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It seems to be a hot button issue around here about the club operating in a way that is unacceptable to a not-small contingency of the members who have been around since before the new wave of members. I’m positive there are valid arguments to be put forth about why and how the club was significantly better “back in the day”, but it’s only been brought up in vague passing. Contrary to what has been assumed, I have no issue with the history of the club or reminiscing about good times that were had; I’ve listened to plenty of stories told by people like Art after the monthly meeting and could only imagine how fun and crazy it was back then and get a little bit jealous. I do have an issue with being satisfied with the status quo and not striving to make an effort to better the club, it’s cheap to point out that you don’t like changes that are happening and the justification is “it wasn’t done like that in past”. There are plenty of situations where not touching something that isn’t broken is the correct move to make, but the club doesn’t exist in a vacuum and things outside of the club’s control do change.
I’ve been tangentially associated with the club since 2007, but I didn’t start really participating until 2009. I graduated high school in 2006 and I checked out a rallycross at the BMW Farm when I was driving a 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback (a car I owned between August 2006 and April 2007). I think I found out about THSCC because another forum I’m on kept on mentioning “autocross” and “rallycross” and I typed in “NC autocross” into Google and THSCC was like the 3rd hit. I’m a part of the new blood. When I first started participating, we had the Old Sanford Airport as a reliable autocross site and autocross was an all-day event. There were 112 people registered for the event, there were split run groups, the course was about 56 seconds long, and we had 4 runs. I brought along a friend who lived in the same apartment complex and I read the website to make sure that I had everything that I needed (including some bitchin’ Falken Azenis RT-615s which will now be referred to as “an awful excuse for a summer tire”). The only person I remember talking to outside of my friend and the worker coordinator was Mike Miller. He managed to squeeze into an NA Miata with the hardtop on; it was as impressive as it sounds. Overall, it was an alienating experience to someone who doesn’t go out of their way to talk to strangers and is fresh out of high school. We had 21 novices or 18.75% of the participants.
Last Sunday (November 16, 2014), we had an autocross at the, much smaller than Old Sanford Airport, Danville Regional Airport. Outside of it being cold as balls, we only had something like 29 people pre-registered on Tuesday; this jumped up to 60+ by Friday evening. We had 84 participants, the course was about 45 seconds long, we had 6 runs, and the bus was packed by 4pm. It was a typical “modern” THSCC autocross. We had Rob Lupella and Jennifer Vance act as the Novice Coordinators and pretty much every novice car had an experienced driver ride with them. Karl Schultz wasn’t wearing a fire suit, but someone else did, so close ‘nuff. I’d say it was a slightly friendlier atmosphere. We had 11 novices or 13% of the participants.
What has changed in the past 10 years? Well, there was a massive recession for starters, even though the Triangle is fairly resilient compared to the rest of the state. Facebook has gone from a college exclusive service to something that opened up to high schools and then later 100% open worldwide. There has been 10 years of the same Miata model and German car manufacturers have moved on from faulty window regulators to high pressure fuel pumps. Between Cash for Clunkers and Lemons/Chump Car, there are significantly less questionable used death traps available for purchase.
What else has changed in the past 10 years? People have started families. People have graduated college with a used NSX’s amount of unforgiveable loans. People have moved out of the Triangle and Eastern NC on terms that may or may not have been on the terms that they wanted. Amazon Prime has eliminated any reason to leave the house. The club has access to significantly less sites, and the one’s we have left are further away. The club has moved to Motorsport Reg for pre-registration for all of our events.
The website hasn’t changed and we still don’t have an awning, though.
A major point of contention recently has been around the (mis)handling of things that were posted on Facebook. I will not deny my part in throwing fuel into the fire and not being terribly constructive. It’s an ugly event and many regrettable things were said. Ultimately though, the club has much more at stake to lose by having questionable content on such a public space and potential customers are liable to be alienated. The front page of THSCC, the Facebook page, and MSR should put the club’s best foot forward with an emphasis on things that are going to be happening (like events… or an awning).
Saying things were better “back in the day” is shallow and cuts deep against the scenario that the club is in. We don’t have the Old Sanford Airport site, we don’t have the RBC Center Night Series, we don’t have road rallies like we used to, we don’t have 2 dates at CMP every year, and there have been zero social events outside of the monthly meeting at Randy’s and the Christmas Party. The only social event I’ve been to was a small picnic with car costumes and gimmicks for prizes; that was back when the Miata was fairly reliable, so it was probably 2009. Many people are busy and seeing attendance drop is mostly out of the club’s area of influence. What the club has done though in response is to respect people’s time and make our events more visible. Autocross events pack up pretty early with a significant number of runs. Instead of having someone do the payment processing (for free) for pre-registrations, we have a 3rd party vendor handle it. The first few months of moving everything to MSR saw a massive uptick of member applications because we made our presence online that much bigger. There’s nothing wrong about reminiscing about the good times that were had, but outside of a time machine, there’s no way to have things go back to the way that things were. When you argue for the status quo, you’re arguing for stagnation. If the club had stagnated, the chances of seeing a 50th anniversary would have dropped.
Volunteers have it rough: the pay is garbage and everyone’s a critic. As a club, we’re thinking about rolling out our timing software because AXWare is being aggressively regressive. That’s out of our control and we’re trying to make lemonade out of it because we have something that other clubs don’t: Instant Autocross Results being beamed wirelessly (albeit, it’s only a small radius) to people’s phones. I feel simultaneously grateful and spoiled because I decided to start doing track days with THSCC; it’s the worst type of comedy when you attend other club’s events and the management is boasting how they’re all about safety and there are multiple incidents within the paddock. THSCC runs a really tight ship, the classroom instructors and in-car instructors are fantastic. The rallycross program was kind of touch-and-go for a while, but they managed to put 8 events on the calendar before the autocross program had 4 this year.
Talk is cheap. It’s really easy to point out that something should be done and then immediately complain when something is being done. I’m not advocating for censorship or clauses where you’re not allowed to say something if you’re not actively doing something in/for the club, but be constructive. It’s OK to disagree on things, but keep it constructive.
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