Wednesday Racing Indoors

[Derek C]

Further to the recent committee meeting, as a club member, I would like to make the following observations about racing indoors every other week.

Most racers are creatures of habit and therefore wish to race weekly. If our club cannot support this, my fear is that our members will find an alternative club. (Our membership does understand that the hall is sometimes used for blood donation).

This year we do appear to have a number of new faces and this should improve the numbers for Wednesday nights. My recollection from last year is that on most evenings we would have 6 - 8 minis, 8 - 10 stock racers and 4 pro-stocks which as a minimum brings in £90. Whilst this is not a great profit it covered costs.

We have also had some very successful nights at the outdoor track and I believe some of this money could be used, if required, to support indoor meetings.

I would therefore suggest that we start the winter season with weekly meetings (subject to blood donation) and review this after a couple of months and put the decision to the membership as a whole.

In my early days as a committee member and chairman, the outdoor track was in fact subsidised by the indoor meetings for at least 2 years.

I would welcome comments from other members.

Derek Chapman

[Simon Crabb]

I'm in agreement that the current levels of new members *could* improve indoor attendance.

The minimum income of £90 is unfortunately inaccurate though, on more than one occasion we only had around a dozen drivers in total, perhaps £60 minimum.

I think the suggestion of two 6-meeting championships is a good one, it keeps the focus tight and makes them an event, rather than a habit.

There's so much local racing, that many of us race elsewhere, especially during winter when there's not much outdoor racing available.

[keitheroonie]

Hi Derek, the numbers of racers attending on a Wednesday evening has declined in recent months, to the point where we've been loosing on average about £20 per week, this is unfortunately unsustainable for the club, even with the good turn outs for the outdoor track.
This is the reason why we've been forced to cut down the number of meetings by 1 per month. This isn't necessarily a permenant thing and will be reviewed. If the numbers of racers turning up regulaly is sufficient then we'd be happy to include the extra round providing we can get a race director that's willing to collect the equipment from Bashley.

[mattsedgley]

Derek,

Firstly welcome to the forum!!

Your point about racing on a weekly basis is an interesting one, I'm happy to race 3 times a month as we did last winter.

However - numbers last year really didn't cover the costs, not forgetting that a Junior member rate is only £4. Obviously if all of these members choose to race indoors then the hall will pay for itself, and support the outdoor track.

There have been many rumours banded around about indoors, the sale of the carpet etc etc. I'd like to re-assure the members that this has not happened, and it is not in our intention to sell the carpet at present.

Racing every week also heightens the issue of race directors, for a good couple of months through last winter I ran the meetings on my own, with help from members like yourself in setting up and taking down the track that is a large burden in itself, more race directors will be required to run these meetings this year, I'm sure you will agree often there are many offers of people to run race control, however it is the same few people who run the majority of the meetings, (many thanks to Reuben and Dave Chamberlain who are running the majority of them at the minute).

Then we have to consider the logistics of moving the AMB Transponders, and loop from one track to the other, and the charging of the transponders for 24 hours before they can be used, obviously the person who has the gear on a Wednesday night needs to meet with the person who is running the Sunday meeting, or charge all of the equipment and meet early on Sunday morning.

Also the cost of repairing or replacing damages parts of the track perimeter must also be taken into consideration, as we don't have a bottomless pit of funds.

As a committee we are not looking to remove indoor racing from our schedule, however there is alot of indoor racing going on in the area, Hamworthy, Bransgore, and Gang warily are all running regular weekly meetings and have been throughout the entire summer period. naturally the pull of racing outdoors will be bolstering numbers on any Sunday outdoors, we've recently been having a good few drivers from Hamworthy race with us on a Sunday.

We must also consider to break even, we need 16 adult drivers, for us to make any money to support the outdoor track as you quite rightly highlighted, would require more members, any more than about 20 drivers and we'll be struggling for space to pit along the back edge of the track and on the stage.

The suggestion to go to two meetings a month rather than 3 seemed a wise one, as it may pull in more drivers to raise that number from 16 to closer to 20, also if numbers weren't quite hitting 16 it would allow us to run longer into the winter before having to make a decision about stopping the indoor racing IF club funds do not allow it to continue. I refer you to the ongoing, un-avoidable costs of the outdoor track and it's upkeep. It would also remove some of the stress on whoever the race director at the time may be.

I am currently in the process of producing a calendar to run through to February 2010 which will allow members to sign up to be a race director, Dave Chamberlain has posted a number of times in an attempt to get people interested in running race control, with a link to the software to allow familiarisation with it.

I'm sure someone will suggest that we move to a new, cheaper Venue, I've spent a considerable amount of time looking for a new venue that will give us the space we require, with power and lighting, between the hours of 6pm and 10.30 plus free storage on it's rack for the carpet throughout all of the year, for just £75 a meeting and I've not found one yet, naturally if any of you members know of a suitable place then please let us know, as that may be another avenue that we can explore to give us the racers what we want, more racing!!

Matt

[wessex88]

Aug 11, 2009 12:10:52 GMT Simon Crabb said:

There's so much local racing, that many of us race elsewhere, especially during winter when there's not much outdoor racing available.

I agree there are other venue`s racing indoors.If the indoor racing is reduced to 2 meetings a month members will probably try these other venue`s which ultimately may result in a loss of membership at this club.I have raced elsewhere,ultimately it`s the people that make the club.Personally I prefer SHMCC.

[Martin Young]

Firstly can i say these comments below are my personnel opinion and a such just my observation's.

As a club you need to think very carefully about the indoor racing as I'm sure you are aware whatever decisions are made it will impact on the outdoor and the club membership sides. You cannot IMO look at it as its own separate entity it is part of the club. That said I understand if it's loosing money from the indoors side then something needs to change.

First question I would ask is why the lack of racers, Dorset on a Friday night are in the situation that they almost have too many racing. Why?

Limiting the racing however to alternate weeks will for sure loose you members and as such will lead to further demise. Even running it 3 weeks out of four you reach a situation when racers don't always know when the racing is on or off!

I'll be honest I don't know what the answer is but a one way of saving money is to dish out less trophies, my observation's from last year is we were always in a championship, it became as someone has said earlier the norm. What about running a single trophy night at the beginning of the indoor racing lots of flyer's to be handed out at other clubs try and get some new members in at the start, the only issue with this will be the new members will be asked for a membership fee with just a few months of racing before renewal. Maybe it would be worth repeating this around Xmas when membership would be for the full year? Just a thought what ever happens for it to survive you need to get more racers interested.

[Martin Young]

Aug 11, 2009 13:35:44 GMT @mattsedgley said:

Derek,
I am currently in the process of producing a calendar to run through to February 2010 which will allow members to sign up to be a race director, Dave Chamberlain has posted a number of times in an attempt to get people interested in running race control, with a link to the software to allow familiarisation with it.

This is a great idea, Jen has offered in the past to run some meetings with a calender available it should make it easier to spread the load.

[keitheroonie]

hi all, many thanks for your constructive comments, the input is always good.
Can I just add though, we will only be dropping about 7 meetings over the whole years calendar. As we already loose 1 meeting per month to the blood donors.

[iainmiller]

Just a short comment. I am inclined to agree with Derek, with the new members an new interest this hopefully will increase the numbers for Wednesday and therefore the income.
There also now seems to be positave steps being taken to increase the numbers of race directors,wich hopefully will deal with the other problem.
The situation needs close eye kept on it in relation to the three points above for the next 2-3 months, and then if any serious problem still exists it must be decided by all the club members after considering advice from the committee.