New Board

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

As a new board with 3 new members (along with a very recent addition) one thing we want to do is take some time to analyze where we are as a club.  Basically what we as a club do well (strengths), what we need to do better on (weaknesses), things we might be able to capitalize on or do better at (opportunities), and what things might get thrown in the way (threats).  We have started that discussion as a board but I am interested in feedback from the members that visit the forum on those areas.  Everybody has an opinion, including myself, but try to stay on track thinking about those 4 areas for the club.  What I hope to get out of that is to have areas for the board focus on as we direct the club.  If you want to name specifics that the board does in any of those areas, feel free because how the board does is a big part of the club.  But don't just limit it to that, think of the club as a whole.  I would appreciate your input.

 

Edit: I forgot to say if you don’t feel comfortable putting it here then send me an email or instant message on here.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Rodger Coan-Burningham

[ABR-Glen]

Asking for input/feedback is a good start for sure!

[MichaelPal]

Thank you for the prompt Rodger.

 

To better answer this question, What is the the purpose of the board? What are the goals? (From the point of view of a board member(s)). I’m interested in clear objective points. 

 

The more statements from other board members the better! 

 

Gracias!  

Edited January 28, 2022 by MichaelPal

[Hugh Jass]

Strengths
- put on safe races at world class venues and Nelson Ledges
- allow average Joes like me to go wheel to wheel
- the biggest and best schedule for the market segment
- real racers, not parade float pilots
- a great community, I have only met a few people in my years in the series that were not willing to help you anyway they can, most will tell you whatever you want to know, sell you their precious spares (even when they really don't want and still charge the market rate) or loan you that tool you left at home.

 

Weaknesses
- rules changing every year, some amount is needed to maintain parity and fix loopholes but it seems to be a major gripe with the membership
- car counts are down from when I started, my first race was a sellout and the 24 that year had about 100 entries, have we seen a sell-out since Indy 2019?
- a perception from some in the racing community that we are still chumps

 

Threats
- not attracting more new customers
- the front of the field becoming too fast for people to compete for wins without spending 5 digits a weekend or hiring staff
- running races that lose the club money year after year

 

Opportunities
- out-reach / advertising, I found out about this series after I had already started work to go Lemons racing, I realized this was way more my type of racing than what they do, but they are the reason I even learned about affordable endurance racing
- wheel rule, no wheels wider than 10", this also limits cost

Edited January 29, 2022 by Hugh Jass

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

14 hours ago, MichaelPal said:

Thank you for the prompt Rodger.

 

To better answer this question, What is the the purpose of the board? What are the goals? (From the point of view of a board member(s)). I’m interested in clear objective points. 

 

The more statements from other board members the better! 

 

Gracias!  

Stated appeals of the club: (I guess you could call this the mission or goals)
 

Champcar is North Americas home for real, affordable, competitive endurance road racing.

And:

Champcar is the simplest path to real wheel to wheel racing. 

 

As a board we should make decisions for the club to provide and protect that. We should make sure we make decisions that keep the club financially sound. We should make decisions that promote the club in such a way to assure the long term health of the club. We should oversee the employees of the club to assure those goals are being met operationally. 

 

 

 

[DEE DEE]

On 1/29/2022 at 9:34 AM, Rodger Coan-Burningham said:

Stated appeals of the club: (I guess you could call this the mission or goals)
 

Champcar is North Americas home for real, affordable, competitive endurance road racing.

And:

Champcar is the simplest path to real wheel to wheel racing. 

 

As a board we should make decisions for the club to provide and protect that. We should make sure we make decisions that keep the club financially sound. We should make decisions that promote the club in such a way to assure the long term health of the club. We should oversee the employees of the club to assure those goals are being met operationally. 

 

 

 

The board should be fulfilling the mission of the club.  The board should be communicating with Dana only.  Your job is not to oversee other employees.  

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

22 minutes ago, DEE DEE said:

The board should be fulfilling the mission of the club.  The board should be communicating with Dana only.  Your job is not to oversee other employees.  

Thank you for your input. You should know that we as a board communicate with Dana on anything regarding the club and our club employees. The board has full faith in Dana to manage the operational activities of the club including the club employees. But I would ask you where you get this clear directive you speak of? The bylaws list specifically we do have that responsibility whether we as a board choose to engage in anything employee related or not.
 

