G
Guest
·I just received a note, and permission from the organizers to share, stating that the Rim of the World Rally for 2003 will be a pair of club rallies without a pro component.
Edited to include the text of the letter.
Background:
For the past few years RIM (like all ProRally events) has experienced significant growth in all areas. Despite the stress associated with this growth, RIM this year was a huge success. We had an 80-car field, which was 13 more cars than last year and 28 more than two years ago. Subaru of America made RIM a special ?owners event? and brought over WRC Subaru Team driver Petter Solberg as a VIP guest. This attracted nearly 700 Subaru owners from all over the West Coast. In preparation for this attention we doubled the number of spectator areas and tripled the number of spectator marshals - a good thing. Subaru, Hyundai and Mitsubishi set up displays with tents, giveaways, and cars to show. They wooed the crowd as well as the large number of ?heavy hitters? from the press that came to the event. Other automotive related vendors also were attracted, and participated.
Given the success of this year?s RIM, why are we not continuing to offer it to the ProRally Series? The following are the key reasons for this decision:
Performance Rally Department Attitude:
We have finally run out of patience with the Performance Rally Department?s lack of support for ProRally organizers. The only ?support? from SCCA, aside from excellent insurance coverage, is association with a championship series and its sponsors. There is no financial support, no real understanding of what is involved in putting on a big rally, and especially, no understanding of what motivates rally volunteers. In fact, the ProRally organizer will encounter roadblocks to growth.
Rather than developing a team effort to build the series, the Performance Rally Department exhibits an attitude of condescension and territoriality. Traditionally, SCCA has felt that it ?owns? each event and all the rights associated with it, as it might in a racing series - and a rally is lucky to be included. SCCA seems to feel that the rally organizer is analogous to the track owner, or perhaps to a race promoter. This is simply not a good analogy. Usually the U.S. Forest Service or some other agency owns the roads. The rally organizer secures the use of the roads and the other permits required, organizes the volunteer staff, and executes the event. When all is said and done it is the rally organizer that is financially responsible (and financially liable) for the event ? whether it is a simple committee, such as at Rim, or an SCCA region. The organizers do not generally make money on their rallies but are treated by SCCA as if they do, with the increasing expectations for performance that you might expect with a professional series.
In fact, the organizers face hurdles if they wish to become truly professional ? and a few of them do. In the sanction agreement SCCA claims all media rights and requires organizers to obtain SCCA approval before lining up sponsors. The series sponsors are seen as more important than the event?s sponsors, which was the justification given for taking down our local sponsor?s ?paid for? banners and replacing them with the Series sponsors? banners at RIM 2001. ProRally organizers are strongly encouraged to stick to ?local? sponsors and local media coverage and are not given any support in making their events marketable.
The ProRally organizers have been trying, since our meeting together in August, to have meaningful negotiations with SCCA concerning the sanction agreement, and have made only limited progress. There have been phone conferences with Kurt and a meeting with both Kurt and Steve Johnson at the convention. Kurt has insisted on negotiating with each organizer individually, using delay tactics to force the organizer to accept a less than desirable agreement. The sanction agreements for both Cherokee Trails and RIM were not signed until the week of their respective events. This is not negotiating in good faith.
We feel this is an unacceptable situation. The organizer of a ProRally should not have to fight with the sanctioning body over basic event ownership issues.
Financial and Organizational Viability:
RIM has achieved its current level of ?professional appearance? by various bootstrapping and shoestring approaches. Many products and services are donated at half price or less, because we put on the event as a non-profit operation. Volunteers are used for numerous tasks that require significant manual labor. In fact, volunteers do almost everything including the publicity brochure, the official program, the press releases and website, clearing and repairing the roads, staffing the event, building and tearing down the spectator stage and performing many other operations that lead to a successful and professional looking rally.
The problem with this approach is that it becomes more and more difficult to maintain as the event grows. All volunteers have a limited amount of time that they are willing to give to the event, especially in the months before the actual rally when the critical planning and coordination between team leaders takes place. This produces the need for a very large number of team leaders to do all the pre-event work. We had nearly 300 volunteers this year, including 44 key people or team leaders. Sustaining a volunteer organization of this size is a difficult task. This is compounded when growth is involved. Growth increases the demands on the 44 key people causing some to quit because the time commitment has exceeded what they are willing to give. Combining growth-induced staff turnover with normal attrition can produce an unstable organization. All in all, this is not a sustainable approach for a big event.
Why is RIM organized in this shoestring manner? The answer is simple. Sponsors do not place enough value on ProRally to pay what it would cost to organize the event in a sustainable fashion. If the rally had a budget that allowed it to build a stable structure and hire out many of the tasks required, continued growth in the promotional areas of the event (for example, spectator stages and spectator-friendly service areas) would be feasible. However, with the current financial constraints, we feel attempting to keep up with the growth in the sport will lead to failure.
Pro Only or Club Only:
One area where growth has a defined limit is in the number of competitors. RIM is limited to 80 cars by the Angeles National Forest. We were right at that limit this year, starting 80 cars on Friday night. If an organizer has to limit entries, the new ProRally Rules require the rally to accept the entries of the cars in the higher seeds first. This will in fact eliminate cars from the ClubRally field, while having little impact on the ProRally field. For these reasons it won?t be long before most combined ProRally/ClubRally events will have to choose between being a ProRally-only event or returning to being a ClubRally. Two events (STPR and Maine Forest) have already chosen to be ProRally-only events. Given that the growth in entries continues (and interest in our local rally schools indicates that it will), RIM will need to make this decision in 2003 or certainly by 2004.
Faced with this decision, and considering the first two reasons, we have chosen to return to being a ClubRally-only pair of events, beginning in 2003.
