There are four major components that are essential to Club Racing; in no particular order, they are: our national sponsors, the Club Racing staff, the racers and the promoters, our chapters. Without any one of these components the program could not function.
Our national sponsor program pays for the administrative costs of running the program, including the transportation costs for the stewards. Club Racing gets all of its funding from sponsors and your licensing fees.
The Club Racing staff provide for the administration and management of the program, from licensing to rules to event oversight. The staff currently numbers about 60 volunteers who spend their evenings and weekends making sure the program continues to function.
Of course the participants, you the racer, are a part of the equation. Your participation, recruiting and quest for improvement are key to our continued success.
The final element is our ‘promoters’, the chapters. BMW CCA Club Racing simply provides the infrastructure that supports the chapters, who are the entities that actually host the events. BMW CCA Club Racing provides the services of the consistent national rules and the stewards to oversee that the event operations are managed in concert with the rules. The local chapters are the ‘promoters’ of events – club races are chapter events with few exceptions. They take the financial risk and as with every chapter activity do so in the spirit of the club and trying to serve the interests of their members.
We have a chapter, the Northern Ohio Chapter, that is sponsoring a Club Race in just a couple of weeks. Their event is over the weekend of September 15-16, with a test day on Friday, September 14 and it takes place at Nelson Ledges. As of this writing there are a total of two (2) racers registered.
Without chapters hosting events we don’t have a program. Without our support of hosted events, chapters will not easily or readily consider taking the financial risks associated with these events. We need to support the chapters who are supporting us.
If you can possibly attend this event or any event listed in the calendar, please do. If the event/venue has drawbacks, let the organizer know, in advance, so they can plan appropriately and possibly avoid financial losses that can affect a chapter for months, if not years. BMW CCA Club Racing and the racer community need to work together to ensure the success of each event to ensure that there will be future events hosted by our member chapters.