My take
Pete:
I agree with you that Mike and Paula made the proper, though difficult, decision to keep Rim as a club event, even to the exclusion of the Pros. I agree too that the decision has significant implications and repercussions and is ultimately for the good of the sport, especially in our neighborhood.
The organizers are the heart of our efforts to rally--they amass huge numbers of volunteers, expend countless hours of effort in order to build a fun, successful event. I know that you work hard on organizing Treeline, and I appreciate and respect the hard work you and all the other organizers do to make it possible for me to strap on a helmet and tear along dirt roads around the country.
I disagree, however, that we can trash the pro series.
It's old news, still debated, but what we need is a truly pro series for the manufacturers, a national series for club racers who are willing to travel the entire country, and a geo-centric series for the local rally communities.
All three series can peacefully coexist and support one another and help each other to grow. The problem is that we're trying to shoe-horn the national club racers into a pro category but without the resources of the truly pro guys like AV Sport or the manufacturers.
As for Kurt.... I confess that I supported Kurt for a long time and was willing to give him a chance to prove himself for our sport. Just because he doesn't have a background in rally doesn't mean he can't learn about it, adopt our passion, and support it. I didn't have a rally background either until I got into it. (Yeah, its a truism, but we all have to start somewhere.)
Even though Kurt and I have since crossed swords on more than one occasion, I still believe he's working towards what he thinks is best for the sport. I disagree on some directional issues, but I don't question his motivation. He may not have been born into rally, but he is giving it his best. Is his best good enough? He's playing to a tough audience. Is he the right guy for the job? He was the best we could find and deserves credit for fully immersing himself into the fray.
Like I said, I still see plenty of issues in our sport. It's important though that I stress that my issues are not with the person running the show, but with some of the decisions that are being made, and the process and inputs for those decisions. Kurt has a lot of guts to stand as a target for so long and I refuse to attack him personally. Personal attacks do no good, nor are they useful in getting positive results from anyone, especially the target. I believe it's far better to work on improving our sport, using all the channels that we as members have available, including the rally director, the rally dept, the rally board, the stewards, the SCCA's board of directors, and the president.
As for Steve.... I remain confident in his leadership. My background is road racing, but I love rally. Should someone from drag racing be denied the same opportunity to discover their passion for our sport? The record shows that he's more than just an administrative guy. At his first rally (Prescott 2000, I think) he went out and worked stages with Ray and Roger. His task is difficult--keeping 60,000+ members happy while keeping the club viable, welcoming, and growing. Steve recognizes that our club must still be run similar to a business or it will die. We need new "customers" and rally is providing an ever-larger portion of that base.
His job is especially difficult because he has to juggle rally, road racing, solo, road rally, special events, and all the pro stuff too. If keeping these different communities isn't tough enough, envision for a moment the breadth of his audience--from the guys who founded the club in the depths of World War II, to the rich guys for whom racing budgets mean nothing, to the people who choose tires over that new refrigerator for the spouse, to the old geezers in their vintage Sprites to the college kids in their Miatas and WRXs, from the arch-conservatives to the arch-liberals.
The SCCA invited Steve to lead us into the new millenium because they had confidence that he can leverage his background for the betterment of our club, and because they knew he was a "clubbie" inside even though he might not yet have known it. I continue to remain optimistic that, with proper input from the membership--as well as the manufacturers, who are also important--Steve will make things happen, and motivate his staff (our staff), to make them happen in a positive way.
Ours is a complex organization, with complex challenges. Each of our oxen is gored from time to time, and those damned horns hurt like hell. But it's just like rolling your car into a little ball. You've got to climb out, rebuild, and rally again. Our team experienced a miserable string of DNF's in 2000, but I'm still climbing back into a car. Our sport may have suffered a DNF or two in recent times, but we've got to open the hood, fix the problem, and charge forward again.
We've had tremendous growth and progress in the last few years. We've also had some real issues crop up, some serious things that need redress, some serious items that need to be improved or reconsidered. Personal attacks will not fix these things. Personal effort will.
Yours in the sport,
John
SoPac ClubRally Steward