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Sue and Garret,
Performance rallying in the U.S. seems about to undertake another step in its evolution. It's no secret that the past four or five years have created a visible impact in the performance rally community. While most of the causes and effects have been discussed ad nauseum at all levels of the sport I think that there is one aspect of the "standard by which we do business" that has been accepted by the greater community but not given the full recognition of its impact. The biggest change in our modus operandi in the last few years has been in information sharing. In today's electronic society of email and the internet, instant gratification and need to know have become the expectation of the masses for the norm.
My belief is that your greatest challenge will be to meet the expectations of the rally community for information sharing in a timely manner. We have seen the beginnings of some great strides in this direction. Certainly Christian, JB, George and Bruce have made excellent efforts to be available and to communicate in the new medium. Recently Major Greg has been a welcome voice of explanation of what some of the thinking is from one of the professional teams. Everything that I have read and heard indicates that the appointment of you, Sue, will be an extremely positive step toward performance rallying regaining its equilibrium. It is in those lights that I think that it will be incumbent upon both of you to establish and maintain open communications with the community.
With respect to the sponsorship announcement that was forthcoming after LSPR, and then to be announced at SEMA, and then to be announced within thirty days, I don't think there is anyone in the community that doesn't realize the major changes that are currently taking place within the sport. Mitsubishi's withdrawl has no doubt caused the re-evaluation of the other two remaining professional teams. We all understand that can and might have an impact on what could happen with a national sponsor. Renegotiation might be occurring, even a loss of sponsorship could happen.
IMHO what you need to do to turn that corner onto the new and better road is let us know where things stand and not keep us hanging around waiting for the shoe to drop. Here at the beginning of a new administration of performance rally is an excellent chance to redevelop some of the credibility that SCCA has lost over the last few years. Just be open and keep us informed. If there is no sponsor at this time, say so. If the performance rally product is not ready for sponsorship at this time, say so. If negotiations are promising but not finalized, say so. Just don't send out an announcement that has said that you are going to do something or make some announcement by time certain and then ignore that deadline hoping no one will have noticed. This "type A" community is not the type to have forgotten promises.
In the end, although we each have our own opinions about the best way to achieve the goal (and are certainly not afraid to express them), we all just really do "want to go play in the woods". A little effort at honest and continuing communication will go a long way towards making the SCCA seem like it is the right partner to get us there.
Thanks for listening,
Kent Gardam
EDIT: Since someone is sure to ask, yup, I did send this as an email to Sue, Garret, the PRB and Steve Johnson.
Performance rallying in the U.S. seems about to undertake another step in its evolution. It's no secret that the past four or five years have created a visible impact in the performance rally community. While most of the causes and effects have been discussed ad nauseum at all levels of the sport I think that there is one aspect of the "standard by which we do business" that has been accepted by the greater community but not given the full recognition of its impact. The biggest change in our modus operandi in the last few years has been in information sharing. In today's electronic society of email and the internet, instant gratification and need to know have become the expectation of the masses for the norm.
My belief is that your greatest challenge will be to meet the expectations of the rally community for information sharing in a timely manner. We have seen the beginnings of some great strides in this direction. Certainly Christian, JB, George and Bruce have made excellent efforts to be available and to communicate in the new medium. Recently Major Greg has been a welcome voice of explanation of what some of the thinking is from one of the professional teams. Everything that I have read and heard indicates that the appointment of you, Sue, will be an extremely positive step toward performance rallying regaining its equilibrium. It is in those lights that I think that it will be incumbent upon both of you to establish and maintain open communications with the community.
With respect to the sponsorship announcement that was forthcoming after LSPR, and then to be announced at SEMA, and then to be announced within thirty days, I don't think there is anyone in the community that doesn't realize the major changes that are currently taking place within the sport. Mitsubishi's withdrawl has no doubt caused the re-evaluation of the other two remaining professional teams. We all understand that can and might have an impact on what could happen with a national sponsor. Renegotiation might be occurring, even a loss of sponsorship could happen.
IMHO what you need to do to turn that corner onto the new and better road is let us know where things stand and not keep us hanging around waiting for the shoe to drop. Here at the beginning of a new administration of performance rally is an excellent chance to redevelop some of the credibility that SCCA has lost over the last few years. Just be open and keep us informed. If there is no sponsor at this time, say so. If the performance rally product is not ready for sponsorship at this time, say so. If negotiations are promising but not finalized, say so. Just don't send out an announcement that has said that you are going to do something or make some announcement by time certain and then ignore that deadline hoping no one will have noticed. This "type A" community is not the type to have forgotten promises.
In the end, although we each have our own opinions about the best way to achieve the goal (and are certainly not afraid to express them), we all just really do "want to go play in the woods". A little effort at honest and continuing communication will go a long way towards making the SCCA seem like it is the right partner to get us there.
Thanks for listening,
Kent Gardam
EDIT: Since someone is sure to ask, yup, I did send this as an email to Sue, Garret, the PRB and Steve Johnson.
