[Lurch]

Read this in US Auto Scene at work today:

The Sports Car Club of America Inc. and The Valvoline Company, a division of Ashland Inc. (NYSE: ASH) today announced a three-year agreement naming Valvoline the Official Oil of the SCCA.

Valvoline will have a strong visual presence at the Tire Rack Solo II Nationals (Topeka, Kansas), the SCCA National Convention (Kansas City, Mo.) and on SCCA Pro Rally Series cars. The agreement also provides for reciprocating web links and a cooperative effort to promote the Valvoline Cup, a new grassroots support program which will honor national champions in six categories and 33 classes.


Get ready for another sticker. I hope this one will fit within the 10" reserved area for series sponsorship.

 

[RallyGTX]

This is one case where I am *so* glad that I only run club events (for now)

I know that this has been beat to death, probably more than once but I will never understand how they can tell you that you are required to deface your car with *their* sponsor decals. How does this benefit me, lower entry fees ??? Prize money ???

When I raced bikes, it was pretty simple. No product or cash support, no visual ID on the bike.

Some guys I raced with basically 'decorated' their bikes with all the decals they could get their hands on. Maybe it was to cover up the scrapes in the paint or something.....

Personally, I don't believe in endorsing (or displaying) decals for products I do not use or believe in. Maybe this is a bit idealistic, but that is how I feel.

Still trying to figure out how this works and how it came to be this way. Once I do that (yeah, right) I'll move on to deciding what to do .....

Cheers,
Matt

 

[Kartwheel]

Same here Matt. When I raced bikes and PWC you did not see a sticker on my equipment unless I got paid, or I got their stuff for free. Some decals were for series contigency eligability.

 

[John Vanlandingham]

RE: from the

What a bunch of nay saying nay sayers, and naughty ones at that.

But, I'll agree,
No freebies, no stickers when I was a moto-cross guy.
And when I was an actual pro guy I was paid start money equivelant to half a months wages for a start, and some month with all the bloody Saints days, and national holidays etc there were 7 dates available, so I got reasonable money FROM THE ORGANISERS.
THEY got money from THEIR event sponsors.

SCCA is the biggest lousiest joke sham crap I have ever seen and the business of us not getting 1 free air filter, or quart of oil makes me want to put a sticker near each required sticker saying:

I DON'T USE OR RECCOMEND---------------arrow to all th required stuff.
These stickers here as required by rule ......
Their presence on my car is in no way an endorsement of the product or the SCCAs marketing and promotion stooges.

Only way this seems reasonable is to useless twits who don't spend their own money on their cars or parts.

More BS













John Vanlandingham

 

[Guest]

Full press release

You can read the full press release at

http://www.scca.org/news/press02_18.html

Valvoline Cup for grassroots racers? Does that mean we may be receiving some grassroots support? Or free issues of GRM?

---------------------------------------
John Dillon John @ WidgetRacing.com
www.WidgetRacing.com

 

[BVG927]

SHOW ME THE MONEY !

This is getting to be a common thread with this ?club?? SCCA gets money, for a product we promote?
When you have a monopoly this is going to happen, and it will not change until the ?club members? do something about it. Maybe we ALL need to refuse to display the stickers until we see where the money is going, Or where is all this entry fee money going? If it is legit, then why not tell us?
I believe that a Non-profit organization is required to publish where every dollar comes and goes.
Until we, the members, raise enough of a ruckus about it, nothing is going to change.
And it can only get worse?

Brian

 

[Adrian Wintle]

RE: from the

>Get ready for another sticker. I hope this one will fit
>within the 10" reserved area for series sponsorship.

How wide is the number backer? The rules say 30 inches from the front of the door for all required stickers, including the number backers. That leaves some space (is it 10 inches?) for the required sponsor stickers. Note that the SCCA also gets the space below the number backer.

The space shown on the diagram is irrelevant, as is the diagram, since it isn't referenced in the rules. There are no rules supporting the dimensions shown in the diagram. The rules reference a phantom Diagram B.

Note also that there is no rule that requires your names to be either horizontal or centered vertically in the window, even though that is what is enforced. I won't go further except to say that, last year, we were required to run illegal color names (black) despite the requirements of the rulebook.

BTW. Why should the privateers be required to stringently meet the visual identification rules when certain manufacturers' cars (which get all the publicity) aren't?

BTW2. You could always roll the leading part of an overly long sponsor sticker around the leading edge of the door - this would meet the wording, if not the intent, of the rules.

Adrian (stirring vigorously) ;-)

 

[Bill Barfoot]

RE: SHOW ME THE MONEY !

Entry fee's go to the event, not the SCCA national office. Now MEMBERSHIP fee's is another story....

 

[Chris Powell]

RE: from the

In your other post, you asked what the SCCA provides with its sanctioning besides insurance? This is one of them. Forced sponsorship from which the rallyist himself (herself ) receives no benefit whatsoever besides the opportunity to deface their car. The SCCA reaps all the rewards.