[JDChristianson]

Just my thoughts. 
 

Strengths 

pretty well run fun race weekends

reasonable cost and low barriers to entry

Racing at top notch tracks

 

Weakness

Slow, or no, response to loopholes that get exploited 

Inconsistent enforcement of no contact racing rules 

Opportunities

Expanding membership and races in the Midwest 

Containing speed and costs. (Tire rule comes to mind)

Improving communication 

 

Threats

Cost and speed creep hurting the ease of entry, and perception of being able to compete 

 

Complacency, not taking other players serious 

 

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

27 minutes ago, JDChristianson said:

Just my thoughts. 
 

Strengths 

pretty well run fun race weekends

reasonable cost and low barriers to entry

Racing at top notch tracks

 

Weakness

Slow, or no, response to loopholes that get exploited 

Inconsistent enforcement of no contact racing rules 

Opportunities

Expanding membership and races in the Midwest 

Containing speed and costs. (Tire rule comes to mind)

Improving communication 

 

Threats

Cost and speed creep hurting the ease of entry, and perception of being able to compete 

 

Complacency, not taking other players serious 

 

 

Thanks Jeff.  Complacency, interesting.  I had been thinking all around that, but couldn't put the right word(s) to it. 

 

Hope the camping is still going ok, I assume you are still there.  Be careful out there in the boonies.

[Andrew D Johnson]

Strengths: 
No licensing requirements for drivers
Well coordinated events, that generally run smoothly
Single class racing 

Weaknesses: 
Allowing large budget teams to operate outside the spirit of the rules. 
Constant rule changes 
Year over year increasing cost to compete 

Opportunities: 
Stick to your budget roots, don't go upscale because its the "cool thing to do". 
Lower the barrier to entry
Lower the cost of racing 
Make\keep ChampCar the cheapest place to road race
 

[DEE DEE]

55 minutes ago, Andrew D Johnson said:

Strengths: 
No licensing requirements for drivers
Well coordinated events, that generally run smoothly
Single class racing 

Weaknesses: 
Allowing large budget teams to operate outside the spirit of the rules. 
Constant rule changes 
Year over year increasing cost to compete 

Opportunities: 
Stick to your budget roots, don't go upscale because its the "cool thing to do". 
Lower the barrier to entry
Lower the cost of racing 
Make\keep ChampCar the cheapest place to road race
 

What do you consider a "large budget team"

[mcoppola]

1 hour ago, DEE DEE said:

What do you consider a "large budget team"

The ones that pull up in a professional hauler with multiple paid crew members and a pit box like you see on tv vs a $60 harbor freight pop up like most of us have. Not hard to tell the difference between amateurs and former or current professional teams wanting to come out and play junior varsity for some odd reason. 
 

A little food for thought: nascar put a limit on how many races a varsity driver can race JV per year, probably because they realized it was more detrimental than beneficial. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by mcoppola

[BollingerChump]

On 1/27/2022 at 3:05 PM, Rodger Coan-Burningham said:

As a new board with 3 new members (along with a very recent addition) one thing we want to do is take some time to analyze where we are as a club.  Basically what we as a club do well (strengths), what we need to do better on (weaknesses), things we might be able to capitalize on or do better at (opportunities), and what things might get thrown in the way (threats).  We have started that discussion as a board but I am interested in feedback from the members that visit the forum on those areas.  Everybody has an opinion, including myself, but try to stay on track thinking about those 4 areas for the club.  What I hope to get out of that is to have areas for the board focus on as we direct the club.  If you want to name specifics that the board does in any of those areas, feel free because how the board does is a big part of the club.  But don't just limit it to that, think of the club as a whole.  I would appreciate your input.

 

Edit: I forgot to say if you don’t feel comfortable putting it here then send me an email or instant message on here.

An amateur club doing a SWOT analysis!? That would be too prudent!

