THSCC Forums

I think you might be surprised but I could be wrong. I do think the awareness is a lot higher with each club having a forum at this point. I also think there are quite a number of people that are vaguely aware of the event but don't think it is for them. Some people don't think they are ready for it which is fine but part of the goal was to change that perception-- it is for *everybody*.

Another part of the idea I had for the Cup is that even if you didn't feel like you could win your individual class, you might show up if you felt like you could contribute to your club winning something. Those people might find they surprise themselves and are more competitive than they think. Or they might find that they now have a better measuring stick and will strive to get better in the future.

Perhaps there is no way to fairly do that with the "Cup" and it was a bad idea to begin with but at least we were willing to try *something*. I'd love to hear some other ideas regarding bolstering participation if anybody has some. I'm certainly not the most creative person but it seems like with the collective brain power within NC, we can come up with some decent ideas.

Heck, even with the current format and issues, we've had a very strong turnout for the single event format. It peaked with ~174 competitors last year and I don't see any reason we can't see something like that next year.



We've done something like that on a small scale in the past when the Cup wasn't even in the picture. Also, it's not like the Cup was a unique idea. It has been batted about as long as I've been running the NCAC but there was never anything concrete.

Besides, arguing is what auto-x'ers do best. PAX? ST* rule set? Race tires -vs- Street tires? Cheater cars/tires? Carolina -vs- State -vs- Dook? It's all good!



Agreed 100%. Now that my health isn't so much of an issue anymore, I'd be willing to do what I can.

It seems like the perfect time to revisit everything since the event has now completed the cycle between the member clubs. Or we could just stand pat and argue about it next year at this time.

Jim

Had I known then what I know now, NO. Brian Guinn went home Saturday am leaving me no one to run against. So I sweated my a$$ off for nothing. The heat affected me so much I couldn't hit the a$$ I just sweated off with either one of my hands. However if me getting a placement would have influenced the club cup I would have attended.

I like the idea of having this in October. I also think the large vs small club issue is easily resolved. Take the average attendance for each club for the year, divide that into the attendance that the club has in the NCAC. Make that the pax multiplier for that club cup points. As an example if throughout the year you have 120 average attendance and for the NCAC you have 60 then your multiplier is .5, or half the total points. That forces attendance, and each person attending makes a difference in how many points your club amasses. If taking the top ten raw and top ten pax is the method every one feels is fair then so be it, but calculating a pax to multiply the total points by should encourage more attendance.
Just a thought.

Do it like some road racing programs - rewards weight !

In all the talk about how negative the Club Cup was this year, nobody has mentioned the huge positive of the prep event that was put on the week before. Maybe not a positive in terms of the competition itself, but certainly part of the whole scheme of things and the atmosphere of the fast guys helping out everyone else in the club.

Here's an idea - work the score out based on percentages of the club participation. Maybe the top half or top third? Best average Raw+Best average PAX. Minimum number or participants required for each club (so you couldn't work it where one or two really fast drivers were all that counts). Even if you are lower in the overall order your times become more important.

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How about focusing the effort that has been put into this club cup towards obtaining (and keeping) large sponsors. The type that would hand out jackets to the class winners.

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I can't help but draw an analogy to the debate of small states vs big states when deciding how to run congress in the US. The solution THEY came up with: a hybrid of the two. Perhaps its a useless analogy, just thought I'd mention it. Frankly, I have no opinion on the matter, cuz I don't like crowded autocrosses. . .

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I was honestly thinking about the same thing for the past several weeks. Of course, this begat the 3/5ths compromise which has led to bitching and moaning a couple of hundred years later too.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

While your idea has tons of merit with regard to the killer heat we had this year, I think you'd see less "big dogs" interested in running the event if you moved it past Nationals. Assuming it is held at a decent site, the NCAC is a great warm up for Nationals and for some of the people heading to Topeka, the season is effectively over in October. Or at the very least, it is much lower on the priority pole.

Hmmm "Priority Pole"? That really doesn't sound right for some reason.



That sounds reasonable on the surface but I'm too tired at the moment to give it serious thought. Thanks for throwing out ideas!

Jim

What about everybody else? To me, one of the main ideas is to bring people out even if they don't feel like they have a chance to win their class.

And I don't know about everybody else, but the last thing I want to wear at ~95% of the auto-x's I attend is a jacket. Heck, I have a couple of SE Div championship jackets and I'm not even sure where they are at the moment.

Just playing devil's advocate...

On the other hand, I do know where all my "refrigerator magnet" trophies from THSCC events are.

