[Autox] Class Participation (Part 3)

[Clemens Burger]

Unfortunately, the SEB has not addressed this issue. They are encouraging 
members to write letters to give them feedback on the rule-making process. 
One former SEB member commented to me that they never received an 
overwhelming amount of letters on this topic, which is why they have not 
addressed it. However, I don't expect that they will ever receive that 
overwhelming amount of letters, since only a few members are directly 
affected by this rule, independent of how effective it is. So, how can we 
get this rule changed or eliminated? We need to first raise awareness 
amongst the membership and then signal to the SEB in any way we can that 
there is a problem with Rule 4.9 that needs to be addressed.

There are a number of things you can do to support the activities related 
to eliminating or fixing Rule 4.9:

1. The easiest thing you can do is to display the Rule 4.9 stickers on your 
car to help raising awareness.
2. You can also talk to fellow members about the rule and how it affects 
many of the existing classes.
3. You can help distributing the stickers.
4. If you believe there is an issue, you should also talk to the SEB and 
BOD members in your area to make sure they are aware that there is an issue.
5. The ultimate you can do is write a letter to the SEB to make your case 
in the way they like it.

So, who should become active and pursue one or several of the 
aforementioned activities? Here it goes:

1. If you compete in a class that has entry levels of 25 or lower at the 
national level, it is pretty much essential that you make yourself heard, 
or otherwise your class may be gone sooner or later.
2. If you have any interest ever campaigning a car in a class that 
currently has 25 entires or less at the national level, you need to make 
yourself heard, or otherwise, you might never get to run in the class you 
like. In the worst case, you purchase or start building a car that you can 
never run competitively and will have wasted a whole lot of money and time 
in the case your class is eliminated.
3. If you just like watching those cool and fast cars that compete in the 
modified and prepared classes, you should make yourself heard, or 
otherwise, you may not see those anymore sometime down the road.

Again, the support has been great so far, but we need more. In only three 
weeks, we were able to get stickers on about 150 cars, almost all of which 
competed at the National Championships in Lincoln. This includes cars from 
pretty much all the classes, no matter if it is HS, ST, SM, CP, or AM, and 
you can find the Rule 4.9 stickers on cars in pretty much all the classes. 
In addition, people started to talk and think about the effects of this 
rule, and some even decided to join the letter-writing campaign. For 
example, totally unexpected, an STU driver promised me to write a letter to 
the SEB the same day when I handed him the stickers for his car.

With all the talk about stickers and letters, lets not forget the most 
important thing, growth of our sport and especially the classes on the 
bubble. That really what we want. If you ever thought about running in a 
prepared or modified class, try it. It's a hoot. Help promoting them. Let's 
also promote rule stability to make sure that we have a predictable 
rule-making process and can enjoy our sport at a reasonable cost.

If you want stickers for you car, let me know. Better yet, get enough for 
all your friends and cars in your region. There are still plenty of 
stickers available. Send me a PM or an email at burgerc at iquest.net if you 
want any, and we'll work something out."