[riche30]

Things I would like to see happening:

1. A better overall marketing effort to attract new teams to the series including outreach programs to make sure we're reaching younger racers.  I'd love to see more programs such as the ones from VATech and UGA in our races.  Someone needs to be contacting these schools with motorsports programs and seeing what we can do to get them involved.
2. Continued sponsorship efforts.  During my time on the board sponsorship work fell pretty much to Mike C. and Tyler.  Mike is gone, Tyler shouldn't be saddled with it alone.  Create a sub-committee to work on sponsorship efforts together.  Cross train each other in how we go about presenting ourselves to potential sponsors.
3. Make a concerted effort to bring back the "Spirit of ChampCar".  I feel we've grown overly competitive and some of the comraderies of the paddock have been lost.  Teams used to work to earn Spirit trophies, now it seems to be an afterthought.
4. Develop a comprehensive plan to address the weaknesses of the CCES rulebook.  Can the rulebook remain sustainable over the next 3 years, 5 years, 10 years?  How are we going to continue to address the gains made via software versus mechanical as cars become more ECU controlled with each year of newer VPI additions.  Is it time to begin thinking about a total re-write and considering other methods for our performance balancing (power to weight perhaps)?
5. Discussion about expanding the Board of Directors to include a total of 9 members instead of the current 7.  Replacing three members this year concerned me about a total knowledge vacuum.  Is it time to increase that knowledge and experience base to coincide with the growth of the series? 

[Rodger Coan-Burningham]

24 minutes ago, riche30 said:

Things I would like to see happening:

1. A better overall marketing effort to attract new teams to the series including outreach programs to make sure we're reaching younger racers.  I'd love to see more programs such as the ones from VATech and UGA in our races.  Someone needs to be contacting these schools with motorsports programs and seeing what we can do to get them involved.
2. Continued sponsorship efforts.  During my time on the board sponsorship work fell pretty much to Mike C. and Tyler.  Mike is gone, Tyler shouldn't be saddled with it alone.  Create a sub-committee to work on sponsorship efforts together.  Cross train each other in how we go about presenting ourselves to potential sponsors.
3. Make a concerted effort to bring back the "Spirit of ChampCar".  I feel we've grown overly competitive and some of the comraderies of the paddock have been lost.  Teams used to work to earn Spirit trophies, now it seems to be an afterthought.
4. Develop a comprehensive plan to address the weaknesses of the CCES rulebook.  Can the rulebook remain sustainable over the next 3 years, 5 years, 10 years?  How are we going to continue to address the gains made via software versus mechanical as cars become more ECU controlled with each year of newer VPI additions.  Is it time to begin thinking about a total re-write and considering other methods for our performance balancing (power to weight perhaps)?
5. Discussion about expanding the Board of Directors to include a total of 9 members instead of the current 7.  Replacing three members this year concerned me about a total knowledge vacuum.  Is it time to increase that knowledge and experience base to coincide with the growth of the series? 

 

Thanks Rich.  A bit of an update on some of this:

 

1. Outreach. What you suggest and more, don't need to limit ourselves to just schools.  We need new blood coming in however we get it.

2. Sponsorship. Tyler is still working the TireRack details, but we have some meetings this weekend at Rd Atl including one potential suitor.

3. Spirit. I haven't noticed much of this, I feel like the spirit is still pretty good around the paddock. Maybe you are right, but not sure what concrete steps can be taken.  I think I am like a lot of people and never really paid much attention to the spirit trophy, was always too busy keeping a car running.

4. Rulebook. This is always going to be a balancing act.  People say "changing rulebook" is a big weakness or threat to running teams off, others say if you don't change to keep competitive we run teams off. 

5. Board number. Normal years this is only 2, hopefully changing this won't be necessary.  And we usually bring on knowledgeable people, seemed like with the 3 new ones we hit the ground running in January.  We almost couldn't get enough to run this year as it was, right?

[Black Magic]

Rodger, 

 

I think the series is straddling between competitive pro-am racing and true budget entry level weekend warrior racing. One of the biggest things the board will face is deciding how much to allow the series to "grow up". 

 

You have a pretty distinct split in the series between those trying to be really competitive, and those looking for cheap racing and someone to compete with. The # of cars running below 450 points hints at how split this might be. You see people constantly talking about their class A or class B position vs overall as an outlet to compete in some way against similar performing teams.

 

  You also have some really great builders coming into the series and some teams really raising the bar further moving us from the chump perception. For your more die hard racers the series is running well for the handful\dozen car models that are competitive. The dream that Champ might become televised or be a semi pro series ( a few pro teams playing in our sandbox) is exciting. If you want to retain "one class" racing mixing these groups is going to be tough. 

