Divisional Rule Change

[dholt]

I see the SORC has eliminated the automatic Nationals qualifier for winning the Divisionals. Any Commissioners care to explain the reasoning for the rule change?
thx.

[hshawwpba]

I see the SORC has eliminated the automatic Nationals qualifier for winning the Divisionals. Any Commissioners care to explain the reasoning for the rule change?
thx.

This is why I no longer go to the National meetings, the commissions make changes before the meeting and have the agendas decided prior to the meeting. You can go there and voice your opinion and argue the points but the rule votes and changes are done prior to the meeting. They should put the National meeting on a internet feed where racers can log on and discuss on a live feed such a "Join Meeting" site and save time and money for all. Those that want to go and watch people get awards and have a bonding session can still go, and the meeting could be cut down to 2 days!
If they were smart they would have changed the qualifier to a simple 1 heat race at the nationals during the qualifying heats where the divisional winners and past year National winner would run a 1 heat race and the winner would be automatically Qualified the rest would have to run in qualifying heats.
Enjoy the ride!

[Brian10s]

I see the SORC has eliminated the automatic Nationals qualifier for winning the Divisionals. Any Commissioners care to explain the reasoning for the rule change?
thx.

I would be interested in the discussion behind this as well. Seems from the outside that we have taken entries away from the 4 clubs hosting Divisionals in order to reward one club hosting Nationals. Because hosting a Stock Divisionals just lost some of those "out of region" racers who travelled in order to get the qualifier. Clubs also lost out on the Extra rigs - those that ran just to make sure there were 8 boats in the heat. All those additional entries and dollars are gone and for what? So there are 11 slots open instead of 7 in the finals. But really only for a couple of classes (C, 20, 300 & maybe 1 or 2 other) because those are the only few classes that had qualifiers from every Division.

Now I do see a benefit to the clubs that now the Divisionals can be hosted at sites scheduled after nationals. It opens other sites to hosting and might pull a few travelers looking for High Points that they might not have seen. But we all know those chasing points are fewer than those that used to chase the qualifier.

Anything I missed?

[jsilvestri]

Spot on. Poor decision in my opinion!

[Matt Dagostino]

This Commissioner from Region 4 was dead set against the topic period! The Divisional's help local clubs and now without the Divisional qualifier 'carrot' it is just another race. My question to my fellow SORC members in part was how are we helping the clubs and the Divisional Championships by implementing these new stipulations? My feeling is we need to do things to help local races and not hurt them. The Nationals need no help. Racers don't base their decision on going to the Nationals on the basis of number of qualifying spot open. However if a driver like Ken Mcmurphy from Region 10 wins and pre qualifies at the Divisionals like he did, then he chose to go to the Nationals and ran 2 or 3 classes! Had he not won the Divisionals he would not have gone to Grass Lake (case in point)

Oh, next we are voting to raise the minimum boat count per class to 6 or 8 to get bonus points........4 boats in a class will no longer get double points. I voted against this also. Your midwest SORC rep's are Pater, TJ, Mitchell, Big Don and Pav. Maybe reach out to them for their rationale pro or con on the issue.

Stay tuned