Coming from the tarmac side, we never got anything (in MOST recent years - not all) at an Autoslalom or SoloSprint. So I always thought it was kind of neat that the organziers went out of their way to make sure that winners got something at every ORRC event. Then, when you have 8 plaques, you start wondering what you're going to do with them. You HAVE to put them on a wall because there's no way to store them efficiently on the shelf you started stacking them on, because they're all different sizes.
I think that KWRC's current budget per SNATR trophy is $2. A nifty dollar store item like a sun catcher, a key rack, a tea light, etc. and an engraved nameplate from the event glued onto it. Reasonable budget, and my wife actually has two motorsports tophies from the two SNATR's that she ran! (One knowingly, one unknowingly. But that's another story.)
But look at OPRC. Name me a team that spends less than $2500 on average getting to, then doing the Tall Pines, then fixing what they broke, and that will be a rare team indeed. So to those teams, it's kind of hard to fathom how the organizers can't come up with a $25 trophy for a class win, I suppose.
But I like the thinking going on in this thread. How do you make it more meaningful? I think the action photo is the best way. Supports rally photographers, ensures that the event has good action photos for the media, and the competitors have something they really can treasure.
Oh, and RSO, we were quite happy to collect this hardware at the AGM. Thanks!