 

For me I was able to bring friends and some newbies into the sport with me in 2013. We finished in the top 20 our first race with half the team newbies to road racing and had a blast in a decades old mostly stock FWD crap can. Fast forward to today and I no longer recommend or support bringing new drivers to the series, they are better off starting in lemons and lucky dog so their pace makes them less of a liability and they have someone to compete against. A car prepped similarly to the mopar 4 life neon is handfuls of seconds off pace (with experienced driver that has gone faster FTD than race winner in the past) due to the speed creep now . The same model car I ran with my experienced drivers can run the needed pace, 40 more whp will do that for you. The pace of the series and the speed of the cars is appealing to those of us experienced and thirsty from doing this for a decade, but we can't bring a second car for friends\wives\girlfriends looking to race against the other "b list" cars and not get run over and the car destroyed. The b list car also has little interest the performance balancing, as long as they have a class to play in they have a shot at.

 

Question will be do you widen the market appeal or strengthen the core of the top racers? Doing either could work, doing both I don't think is feasible. 

[Jer]

I will add that under Dana's leadership we will have had in 2021 the best financial year ever in the club's history.  We cut out some but not all of the money losers and safeguarded the series for years to come.  Financials will be out in a couple of months.  Race fees are at least flat, which is big considering we dropped Indy and COTA in 2021.  That provided a lot of revenue AND a lot of expense.  

[riche30]

7 hours ago, Rodger Coan-Burningham said:

 

Thanks Rich.  A bit of an update on some of this:

 

1. Outreach. What you suggest and more, don't need to limit ourselves to just schools.  We need new blood coming in however we get it.

2. Sponsorship. Tyler is still working the TireRack details, but we have some meetings this weekend at Rd Atl including one potential suitor.

3. Spirit. I haven't noticed much of this, I feel like the spirit is still pretty good around the paddock. Maybe you are right, but not sure what concrete steps can be taken.  I think I am like a lot of people and never really paid much attention to the spirit trophy, was always too busy keeping a car running.

4. Rulebook. This is always going to be a balancing act.  People say "changing rulebook" is a big weakness or threat to running teams off, others say if you don't change to keep competitive we run teams off. 

5. Board number. Normal years this is only 2, hopefully changing this won't be necessary.  And we usually bring on knowledgeable people, seemed like with the 3 new ones we hit the ground running in January.  We almost couldn't get enough to run this year as it was, right?

5. Board participation might be more attractive with more members instead of less.  At times I felt like the workload for 7 people was unbearable and at other times that we were sitting on our hands with nothing to do.  Growing it a few members might make some assigning of tasks and committees more reasonable, and give direction to those who need it. 

[MichaelPal]

On 1/29/2022 at 9:34 AM, Rodger Coan-Burningham said:

Stated appeals of the club: (I guess you could call this the mission or goals)
 

Champcar is North Americas home for real, affordable, competitive endurance road racing.

And:

Champcar is the simplest path to real wheel to wheel racing. 

 

As a board we should make decisions for the club to provide and protect that. We should make sure we make decisions that keep the club financially sound. We should make decisions that promote the club in such a way to assure the long term health of the club. We should oversee the employees of the club to assure those goals are being met operationally. 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, thanks for the prompt Rodger.

 

I’m speaking as a team owner who has competed and been involved in Champcar since 2015. I love racing here and constantly push people outside of the organization to come and race. The community really is the best part. I think if I had more conversations with the people in control of the rules / org, I would have a better understanding of WHY things are done the way they are. But here’s my shotgun of verbal diarrhea mostly focused around the competition aspect from my little soapbox.

 

Strengths:

1. Hours year vs competition vs cost
   1. Average $/hr < others.
   2. Race Hours/year >>> others.
2. Low entry barrier for newbs – for some, Champcar is the first entry in the Wheel-to-wheel lifestyle.
3. 1 class racing / every team can win overall
   1. the rule set is built around giving every the possibility to win even though yes we do have A/B/C/D classes
   2. many makes and models given the opportunity to compete for overall win, while this is the unique aspect of Champcar, I don’t believe this to be possible anymore.
4. Varied race type (7h-24h)
5. The community / forum / immediate feedback
6. Deployment of new technology (Flagtronics)
7. Relatively simple rule book (when compared to SCCA).

