Hi Jens et al,
Well, here we go again! As always there is a bit of truth to all the posts so far......
1) Costs of cars has gone up due to the increase in numbers of high-performance AWD cars. We could push the ole Starion almost to the top 10 in '99 MFR; not much of a prayer of doing that now. There are a lot more high $$ cars now, in just 5 years time. No way that trend will be turned back. A big part of that is that we are competitors, and of the hardware is there someone will go for it to gain the advantage, and the escalation starts. In this case, as Pogo said: "We have met the enemy, and they are us." I don't see us truning bakc the clock and loweinf this expense item.
2) Cost of events have gone up by a relatively low margin by comparison to events 25 years ago. It cost $250-350 in the late 70's to enter events like Northern Lights, HIS, Sunriser, and 100 Acre Wood. I WOULD like to see event costs lower (hence part of my affinity for ESRC). But I am not holding my breath for that to happen. There may be some fluff going into organizer fianacial support for their own travel and subsistance costs, but I doubt that this can be removed, and may not even be fair to them anyway.
3) As for KS, he saw things in a marketing way, and proved himself to be fairly insensitive to the greater raly community. (He had displayed this tendency in past efforts so deserves some criticism for his alienation of a good number of folks.) IMO, he tried to push things towards a biz basis, in part to support his own organization's costs, which is a sensible biz position. He just made a lot of folks mad along the way, misunderstood the rally community as it existed, and underestimated the whole problem.
4) KS did not change the whole biz versus hooby thing in rallying. This was going on in a quiet way for a long time. Some shops like Libra, TAD, and VSC HAVE established themselves as viable biz concerns over the years (sorry, I am sure I have left out a good many deserving biz companies; my apologies; I am just citing examples). They did this by building a customer base and not by trying to push others out or change the overall dyanmic of the situation to the disadvantage of anyone. They just pushed forward with their own biz plan and made it work in the environment that existed.
Point 4 is the one that I will hold up to DM, Kevin, and others who want to get better and more sponsors. Guys, right now, the vast bulk of this enterprise in not supported by biz based teams. It is supported by the entries and spending of the hobby/sportman teams. I think it is a fallacy in thinking that if somehow we 'clean up' the cars, then there will be a magical effect on the allure to sponsors. Guys, in my opinion, if you cannot make a biz plan work in the existing environment, then the biz plan is doomed to not work anyway. Any biz plan has to be good enough to work in the existing marketplace, and you don't have the control over the other teams to make significant changes to the overall situation without taking a KS-esque approach, which may possibly alienate a bunch of folks, and we will start back down that contentious path that we just recently left.
I see this all this time in the wireless industry, when a vendor tries to somehow control things in the market that are in the control of multiple vendors and customers. If you are not one of the giants (like Lucent or Motorola), you don't even have a prayer. And even the giants usually fail! Single car rally teams in the US are not in the position to have any control over the situation, and even a consortium of top teams and middling teams would have a hard time; their postion in controlling the overall purse strings that run the show at this time would not allow it.
And, I can't think of any benefit to me and other hobby competitors to paint our cars better or in a different way, or pay for uniforms for our crews, or any of the spiffy stuff that is being discussed. Why should I spend my $$ to benefit anyone's sponsorship effort, as much as I like and value all of you as good rally folks?
The theme in the next-to-last paragraph leads me to where I think Jens' suspicions are raised: is there a conspiracy to somehow unite a group of top and middilng teams to exert control over the situation? Or is there a possiblity for a large sponsor to come in and tell us that we have to implement the 'vision thing', and paint our cars with polka-dots? My present personal opinion is no. But, that was my initial position when KS came into the picture; I was waiting and hopeful. I later decided that my interests were not being served, and I being 'anti-vision'.
IMO, the powers-that-be in NASA and RA have experienced the recnet 'wars' and they recognize the value of ALL the competitor and organizer communities. I will be in a 'trust, support, and hope' mode while we move into the next phase of US rallying. I will also not snipe at, or interfere with, those who want to run their rally efforts on a sponsored basis. I hope to have their respect in turn for wanting to run my effort purely in the manner that I decide.
FYI, I currently spend all day every day in the week and even on the weekends running and trying to grow a small biz, as weel as workign in that biz enough to keep 'meat in the freezer' and pay the bills. I am tired at the end of each week of biz decisions and issues, and just want to run my rally car, at my own expense, to have fun and do something else with my life besides working! Hence, my current total lack of desire to run my rallying on a biz basis. I hope this helps all to get persepctive on my position.
Regards,
Mark B.