No offense to Mark or Kevin, but the organizers of the CRC really need to listen to what the
competitors (re: people that paid to compete in events this year) want, not what they (the organizers) think is the best plan of action. You are speaking of the Colorado
Rally Cup, not the Colorado Hill Climb Cup (ahem, CHCA).
I understand that HC's are a cheap and easy way to draw new people in and that's fine, but honestly, HC's are boring. The only exciting thing about HC's are after we are all out of the car, sitting around bs'ing and hanging out. If you want to continue as the rally championship, there should be more rallies on the calendar. Even if, for the next few years, you have to go outside the state to include 1 or two them. The event calendar only includes one real rally, how can it be called a rally cup? The HC's being timed as a stage rally does not justify anything to me, we don't go to a rally and run the same stage 5 times and that's it.
As for this talk of adding an event at a track, what? Are we now going to branch out into the realm of track racing for rally? If it's a one time demonstration, head to head super special (a la WRC) or something along those lines, ok. If it's a straight up full day track event, no matter how it's timed, it's still just a track day. If you want a tarmac event, find some good tarmac roads up in the mountains and lets setup a one day tarmac rally with 6-7 stages.
A CORE Rally Sprint, although not as exciting as a stage rally, ok. At least it somewhat resembles an actual event, better than a track day or hill climbs.
You already have quite a few CRC competitors that went to Idaho last year and more seem interested for the coming year. Why not try to do for your competitors going to Idaho what you did at Colorado this year? Work with the organizers and see what you can stir up. Jens needs the competitors, I would tend to think there's not a lot he wont do to pull some of our 30+ rally cars into his event.
Make this first year a trial run, if Idaho pulls 10 cars out of the state, think about adding it to the calendar. If only 3-4 cars go, don't. You had 5 CRC cars that did the event regardless last year and 4 of those cars went on to finish the rest of the CRC season. It can't be that much of an expensive, time consuming, money consuming, competitor spreading event. You have everyone that wants to run an actual rally sitting around all year waiting for Colorado because it's the only real rally on the schedule, why not mix something in earlier?
Add the winter CO event whenever it gets started, I've heard talks of it since I started hanging out with everyone two years ago, so I wouldn't expect a new CO event anytime too soon.
There are currently 21 car entries for the Mt. Hood Rally in the PNW. That is their 5th stage rally, and 6th event of the year up there. And they have all had more than 16 competitors. We need to work on consistent entries.
Might they be running them because they are actual rallies? What was the reason for the attendance drop of later in the year with the CRC? Were people who knew they were out of the running not going to the HC's because they wanted to run actual rallies and didn't want to bother with HC's anymore?
Make a DNF a DNF. You shouldn't get a time or points for not crossing the finish line.
If you want to run in a regional rally series, nobody's stopping you.
Just as if you want to run a HC series, nobody's stopping you. Unless they pay us, please don't include PPIHC to the schedule. I can stand 5 minutes a run on a boring HC with nothing to do but chat with Scott, but I couldn't imagine doing the same for 20 minutes a run. I can see Dave's interest as he built his car specifically for that event, but again, it's the
Rally Cup, not the hill climb cup.
All involved with the CRC did a great job this past season, I have no complaints, just comments. Thanks for even considering have a co-driver championship, that was pretty sweet. As long as the mugs are trophy's I'll still keep competing, those plastic cups they put beer in at Cog are entirely too small to be useful. I might start toting that mug around to all the events, in case awards has an open bar.
Getting Red Bull involved at GJ was nice and hopefully we can expand on that. Would be nice to see the Subaru thing come together for next year....
The bonus points for all events is a good idea, even if it did screw me out of a place in the co-drivers. I would like to see more opportunities next year to display the cars and get the word out. Car shows, festivals, expo's should all be extra bonus points events if you show your car. We took Scott's car to two VW car shows this year, I'm sure the same exists for the Subaru guys.
-Adam