April 20, 2007
Hi Folks,
For some of you this may be your first notice of changes in the May National Solo schedule, but given the efficiency of the modern grapevine, I suspect most of you are already aware of the changes noted in the enclosed release. The purpose of this email, which is going to all the entrants of the Walnut Ridge and Mineral Wells ProSolo events and the Walnut Ridge Tour, is to give you just a bit more background on the decisions and more administrative details.
I fully understand the concerns and disappointments of the ProSolo drivers that had entered these two events, as we share those feelings and they were expressed quite vigorously during our internal debates about what we should do. Those debates centered on what was least disruptive, psychologically and practically, to the ProSolo program and its supporters. On one hand we could have just soldiered on and run both events with whatever entry level we had. This would have possibly shown our commitment to the program and our steady adherence to our plans. However, without question these would have been very strange, undersubscribed events that would be exceptionally poor examples of a “”National” event AND would have used up a disproportionate amount of our scarce resources ($$ and time). Using up the financial resources in this way might have required cuts in program features later in the year. On the flip side, we could have just simply cancelled the events with no other action. This would have maximized the resource savings, but would have left big holes in the schedule and not allowed us to test the new single course ProSolo format before the NY ProSolo this summer, that already has 200+ entrants. Trying a new system for the first time at a 200 car event seemed very unwise.
Therefore, I decided on a middle ground. As mentioned in the news release, the efficiencies that your National Solo Field Staff have been able to accomplish allowed us to do something truly unique. Since the Walnut Ridge Tour entry was sitting at about half of our usual Tour average, we knew we could run two days of heats in one day. This would allow some folks to leave early if they chose to help minimize their expenses and get them home to their families sooner, OR they could stay for the second day as originally planned and get a chance to try something new at no additional cost. We are also investigating adding a National Tour event on the date of the cancelled Texas ProSolo, which will allow another part of the country to be a part of “The Road to Topeka”. As noted at the beginning of this paragraph, this was my decision after consultation with several folks, so please direct any ire towards me not the National Solo Field Staff, or even the Solo Department staff.
On to the various details:
• Upon request, entrants of the Texas and Arkansas ProSolo events can receive a full refund OR they can transfer their entry fee to another 2007 National Solo event.
• If these same entrants needed either of these events to count as a qualifier for the Finale, we will refund half of your entry fee and the cancelled event will be counted as a qualifier.
• Requests for refunds or transfers to other events should be directed to Nancy Downing, Solo Events Manager, at
[email protected].
• The one day, single course format, Walnut Ridge ProSolo is a regular event with regard to trophies and contingency awards, as well as being one the required two qualifying events for the Championship Finale event (see ProSolo rules for more details on Finale qualifying).
• The Walnut Ridge ProSolo is scheduled to have a minimum of five runs during class competition, followed by the full compliment of Challenge competitions. If circumstances permit, we will increase the number of class runs. The course used will be a modified version of the Saturday afternoon Tour course that begins with a “Christmas tree” start leading on to approximately a 200’ straight.
• The Walnut Ridge ProSolo is included in the entry fee of the Tour event the day before. It is at the option of the Tour entrants to participate.
• The Walnut Ridge Tour event will have three runs for all competitors before lunch. After lunch there will be three more runs using the same basic course in the reverse direction.
• Walnut Ridge competitors are reminded that there are no suitable tire changing services in town, so drivers should come prepared.
• We will release news of a possible Memorial Day weekend Tour as soon as we can.
• As a side note to this situation, we knew going in that these two events were a bit of a gamble from a turnout perspective, but the rest of the 2007 National Solo schedule is solid and we fully expect this to be the only schedule change for the remainder of 2007.
We appreciate everyone’s accommodation to these developments and apologize for any inconvenience that these necessary steps may have caused. Again, if you have concerns/complaints/etc., please direct them to me and if you need help getting your entry squared away, contact Nancy.
See you at the start line!
H.
Howard Duncan
V.P. of Program Development and Operations
1-800-770-2055
Fax 785-232-7228
Reply With Quote.
Originally Posted by POS Racing
Has anyone seen a revised schedule of events for this weekend??
s
!
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