I do think it would be great to have sponsors that make some sort of meaningful contribution, however. Considering some of the stuff we saw at the Jimmy V event this year, it sure seems like a no-brainer given that we are theoretically reaching people from all over the state.

Jim

BTW, I don't think we have to worry about keeping the Cup next year anyway. CCR is faster than us and with better support from their members for their "home rotation", we should just go ahead an engrave the plaque with their name. It should be fairly obvious since one of their members took FTD and all.

That is unless we're scared and just kill the Cup altogether...



Jim

• Class competition should continue to be the #1 priority of NCAC. I would be much happier to win my class than say I helped my club win the Club Cup. Things such as Club Cup, top PAX, top RAW, repeat class winners, etc. should be celebrated but not be as big as deal as class winners.
• I am fine with something like a Club Cup and think it should continue, but it should stand on it’s own and not exist as a way to get people to participate.
• NCAC should have stable rules from year to year (I generally agree with Jim in that this should be part of broader discussions about what NCAC is to be in the future). And in general all of this discussion means nothing. The only way to solve these problems is to hope that this exists as an information gathering exercise for our NCAC representative.
• NCAC is a first and foremost a North Carolina championship. It should not be scheduled to act as a warm up event for Nationals “at the expense of making it a better event by having it at a different time of the year”. So for example if more people would attend or have a better time by having it later in the year (even at the expense of some people stay away), then I say do it. It may be a way to entice people to “eventually” go to Nationals. I am guessing that those that will go to Nationals in a given year are a minority. You are optimizing for the wrong group of people.

I love giving my opinion. Especially for something I have yet to attend! I do plan to do after my sabbatical (when the 914 is done)

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You mean those who don't bring home 1st place at the "championship". I don't see the problem. What about all those people who didn't help bring home the club cup? Their names aren't floating around on top ten lists posted all over the local forums. Those poor guys/gals, they must feel terrible. I'd be especially pissed, if I were one of the drivers who was number 11 for THSCC and faster then some of the people on one of the other lists. If I ever get motivated to attend one of these again, I'm going to cherry pick clubs to increase my chance of getting on a top ten list!

IMO, it's a championship event. The GOAL should be to get first place in your class.

If there were no club cub, we might be discussing ways to get major sponsors. Maybe one of those sponsors would have a better prize idea since no one's interested in a jacket.

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In need of car.

Fair enough. You bring up some very good points.

I see it as optimizing for competition. If some of the best competitors stay away due to scheduling, is that not watering down the competition?

Playing DA again, are we then optimizing it for people that don't like standing out in the heat? If we schedule it later in the year, are we not going to have an event in August anyway? Have we ever really worried about scheduling events because it might be too hot? Taking it one step further, do we try and avoid 2-day events in the middle of summer because it might be too hot?

I remember the last event in Rocky Mount which happened to be a 2-day event being rather hot. I had the turbo Miata at the time and I remember it being so hot that I had to find some ice water to cool the metal shift knob down so I could actually touch it. The black leather seats weren't that much fun, either. But the event sure was...

That's another reason I think Greensboro is a great place to hold the event. There is plenty of shade and you can actually get some relief by ducking into the coliseum and soaking up a bit of A/C.

If we move it earlier in the year, are people really prepared to compete at their best? Does anybody really have their car sorted out early in the season? I guess if you don't tend to change things from year to year then that is the case but I'm thinking those people are in the minority as well. I could be off base on that one but I'm think most people tend to tinker early in the year and then stabilize later in the year.

Jim

I never said that this year's points system encouraged participation. I was simply relating thoughts from some of the early planning meetings where we decided to go to the single event format.

At that time, interest in the entire series was waning and one of the main stated goals was to try and increase participation. We are always going to have a relatively fixed number of champions with a slightly larger pool of people fighting for the top positions.

Given that, is there anything we can do to entice others to show up and feel like they are participating beyond just sweating a lot? Maybe that isn't a worthwhile goal? I don't know.

Jim

Why bother doing that and waste the plaques that Stephen has already made (and had in his pocket for the trophy presentation)?

If they want some, bring it. I hear that they're discussing best three out of five rock-paper-scissors contests for the cup, and I need to start practicing.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Well as invincible as you seem to think we are, if they truly did "bring it" and the Bowlands showed up with their AM car, it wouldn't matter much what we did. Heck, with the current points system being partially based on RAW times, the rest of CCR could probably run Big Wheels and they would still stand a good chance of winning.

Be careful what you ask for...

Of course, if we could just recruit the Duke FSAE team, we'd probably be OK. Sorry Brice, I couldn't resist!

Jim