You're right - that was a part of it. Last year, the Club Race that we sponsored ended up in the red a little bit, but the board was fine with it. The board has always been supportive of the DE program, giving them whatever funding is needed and not interfering in how the track guys want to run their program. The truth is probably only about 10% of the members track their cars - I'm guessing, but even with over 500 primary members, I'd be surprised if more than 50 are interested in spending the weekend at the track.DTMiller wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2019 7:05 am Without knowing the specifics of the rant, I do know that running a DE is a ton of work and that many groups have trouble doing so profitably so there might have been a bit of a "if you board members don't lead the way we're going to lose this thing" aspect to it but it doesn't sound like it. And if that was his intended message he quite obviously delivered it poorly.
There's just a palpable "if you don't track your car, you aren't a real Porsche owner" mindset that our track guys have. They like to make snide comments about the "wine and cheese crowd" and the "show and shine guys." That was evident during the diatribe. For example, during the track weekend, we do "parade laps" during the lunch break where guys (like me) who swing by to check out the action can go out for 5 or 6 laps behind a lead car. Everybody who does parade laps pays $20, which we donate to a local charity for kids who have witnessed a family member get murdered, so we have a lot of guys come out for that. He said that this upcoming DE, he's going drive the lead car himself, and he's going to do it in his pickup truck and he's going to do it at a crawl - it's going to be a true "parade" at parade speeds. He's not letting anyone come out and have any fun whatsoever on the track unless they are signed up for the whole weekend of DE.
They just need to accept the fact that there are a lot of reasons that people don't want to be involved in the DE program, not the least of which is that it is an all-weekend commitment and that there is a fairly significant financial risk. The non-track guys aren't trying to prevent the track guys from doing their thing - it's exactly the opposite. You've got 90% of the club willing to front the tens of thousands of dollars for deposits and take the financial risk to allow the 10% to run their events. They should be grateful, not hateful. Just sayin'.