I love pretty much everything about our sport and don't see how or why we need to mimic events like GRIDLIFE/drifting/etc. We are different so let's embrace that. We won't get the attendance of these events but that's ok if we do what we do *really well*. Chess is still a big deal even in a world of video games. People either get it and want to master it or not. Enough get it to keep it thriving. This in no way means we shouldn't change, adapt and desire growth. Like them, let's be authentic to who we are in the process of change.
How do we define a successful event? How dow we define a successful season? Just finding consensus on these fundamental definitions is difficult but my limited experience here shows the diversity of opinion isn't too far off (outliers be damned). Although important, let's not confuse the number of event days, classes, region/national, etc. as core to the long term success of our sport. We will always experiment with these ideas and come to love and fall out of love with them as time and our experience with them matures. This is a good thing.
IMO, long term success comes from a focus on first-principals and transparency. Our brand must convey these principals and clearly differentiate what makes road racing/spec miata awesome. Not comparatively awesome; meaning not how we compare to whatever the kids are doing to melt tires these days, just how we define what we think is awesome.
- Skill mastery. People want to learn and grow in all aspects of our life. Make sure our sport provides mentoring, coaching and a clear ladder-like system so mastery leads to something more.
- Being part of something bigger than ourselves. My experience/happiness improved when I became part of a team. Maybe teaming becomes core to what we do. It becomes part of the structure of spec miata events. You join our sport, you become part of a team. Sometimes these teams have business relationships, sometimes it's just a name and a shared paddock spot.
- Autonomy. People like to have agency over their lives and spec miata is no different. Maybe SCCA and NASA aren't the best homes for us anymore. Maybe we partner with the other big classes and have our own events where there is time and elbow room to experiment without having to fit into every other class's way of doing things. Maybe our needs have evolved to a point where there is enough of what makes us different to justify such a move. I'm not suggesting a Coup d’état but how we do things is not like the Law of Gravity. We can do whatever we want if we have the desire and testicular fortitude to manifest it.
Clearly, I'm not trying to be overly prescriptive in the how we do things but more big picture on the foundations of who we are and what makes us who we are.