RE: A little explanation
The positive point that can be taken from jandreini's comment is that Club and Pro events come from the same blood, especially on the West Coast. Given a little advance notice and support, many West Coast regional events could be upgraded to National (pro) events.
If we take control of our sport and create a professional national organization -- which doesn't exist with the SCCA or USAC, regardless of the propaganda, there is more than enough ability laying around to put on WRC class events. We just have to take control and do it. If the SCCA national office wants to play, they must give up the "management" reins to the membership and reorganize themselves into a services organization, consolidating the grunt work.
Doing this would help all SCCA racing, not just rally. The membership are not SCCA's employees, the membership are the SCCA's customers. They are set up as a managment organization that is superfluous to the self-governing membership. Meanwhile, my email to the SCCA regarding artwork for Oregon Trail's t-shirts has gone unreplied for a couple weeks now. The grammatical corrections to our pages on the SCCA website went into a black hole. Advances in timing and scoring are left to external groups like Rally America (kudos to which, by the way). Administration of the rules is completely left up to the PRD, a volunteer group plucked from the membership that tries to do well by the membership but are obviously not crack techwriters, graphic artists, or at all experienced with crafting documentation that works.
I could go on for hours. If the SCCA continues trying to "manage" things, they will fail and the rally community will form its own organization. Management decisions can be handled by representative government elected by the membership. If the SCCA wishes to continue existing, they must drop the management charade and become useful by providing insurance, legal counsel, document proofreading and administration, graphic artists, materials and merchandise purchasing, public forums, timely communications, etc.
Whether we persuade the SCCA to change into a services organization or not, we will need to create that services organization. At what point do we deliver the ultimatum?
andy