This is fantastic news for all of the offroading world. This paves the way for a professional approach to create a product that can be marketed to sponsors and increase public awareness for our sport. One day we my even not have to say "yes its like rally but not like rally"
That's one way of looking at it, who are the stakeholders ? this seems to be the new buzz word that pops up in all Cams bulletins, And all this comes at a cost, i 'm all for improvement but i can only see a divide growing within our sport with the fact we will have two series next year, if you think all are happy then good luck with that. only time will tell.
The devil is always in the detail. It says they will "work with", what does that mean. Are they hired as advisers only or do they have real power. Do AORCom have the power to overrule them. Who pays for them, where does the money come from? Will they have voting rights within ORRinc? Did AORCom approve their appointment, did AORCom have any say at all in their appointment. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just asking some simple questions. Press releases are usually big on hype & very shallow on detail.
I suppose this is only a club website but it seems to be the most informative site as far as info goes. Why do we have to look to a NSW club site to find out info about the national races and series or 2x series counting ARB as the case maybe??
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Very good point Blacky. Have been waiting for the right time to throw in my 2 cents worth on this subject. I believe that the use of Class Representatives would be a possible way of having far better communication between Orrinc/AORCom and the competitors. Virtually everyone now has an email etc and with the click of a button one group could contact a whole class or the whole offroad community. I have suggested this idea to the powers to be several times but as you would expect nothing has happened. You could have just one rep per class or maybe one per state but all would be linked by email etc. This would allow a class to work together refining rules that need updating or maybe even doing a complete rewrite. They could then submit them to AORCom for approval once the majority of the class was happy with them. This may take a little while to do but atleast it would get done and get done by the people that the rules affect the most. This system can be used both ways where AORCom could ask for competitor feedback on a particular subject and then they would know what the majority of competitors thought. Competitors would now have a system where they could make suggestions and comments that would go to the class rep and if warranted be passed on. The class rep would be the middle man, the go between, the organiser for his class. I feel this system has lots of potential to bring everyone involved in this sport closer together and heading in the same direction and is worth a try. As i know from experience the hardest part is getting everyones email contacts but i'm sure cams would help this time if asked by AORCom. Would like to here other peoples thoughts and ideas on this subject, you never know who might be reading our little club forum do you!!! Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Christmas and looking forward to an interesting year!!!
Very good point Blacky. Have been waiting for the right time to throw in my 2 cents worth on this subject. I believe that the use of Class Representatives would be a possible way of having far better communication between Orrinc/AORCom and the competitors. Virtually everyone now has an email etc and with the click of a button one group could contact a whole class or the whole offroad community. I have suggested this idea to the powers to be several times but as you would expect nothing has happened. You could have just one rep per class or maybe one per state but all would be linked by email etc. This would allow a class to work together refining rules that need updating or maybe even doing a complete rewrite. They could then submit them to AORCom for approval once the majority of the class was happy with them. This may take a little while to do but atleast it would get done and get done by the people that the rules affect the most. This system can be used both ways where AORCom could ask for competitor feedback on a particular subject and then they would know what the majority of competitors thought. Competitors would now have a system where they could make suggestions and comments that would go to the class rep and if warranted be passed on. The class rep would be the middle man, the go between, the organiser for his class. I feel this system has lots of potential to bring everyone involved in this sport closer together and heading in the same direction and is worth a try. As i know from experience the hardest part is getting everyones email contacts but i'm sure cams would help this time if asked by AORCom. Would like to here other peoples thoughts and ideas on this subject, you never know who might be reading our little club forum do you!!! Hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Christmas and looking forward to an interesting year!!!
Thanks Gavin
It was a good idea when you suggested it before and its still a good idea. I would suggest it to be a priority for AORCom. As Blacky says the communication at National Level is very poor and there is no excuse for it in this day and age.
Thats a great idea, I guess it all depends if they want feedback from competitors. I'm pretty sure AORCom do, as for ORRInc, I doubt it. They seem to be firmly fixed on their agenda & don't really seem to care what anyone thinks. Even record entry numbers can't convince them that an event is worthy of AORC inclusion.
I personally think that the sport has grown so much in such a little time (value of equipment, sponsor and so on) that it is time that Off Road Racing had a full time paid CEO to run the interests of the sport. Currently you have a whole heap of dedicated individuals that give what time they can (and it's much appreciated) but with very little direction into the future. It is more someone has an idea, someone else thinks it wont work and so on. If you had a person reasonable whose job it is to advance the sport bringing all these people together, making a 10 year plan and then whose job it is to make it happen then you will get some real results (this person is accountable to a board of directors (elected one from each state(volunteer). The current situation will never work with what everybody wants as people will only give so much time to any project (how much are they going to give to something they don't agree with?).
In my industry I have seen almost the same thing happen over time, once it was someones actual job to get things done then things get done!