/s/ Mike and Paula Gibeault, June 6, 2002
Edited to include the text of the letter.
Why Return Rim of the World to the ClubRally-only Level?
Background:
For the past few years RIM (like all ProRally events) has experienced significant growth in all areas. Despite the stress associated with this growth, RIM this year was a huge success. We had an 80-car field, which was 13 more cars than last year and 28 more than two years ago. Subaru of America made RIM a special ?owners event? and brought over WRC Subaru Team driver Petter Solberg as a VIP guest. This attracted nearly 700 Subaru owners from all over the West Coast. In preparation for this attention we doubled the number of spectator areas and tripled the number of spectator marshals - a good thing. Subaru, Hyundai and Mitsubishi set up displays with tents, giveaways, and cars to show. They wooed the crowd as well as the large number of ?heavy hitters? from the press that came to the event. Other automotive related vendors also were attracted, and participated.
Given the success of this year?s RIM, why are we not continuing to offer it to the ProRally Series? The following are the key reasons for this decision:
Performance Rally Department Attitude:
We have finally run out of patience with the Performance Rally Department?s lack of support for ProRally organizers. The only ?support? from SCCA, aside from excellent insurance coverage, is association with a championship series and its sponsors. There is no financial support, no real understanding of what is involved in putting on a big rally, and especially, no understanding of what motivates rally volunteers. In fact, the ProRally organizer will encounter roadblocks to growth.
Rather than developing a team effort to build the series, the Performance Rally Department exhibits an attitude of condescension and territoriality. Traditionally, SCCA has felt that it ?owns? each event and all the rights associated with it, as it might in a racing series - and a rally is lucky to be included. SCCA seems to feel that the rally organizer is analogous to the track owner, or perhaps to a race promoter. This is simply not a good analogy. Usually the U.S. Forest Service or some other agency owns the roads. The rally organizer secures the use of the roads and the other permits required, organizes the volunteer staff, and executes the event. When all is said and done it is the rally organizer that is financially responsible (and financially liable) for the event ? whether it is a simple committee, such as at Rim, or an SCCA region. The organizers do not generally make money on their rallies but are treated by SCCA as if they do, with the increasing expectations for performance that you might expect with a professional series.
In fact, the organizers face hurdles if they wish to become truly professional ? and a few of them do. In the sanction agreement SCCA claims all media rights and requires organizers to obtain SCCA approval before lining up sponsors. The series sponsors are seen as more important than the event?s sponsors, which was the justification given for taking down our local sponsor?s ?paid for? banners and replacing them with the Series sponsors? banners at RIM 2001. ProRally organizers are strongly encouraged to stick to ?local? sponsors and local media coverage and are not given any support in making their events marketable.
The ProRally organizers have been trying, since our meeting together in August, to have meaningful negotiations with SCCA concerning the sanction agreement, and have made only limited progress. There have been phone conferences with Kurt and a meeting with both Kurt and Steve Johnson at the convention. Kurt has insisted on negotiating with each organizer individually, using delay tactics to force the organizer to accept a less than desirable agreement. The sanction agreements for both Cherokee Trails and RIM were not signed until the week of their respective events. This is not negotiating in good faith.
We feel this is an unacceptable situation. The organizer of a ProRally should not have to fight with the sanctioning body over basic event ownership issues.
Financial and Organizational Viability:
RIM has achieved its current level of ?professional appearance? by various bootstrapping and shoestring approaches. Many products and services are donated at half price or less, because we put on the event as a non-profit operation. Volunteers are used for numerous tasks that require significant manual labor. In fact, volunteers do almost everything including the publicity brochure, the official program, the press releases and website, clearing and repairing the roads, staffing the event, building and tearing down the spectator stage and performing many other operations that lead to a successful and professional looking rally.
The problem with this approach is that it becomes more and more difficult to maintain as the event grows. All volunteers have a limited amount of time that they are willing to give to the event, especially in the months before the actual rally when the critical planning and coordination between team leaders takes place. This produces the need for a very large number of team leaders to do all the pre-event work. We had nearly 300 volunteers this year, including 44 key people or team leaders. Sustaining a volunteer organization of this size is a difficult task. This is compounded when growth is involved. Growth increases the demands on the 44 key people causing some to quit because the time commitment has exceeded what they are willing to give. Combining growth-induced staff turnover with normal attrition can produce an unstable organization. All in all, this is not a sustainable approach for a big event.
Why is RIM organized in this shoestring manner? The answer is simple. Sponsors do not place enough value on ProRally to pay what it would cost to organize the event in a sustainable fashion. If the rally had a budget that allowed it to build a stable structure and hire out many of the tasks required, continued growth in the promotional areas of the event (for example, spectator stages and spectator-friendly service areas) would be feasible. However, with the current financial constraints, we feel attempting to keep up with the growth in the sport will lead to failure.
Pro Only or Club Only:
One area where growth has a defined limit is in the number of competitors. RIM is limited to 80 cars by the Angeles National Forest. We were right at that limit this year, starting 80 cars on Friday night. If an organizer has to limit entries, the new ProRally Rules require the rally to accept the entries of the cars in the higher seeds first. This will in fact eliminate cars from the ClubRally field, while having little impact on the ProRally field. For these reasons it won?t be long before most combined ProRally/ClubRally events will have to choose between being a ProRally-only event or returning to being a ClubRally. Two events (STPR and Maine Forest) have already chosen to be ProRally-only events. Given that the growth in entries continues (and interest in our local rally schools indicates that it will), RIM will need to make this decision in 2003 or certainly by 2004.
Faced with this decision, and considering the first two reasons, we have chosen to return to being a ClubRally-only pair of events, beginning in 2003.
/s/ Mike and Paula Gibeault, June 6, 2002
