Before the AGM, a State of the Nation/club debate.

[andy110m]

Hi All,

With the AGM coming soon I wanted to share with you all a discussion I had this morning regarding changes to the buggy class and possibly the club in general.

I am apposed to the thoughts and comments I was hearing and my reasons for this will surprise some of you who've known me for a while.

The general gist of the conversation was about trying to make Ribble Valley into a more off road style buggy club with more slippery sections, rumble strips and possibly larger jumps. It was also mooted we pit in the other hall and carpet all the existing hall to create two tracks, one for off road and one for the GT12's. We all should run rubber tyres and raise the ride height to 10-12mm which you'd have to anyway with the changes to the track. We also threw around the idea of single class racing, either be a 2wd only or 4wd only club, along with a motor limit. I must confess the last two ideas I raised as they would logically follow the other suggestions.

What was said to be the driving force behind all this need for change was the wish to get a level playing field, get closer racing and reduce costs, and believe me we had some funny debate over whats affordable and what isn't.

Now I'll tell you why I think all this is completely wrong. Finally, after a few weeks of bringing my young lad and talking to other lads and dads, I get it. It took me a good many years but finally I now understand. Ribble Valley is a fun club, the strap line is racing for fun and its spot on.

This club is not for the fast racers who want nose to tail action for 5 minutes. I'm not decrying it at all, I think it does well and really enjoyed racing last week catering for the faster guys but its aimed at fun on a Friday night with your family and mates. These changes will take the club backwards. We have close racing now, we have cheap racing now. All the goals of our discussions are either wrong for the club or have already been achieved.

Thinking about the history of this club, the transformation from the days at Westview, then Fulwood to what its become now is unbelievable. The club has been racing for well over 20 years so many of the new ideas are old ideas and have been tried and assessed in the past. The good ones kept and the bad ones scrapped and this is whats brought us to where we are now. For example in the days of Fulwood, we raced touring cars and it was decided we enforce a motor limit. For all the same reasons, lower cost, closer racing etc. All it meant was all the members had to buy new motors and the fast guys did all they could to get the max performance. The results stayed the same, all we did was increase cost so it was scrapped. When we came to the current venue, we raced buggies on rubber and to be competitive you needed a new set every week which cost a fortune. We had bigger jumps but still people had cars on the deck and when I stopped coming, due to tyre cost, people started putting additive on mini pins to look to save an extra tenth of a second. Now its evolved to foams its great, about 15 quid for a set and they'll last a good couple of months.

The up shot of all this rambling is the committee should be congratulated for agreeing a plan, sticking to it and creating and developing a very successful club and format. It works as its is. From the automated booking in, the different practice for varying abilities, pretty much everything from the tuck shop to the foams to the 4 minute heats is right and works. I do have to hold my hand up and admit in the past I was pushing the committee to be more race minded but they held firm and were right to do so.

Its also worth remembering we've had this discussion about creating a race car club before. In fact one of the former racers felt so strongly the club should change direction he created not one but two clubs to attract the racers. The first was on a Saturday so no clash but numbers we're very low. He questioned people as to why and got told it has to be on a Friday night. So he tried again on a Friday and got the same result. So its been demonstrated, people want a racing for fun club, with good racing, yes sure, but they don't want a Southport, Chadderton or Worksop style. They don't want RVRCCC to be messed with to make it a racers club either. Or so I believe having talked to people over the past few weeks.

I'm looking forward to bringing my lad to race in the near future, or crash round the track as it will be for at least the first couple of months but at this club that's fine. Nathan and the other kids are the target market, not the A finalists. In fact this debate shouldn't concern me as a racer because when Nathan starts I'll be pitting for him (read, pitting as repairing his car every heat!) and trying to bring him on instead of racing myself.

I posted this to get the views of others, to start people thinking and see what the general thoughts are. These and other proposals I've been told will be made at the AGM so its a good discussion to have. You've got my 2 pence, its working very well, its certainly ain't broke so don't mess with it.

Please discuss.

[spennyy2k]

The discussion came about via several racers, not wanting to change how the club is, ie to a pure buggy/racer club but as far as the buggies go more off road content not running them as touring cars. Yes there would could be an increase in running costs with tyres, this could be helped with a control tyre to a degree. At the end of the day they are off road cars and everyone asked across a range of driver abilities agrees with it (apart from 1). No one is saying the committee has done wrong or a bad job running things, and it is run well. Cars are getting faster and one thing that is definitely needed is a longer and wider track.

[andy110m]

Firstly, full agree with Steve, nobody is or was saying the committee has done anything but good work however people are saying change is needed and the point I'm making is no it isn't.

We shouldn't want to raise the costs, I think that's just daft when we have something that works so well and so cheaply. Secondly, yes we race off road cars but we race them in an on road environment. People set up their cars to the conditions. No different to any other club. I can't see an issue.

Lastly, I disagree with the comment the track needs to be longer and wider. I'm sure the A final would love all those changes but this club isn't for those people. Its for the rest of the people who want to come and have a bit of fun with their toy cars on a Friday night.

[spennyy2k]

I agree with what your saying however if it's tight and twisty it's hard for beginners, and its hard to pass at the top end as well, the last track had a 2.5m wide straight and it was far better

[andy110m]

Good point Steve, tight and twisty can be tricky for a beginner. So we don't need track size, tyre, motor and car changes, all we need is a redesigned track?

If its still the same process as when I used to race, am I right in saying the track design is changed every 8 week series anyway? So job done?

[spennyy2k]

The problem is there isn't enough carpet to make the track consistently wider