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One of the big problems a region has is estimating attendance at an event. How many worker gifts do we order? How many trophies do we order? How many dinners to arrange with the caterer? Do we shuffle classes around to even out run groups? All of these questions are answered by how many folks sign up (drivers and workers). Those decisions are the root of whether an event will be profitable or not. Over estimate a car count and you'll be left with too much food at the dinner Saturday night, a bunch of trophies and worker gifts that are probably useless. Regions can't keep losing money at events.
And the bottom line is that drivers and classes who sign up earlier get preferential treatment.
Here's an example: WMR just held a DR at Grattan last weekend. A week before the event we had 50 ish cars and were going to lose serious coin. We had 20+ cars sign up during the last two days of registration. SM went from 8 to 17. At the event I was asked, "Why didn't SM get its own class? 17 seems like plenty to be on it's own.". The answer was simple.....we can't make decisions about an event based on cars that haven't signed up yet. Signing up late means we race organizers can't factor your attendance into our estimates.
Most expenses for a race are the same if 20 cars show up or 120 cars show up. Track rental, ambulances ($1400 each), wreckers ($1200), fire / rescue services ($800), SCCA sanction fees ($135 per car at a Major, $1100 for a regional), insurance, etc. are all flat costs. Food (lunches and dinners), trophies, worker fees, divisional and national trophy funds and some other things are based on how many cars hit the track. Here is where we have wiggle room.
So here's my pitch......PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, sign up as early as you possibly can for an event. If you're planning on coming to an event, sign up. Yes, you might have to repair to work on the car. But if your plans change or you don't get the repairs finished, you can always withdraw later. I know most regions (if not all) have NO PENALTY for withdrawing before the registration closes on MSR or DLB. I know WMR has NO PENALTY for bringing a check to the track as payment.
Races are being cancelled all over the place due to a lack of participation. I would hate to think that an event gets cancelled due to poor attendance just because the driver corps waited too long to sign up. Early registration allows race organizers to make better guesses at the logistics for an event. Better guesses means a better chance at profitability.....and that means a better chance of having a race next season.
I yield the floor.......
Dayle
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