Amici:
I feel the need to interject my couple of cents........
SCCA, Inc. is still a club, very much so, but the current leaders want to
play with the big boys and SCCA Pro Racing, which is a separate group from
Inc. has bled the club dry so they can continue to play. The leadership of
SCCA has made loans to Pro racing for more than $1,700,000.00 in the last few
years that are "non-performing" as the bankers say, yet SCCA, Inc. continues
to carry them as an asset to make their books look good to SCCA membership.
(Does the word Enron, Adelphia, or Tyco sound familiar?) The reason they can
get away with this is that SCCA members don't care as long as we can go race.
As governor of our district, I have listened to our Board of Directors tell
us how wonderful everything is, but I wonder if it really is. The clear cut
direction for SCCA is to more "Spec" type cars. SCCA Enterprises (the makers
of the Spec Racer Ford) have made a number of proposals to the Board about
new cars lately. The one that seems to be solidifying is a single chassis
that can be raced as an open wheel or closed wheel car depending on how you
purchase it. Now let's think about this for a minute, I don't know about in
other areas of the country, but in Florida we always seem to have a hard time
fitting in all the races with the number of classes we have now. If we will
have two new types of cars, that could likely grow to be their own classes,
what do you think will happen to us Production people? Draw your own
conclusion. Again, I do not know about other parts of the country, but in
Florida the Spec Miata class has gone from not existing a few years ago, to
being so big it is it's own class now.
As long as we (SCCA members) continue to elect the Board of Directors by a
few hundred votes when thousands are eligible to vote, do not expect to have
a voice in how things go in SCCA.
If I want to keep racing my TR7 for a long time then I have two choices, find
another sanctioning body, or let SCCA know the Club side is paying for all
the of the fun and games Pro Racing and Enterprises are having and we are
through with footing the tab.
I did not want to keep silent, and sure don't want to rant, but this how I
see the direction of things.
Lyn Pollock
EPRacer@aol.com
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