CP
Desert Storm Rally
A2 Jetta #305

 

[JohnLane]

Rant time

At what point do we; the people who are putting up the money to run these events actually see ANY benefit from all this "Sponsorship" that does NOTHING for reducing sanction fees, insurance fees, entry fees, or increasing (from zero) prize money from SCCA? Are we; the CLUB MEMBERSHIP going to just accept that because we are not one of the anointed, that we should be relegated to second class status? Karl Yardevall has gone to a lot of effort with his privateer effort. Where is his TV coverage? Oh thats right. He isn't a member of the right club. Neither is anyone in any of the two wheel drive classes, until they put up the HUGE money that SCCA requires to have the airtime. Sorry folks, I'm fast losing faith that SCCA is faithfully representing my interests, or the interests of my friends. I really do appreciate the efforts that those in rally go to, but to me, the problem seems to be coming right from the TOP, and it stinks. x( Regards, JohnLane.

 

[AlanPerry]

RE: Rant time

Hey John,

You say that you are losing faith that SCCA is representing your interests. I am wondering how you can have any faith left.

There seems to be a lot of dissatisfaction with the current situation. Is there anyway to channel it into some kind of action?

alan
co-driver, car #228

 

[Lancia037Rally]

RE: SHOW ME THE MONEY !

A large chunk of your entry fee pays for SCCA sanction fees organizers must pay SCCA.

 

[BVG927]

RE: visual identification rules

Adrian brings up another good point, that also works into the prior posts...
Where does this extra money for the visual identification package go..
Last year the price was $25 for the kit.
this year it is $50
why the big jump??
I cannot believe that the inital cost of the decals... (that the sponsors should be already paying for) has increased 100%
All this is just crazy...

Adrian.. See you at tech in Canada
as I put my FREE candian "sponsor paid for" decal kit on !

Brian x(

 

[AlanPerry]

RE: visual identification rules

SCCA had better not be passing off the cost of the FRAM and Sunoco decals onto us when we buy the visual identification package.

$45 (plus shipping) for a windscreen series sticker, a number backer, numbers and a class ID sticker. Sounds like a deal to me Maybe this is how National is going to get the PRD to pay for itself.

Actually, why is the PRD losing money? What is their expenses?

Getting back to visual identification, does CARS charge Canadian competitors for their number backer? I know they don't charge US competitors.

One thing that I liked about the sponsors of the Canadian rallies is that you can see what they are doing for the event (from the battery-powered impact guns that Makita gave away at Bighorn to random drawings at every awards ceremony). I apologize for the negative stuff that I said in May when I had to pull the ClubRally sticker off the windscreen to put the Yokohama sticker.

alan

 

[Bill Barfoot]

RE: SHOW ME THE MONEY !

it depends on the event. Off the top of my head here are some numbers from 2002:

Pro: insurance approx $7500, Sanction approx $2000
Club: insurance coef 1 $47/car, 2 $61/car, 3 $71/car, Sanction coef 1 $5/car, 2 $10/car, 3 $15/car

all of the rest of the income from an event get's spent on the event. Very few break even, even fewer make some small ammount of money to seed next years event with. Most lose money. (from my limited experience)

 

[Bill Barfoot]

RE: visual identification rules

the increase is due to the event's of September 11th. (hell, everything else is using it as a crutch, why not this)

I had a complete visual ID package made locally (complete to the SCCA specs) for $27.00, and I only had 4 sets made. If I made more it would have been cheaper.

 

[randyzimmer]

visual identification

I Complained to Sean about the package at CT and told him the service sucked, ("We're out of 1's, we'll deliver them to you at the race").
I told him if a supplier of mine had an exclusive contract to be the sole supplier, they'd better get those ones over to me TODAY!
I also groused about not getting the names and numbers pre-spaced at the prescribed distances so that you only had to measure once - it can be done - easily. Sean told me that'd make them more expensive.
I told him I'd get my sticker guys to make a quote - Sean said "fine".
My sticker guy called and said he'd talked, but Sean told him the current contract with SCCA ran till 12/02 so check back later. At STPR I asked Sean about the sticker situation and he looked at me with a total lack of knowledge about the whole thing, I mentioned the contract to spur his memory, he still looked perplexed and because I didn't want to get Kurt involved - this was right after Rim you know - I went away.
Moral is - I tried, I really did.
RZ

 

[Bill Barfoot]

RE: visual identification

See, I took a complete set in and said "Make 4 just like this". The SCCA exclusivity is for the SCCA, I didn't sign nothin that said I had to go to X for Y. Supply and demand, I just demanded from someone else, got better supply, and guaranteed delivery of what I wanted when i wanted it... Had they been more expensive, I would have gone with the "approved" supplier...

 

[AlanPerry]

RE: visual identification

So, why did SCCA sign a year-long contract with somewhere that doesn't seem close to competitive on price? Why did SCCA sign an "exclusive" contract anyway? Why aren't they distributing the artwork (electronically, as an EPS, for example), so we can get the package made up locally and reduce the demands on the National staff?

Did they just not think this all through? Are they consciously trying to make money on the visual ID package? Can we even find out?

alan

 

[jmullan]

RE: Rant time

ProRally events used to have to cough up at least $5000 per event (out of the event's operating budget) to pay for the TV coverage. The manufacturers pay for it now. That offset rising insurance costs and the loss of Michelin as a series sponsor for a while.