I looked at car counts a few years back

2003 - 67

2004 - 59

2005 - 58

2006 - 21

Very rough numbers, that's a 60% drop.

Can MLRC afford this?

This IS the feeder series to performance rallying

The OWR was Canada's most highly attended rally as far as I now, now the car count is down 60%!!!

Maybe we should re-evaluate the NOWR and find out why people aren't showing up.

I am sure more people would show up if it had simpler instructions and was run at night.

I did the Criterium Rally with a CAS of only 60 and it was still a blast.

Um let's see:

MLRC is already not profitable
MLRC has a downward sales trend
MLRC has a downward profit trend

That spells the death of any business, not-for-profit included.

Geez, hope we can turn things around.

Radically changing your most popular products is probably not the best thing to do in this situation

Probably also a good idea to launch new products to increase sales and profit

My humble opinion but what do I know

Fred

Fred,

Your enthusisam for the sport is clearly evident and is welcome,  as are your initiatives to provide new sites and grassroots activities.

However your misguided and misleading posts are counterproductive to the best interest of the sport and are unfair to the MLRC Board and Executive.

MLRC has always lead the way in putting on the most rally events and the best rally events in Canada from true Beginner level (the Mini Series) to the highest level (Tall Pines).  MLRC contributes events at every level in every rally championship running,  including a long history of navigational rallies, both those focusing on navigational features and those focusing on skilled driving features.  The club has lead the way in RallyCross and in Regional performance events (Black Bear).

While you are right in saying that the OWR has in effect been a feeder event for performance rally,  the NOWR clearly was not intended to follow that.  For very carefully thought out political reasons,  which have been clearly outlined on this forum,  the MLRC Board chose not to offer the OWR for 2007,  while the Bill C-19 (Street Racing)  lobbying  efforts were ongoing.  The NOWR,  clearly a navigational event was offered to hold the OWR date in the calendar and to offer rallyists a great drive on former OWR roads,  but at significantly reduced speeds.  The Board made this decision in full awareness that the event would draw significantly fewer entries than the OWR has done in the past.  As Terry Epp's post indicated,  the event was very well executed.  Congratulations and thanks to Ryan Huber for doing such a great job with it.

Your post suggesting that MLRC made a poor marketing decision is totally misguided and unfair.  You are comparing apples and oranges.

In an effort to offer a substitute for the drivex event,  the MLRC Executive busted their asses to put together two winter driving events at the Burnt River site.  These two events were successful and were run very safely.  You just need look at posts on this site to see the highly positive response from the participants.  MLRC has every intention of expanding this for 2008.

The MLRC Board and Executive cannot and will not put on events that do not fully comply with all safety and insurance regulations.  While we watch with great interest other options,  we will not offer events on alternative venues and formats until we are certain that they will receive full approval of RSO, CARS and ASN Canada.  The club's reputation for excellence and responsibile activities must be maintained. The Board has been actively investigating other options; for example,  we visited the MCO site in Ottawa where they run their winter driving events to get whatever pointers we could in putting on safe and fun winter events.  We are also currently seeking feedback from the governing bodies about running alternative style winter events,  but this takes time.

Fred, your input in growing the sport is more than welcome.  Twice you have been personally invited to attend MLRC Executive meetings to work with us,  but so far you have not attended.  I know for a fact that Bryn Epp, the MLRC President, has issued a personal invitation for you to attend the next Executive meeting.  I sincerely hope you will do so.  We want to work with you,  but cannot do so if you continue to attempt to operate independently in an uninformed manner.

Meanwhile it would be much appreciated if you became better informed before making posts that are either malicious or at the very least misinformed.

Let's work together on this!

"However your misguided and misleading posts"

???? thank you




"Your post suggesting that MLRC made a poor marketing decision is totally misguided and unfair"

Um, 60% of your customers decided not to show up.

All I am saying is that MLRC not longer has a product for 60% of the customer base.  I asked if the organizers would consider running the event at night for the next year.

That's all.  

If we think drivex's are dangerous, reduce the CAS to 60.  Maybe the performance rally guys won't show up but 90% of your customers will, instead of only 30% showing up to the event they way it was organized this year.