 

Weakness:

1. Low entry barrier for newbs – a youtube for new drivers is not enough to go from HPDE to W2W.
2. cross sanctioning body car sharing
   1. standard items allowed in others would put points way over 500. Ex: oil cooler, skid plate, camber plates, wheel spacers, coil overs, using an in-brand transmission that is newer /more durable due to OEM trans getting scarce. Lot's of people don't have the time / resources to support constantly switching back and forth.
3. BOP via points system. That’s a lot of cars to even attempt to ID accurate performance. Constant whack-a-mole is unavoidable.

 

Opportunities:

1. Using team provided video for decision making (black flag / penalties).
   1. Saying “well the flagger never called it” should not eliminate an event from being discussed.
2. Use of flagtronics to reduce overhead (egg timer / pit lane speeding /purple 35 violations)
3. Use of flagtronics to ID penalties (more overhead)
4. education / ladder system
5. driver tracking system (RFID)
   1. tag bad drivers for probation / improvement plan
   2. tag good drivers for accolades/awards (most total laps / most laps with no black flag/contact/etc…)
6. review the 2-hour stint time, lower it (part of a bigger tear up / review of rules).

 

Threats:

1. Other series offering features that are more advantageous to a builder / racer - not worrying about how you used small bits of plastic to seal up a front fender.
   1. I see lot's of people comment "oh in WRL you are only racing 20cars" But you are racing 20cars closer to your performance potential. In Champcar, yes there are 80cars, but in a weekend, maybe I meet 10cars that I can actually keep pace with and jockey for position, the rest is just a practice of traffic management. Running in Champ, I've become very good at traffic management, but want to push to become a better driver.
2. EC becoming a higher car count – encouraging long term EC.
3. Teams feeling it’s impossible to compete for overall win.
4. Not addressing fuel balance

 

Overall approach is difficult (many makes and models given the opportunity to compete for overall win). That’s hard to balance if not impossible. If I could drive rules structure my core approach would be:

• If a part is added to contribute to overall 1-lap pace, it should have points applied.
• If a part is added to help endure, it should be free. 

As I've said before, trying to find a good balance to make everyone happy is impossible and I understand that. I hope this thread serves to be a good source of feedback that can promote change in areas for improvement.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to share.

//michael

Edited February 1, 2022 by MichaelPal
words

[Jamie]

On 2/1/2022 at 3:05 AM, MichaelPal said:

purple 35 violations

 

I was in the timing tower once and we did the math on what that min lap time would be for purple 35 at VIR would be and then looked at the timing, I think 100% of cars were in violation, might have been 99%. 

[Bill Strong]

On 3/14/2022 at 1:29 PM, Jamie said:

 

I was in the timing tower once and we did the math on what that min lap time would be for purple 35 at VIR would be and then looked at the timing, I think 100% of cars were in violation, might have been 99%. 

 

I know a lot of you have not been to a race this year using Flagtronics. But this has been fixed, and those outside the speed set are black flagged. Ask Chris Huggins what that was like.

[sf4018]

Having "affordable" and "competitive" in the same sentence of the mission statement is difficult, maybe impossible to achieve. 

[Jamie]

3 hours ago, Bill Strong said:

 

I know a lot of you have not been to a race this year using Flagtronics. But this has been fixed, and those outside the speed set are black flagged. Ask Chris Huggins what that was like.

 

 

You had it at Seca. But no purple 35s out here. 

[mhr650]

It could also be used to enforce pit lane speed limit. Just call pit out and tell them to hold the car for an extra minute, that would get everyone’s attention.

[ManhattanMcC]

3 hours ago, Bill Strong said:

 

I know a lot of you have not been to a race this year using Flagtronics. But this has been fixed, and those outside the speed set are black flagged. Ask Chris Huggins what that was like.

 

@  VIR I used it to "figure out" where 35 was... Slow 'til it stops flashing, slow if it starts. Pretty cool. I also got to see in real time while facing the wrong direction the 2 local yellows I caused (hooray for getting yourself back on track)