idea since there will never be a set of rules that makes everyone happy.

The small clubs will always want some kind of weighted system so they are not simply beat by quantity for this Club Cup. Funny thing is they are out gunned in many individual classes in the same way but no one complains about that. Seems this Club Cup has caused more discussion about NCAC, but not in a good way.

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http://www.greywinds.com

Call me crazy but I think I just said that.



I disagree to a point. Not everything was positive but, if anything, it raised awareness about the NCAC. A lot of people didn't even know it existed and a good portion of those that did, didn't care.

While we may have people pissing and moaning about every little detail, at least it shows they care about the event. If we can find a way to get something constructive out of it, all the better...

Jim

Sorry Jim I must have missed that in your response. Either that or this Darvocet stuff is better than I thought...




Other than some Novices in each club the majority of the people know what NCAC is. If this Club Cup has increased awareness to the point you can get dedicated volunteers to make a real NCAC staff then great. Otherwise it is just something else to argue about on each club forum. It's easy to get on here and say how it should be done. Get a handful of people from each club to actually manage it, a different story... It's hard enough for each club just to get staff to run the respective clubs.

I really do hope this thing moves forward. I agree with the idea that it becomes a higher level of competition. Instead of just your club it's anyone in the state. So for anyone who trophied at this event (except a class of 1) you have an accomplishment. Whether you are 1 of the "Magnificent 10" or not.

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http://www.greywinds.com