Rallying, being the state it's in, cannot afford to push away customers.

I know a few guys who are throwing in the towel re rallying and going into ice racing, oval and shifter karts.
Too bad.



"Twice you have been personally invited to attend MLRC Executive meetings"

New to me, maybe I didn't get the message.  I know I was invited to one but was away diving in Thailand.



"before making posts that are either malicious "

OK, whatever you say.


"Let's work together on this!"

of course!!!!

fweidner wrote on 03/17/7 at 08:53:11:


20 - 30 cars is typical for an ORRC event.  If you look at the 2007 January Jaunt, exactly 21 cars showed up.  So that means 100% of our customers DID show up to NOWR.
The OWR always drew from the performance rally crowd, but this was Not the OWR.


You're right about one thing:  There is a need being unfullfilled.  There is no step-up from navigational to performance rallying.  From my understanding, that has been a problem for quite some time, it is not a new problem.  But there have been many steps made to correct this.  Particularly in the past year, there have been many creative ideas.  For example the closed-road TSD held at Galway.  Also the 'recce' school held at Tall Pines.  Steps are also being taken to re-introduce rallysprints.

Quote:


Nobody is being pushed away.  Merely redirected to proper events and venues.  Open public roads are not the place to be learning performance rally driving.

Quote:


Rally is the most diverse motorsport in the world.  That's part of what makes it so great, there is something for everybody.  It can't be lumped together into a single category.  There are many navigational competitors who are not interested in moving up to performance, and vice-versa.  You may see it as apples to apples, but it really is not.

Organise something, serve on a Board or committee, or attend the Board, then you can speak as a fully informed participant in the discussion.  Most of us have day jobs, and this is not always our first priority (like keeping job, paying mortgage, car payments, raising kids etc).  So, it's not run exactly like a business.  It's volunteer.

The 'idea' behind these clubs is to offer safe and legal grassroots motorsports to welcome participants.  Profit, versus loss, is the most desirable outcome at all events, but on the balance of the year is all that is important, really.  In theory, and basically in practice, that enables the 'idea' to occur 'forever'.  When we become largely driven by money and profit concerns, it's over (we're all registered not for profit orgs, too, which doesn't mean you can't profit, but there are tax and other implications).  All a club needs is sound financial stewardship, not huge plans for massive growth.  We grow and maintain the sport by offering properly organised safe events.  Sometimes downturns in attendance are not related whatsoever to anything we do.  e.g. there are sometimes large economic factors that will dictate the participation levels, particularly in performance rallying where the costs are obviously higher.  When you perceive, or even factually observe, an event with a loss, is pretty irrelevant in the big picture.  For example, on numerous occasions MCO has lost THOUSANDS putting on regional races, but on the whole MCO is quite healthy financially, and that's all it needs.  We meet our objectives annually by holding sanctioned grassroots events and schools in motorsport.  That is our purpose. That's all that matters in the end. If everything loses money, then obviously we have to step back and stop the bleeding.

Road Rally *may* be the beginning of someones move into performance rallying, but as road rallying offers a seemingly endless variety of challenges, and enjoyment, at low cost, most people are quite happy to stay "down" in road rally forever.  It's very rewarding. There shouldn't be too large an assumption placed on graduation to performance rallying from road rally.  If it happens, great.

On ice racing, it looks like a blast, and people may be doing that because of that, and maybe because there are no insurance concerns (closed track) and the rubber to ice classes are a fairly cheap way to go door to door racing.  Nothing wrong with that.  Karting takes lots of skill, and I can see people being keen on it.  Maybe when they come back to rally it will be on a closed road.  Maybe we should market to those segments.

I wasn't at the Criterium Rally. However, I heard enough from a number of experienced people whose judgement I trust implicitly (and explicitly), that this was not a well run rally, with numerous safety concerns in both design and execution.  If that's what you want more of....good luck.  I'm thankful I had nothing to do with it.

No hard feelings.

Craig

Just checked the official 2007 RSO Calendar.

No club reported planning any such activities on April 15th.

How can you cancel something that was not on the schedual?  

Just wait till you have 3 year old TRIPLETS!!!