Now to answer the question that everybody has in their head- How are we going to be able to pay them? To get this process right you need to employ someone with the ability to get in and get the job done. I would assume a salary of around $100,000-$150,000 pa. (I know it sounds a lot). If we got someone of this calibre then it is their job to grow the sport. Sponsors, Advertising, events all things that bring in money. If you added a levy of $20 to every entry (a coffee and cake) across Australia then you would already have enough money to pay for their services. I don't think an entry going from $120 to $140 would make much difference to most. If it does then nobody should get upset with what any of the people of bodies do. You will only need to make this change once and then in a few years you will see some real advancement!
Time to open up the sport rather than complain as to what, why and how!
150k at 20 bucks a pop would mean there would have to be 7500 entrants in yearly events to cover the costs I think thats way out. More to the point, if every event is levied, you then have someone who has to get sponsors, coverage for 50+ events. Unless of course you want to levy the state competitors, just to promote the national series. That means the CEO could realistically spend no more than 4 days on eaech event total.
I think there are a fair few people out there at state level who do it just for fun, admittedlty there are less and less as costs go up. But some poeple race for the thrill of getting in their car, and hanging out with mates afterwards. The issue lies in the fact that its a few bucks here, a few bucks there, replace this, do that and it all rapidly adds up to a huge amount.
Ok Agreed it seems steep until you think about it from a more business like point of view! If there was someone being paid to promote the sport, bringing in sponsors and making the sport bigger then the numbers get alot easier to understand. How many entries do you think you would get to a local event if you had a door prize(entry prize) that was a $28000 albins gearbox. I would suggest people would be throwing in entries just to be in the running. A lot of the big companies associated with the sport currently have pretty much a free ride as far as sponsorship vs dollars being spent with them. I'm certainly not saying anything bad about them (or want to make there cost higher) but just think about it for a minute. That may be the difference needed to pay for things to advance.
I agree there are many people who just want to race a local event for some fun (nothing wrong with that) but how about we allign with some sporting car clubs that will bring more people into the sport. currently the people who are vollantry probably wouldn't have the time to get a true strategic alliance happening but a full time paid person could do a number of such project.
A CEO is there to bring it all together, do thing for a topical point of view, you still have the numerous volanteers that do the event work as normal. You have a representative from each state (elected by finaincal members of clubs) that is there to help the CEO, push for each state wants and needs and help on sub commities to get things done! If people don't want costs to go up then they should not complain about anything. THIS SPORT IS CHEAP! it used to cost me more to run a Go Kart at state level than it does my buggy. I can choose to spend less and be part of the party weekend or I can choose to spend more on my car in a hope to be competitive. Personally I choose to do both. Lastly having such a person could actually reduce costs in the long term, make the sport safer and bring it to a far wider audience. (maybe I'm just dreaming but i just get sick of reading all the negative stuff that floats around. Please look for the positives, we have a great sport most of the time)
Spaz/Gavin, The system we have for changes seems to work well once you figure out how to work it. I passed some suggestions for wording regarding windows in extreme 4wd through my state panel rep who then passed it up the line and is now in the rule book. At the time the supp regs for the Australian Safari were in direct contradiction to the CAMS manual and nobody picked it up. Safari was demanding windows in the back of wagons be painted out when extreme 4wd clearly stated windows must be clear, transparent and free of any colouring. Also that windows in any door must be openable by at least a third of its area, I've never seen an opening window in a wagon barn door yet.
There was also the use of "muffler" and "silencer" interchangeably but the terms were defined in the manual very differently. Hopefully they take on my suggestions with noise measurement because what we have is flat out nonsensical and incompetent from a technical standpoint.
We already have middle men, they just arent organised by class. The problem with having a class based structure is it will form a series of self-interested silos and the book will be even less homogenous across the classes than the hodge podge it is now. As an example: I see no valid reason to prevent a 2 litre turbo from running in prolite in the spirit of the classes. A 2 litre turbo engine is just as readily available as a complete package as a 3.5 litre v6. You get a bunch of guys who have a stack of valuable 3.5 litre engines in the shed they arent going to bother looking at allowing some little turbo engines in. In fact many would naturally resist it. Look through the auctions and engine importers for written off WRXes and Mitsi EVOs compared to 350Zs and Aurions. The cheap entry to pro argument for the prolite engine restrictions fails the logic test and unneccesarily complicates things.
I interpret legislation and technical documentation as a large part of my job and I struggle with wrapping my head around all of the ins and outs of just one class, Volunteer scrutineers are expected to handle many times that information under pressure without the luxury of time. I do disagree, instead of having class specialists we need to work toward more homogenous rules across all classes to simplify things to keep things fairer and more fun on the day, we can't do that with 8 different vertical structures existing in parallel within the organisation. I believe it will create confusion not cohesion.
The system we have works, albeit slowly and with plenty of opportunity for improvement.
On the other hand the outward communication from AORCom has improved, But they have a way to go yet.
-- Edited by Patrol842 on Thursday 17th of January 2013 03:24:54 PM
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