One thing I think is pretty sad though in my opinion, is they get 400 riders for practice and only 288 entries! Come on guys, why are you not racing? Everyone is pro practicers as someone else called them on here one time.
Not sad at all. That is a very enouraging number if you analyze it correctly, and supports my disagreement to the reasoning that weekend practices discourage race turnouts or that you can corral people into racing with schedule manipulation.
Nobody wants to learn how to ride a track during competitions. People like to learn at practice, build confidence, and eventually SOME will decide they would like to take their learned skills, match them against others and compete. Others will either never have that confidence, or just never have that urge, or simply would rather ride in that laid back practice atmosphere of not being on the track with a bunch of other people who wish to defeat you. Yet others will want to compete, but do so in that laid back unserious atmoshphere, buy a 3 wheeler and race with OTC.
If you have 400 praticers, and 400 racers, it means you have no new potential up and coming racers. You are not growing the sport. If you are not growing with new people at the same rate people, are leaving, for whatever reason, you are in decline. Your turnout for today is great, but your future is bleak.
If you have 400 practicers, and 288 racers, it means you have 112 people practicing who currently do not race, which means a certain percentage of them are being groomed into the sport, and will likely begin competing at sometime in the future, to replace those who are retiring, or dropping out for other reasons, which ensures a better turnout for tomorrow even though today is not high as you'd like it to be.
As for the practicers who will never race, they are vital to funding those practices to create potential racers, and bringing their buddies with them who might wish to eventually compete once they are introduced to a track, and begin riding it.
The overall goal of practice needs to be far more than just encouraging those who already race to polish their skills if the sport is to survive. It is for grooming new racers into the sport by being the bridge between informal trail riding and formal track racing.
While the Braircliff location might be a bit of a hindrance for race attendance, it's location is a huge asset in luring trail riders onto the track.
The numbers are enouraging. Racer numbers are a falling edge indicator of where you are today. Practice numbers are a leading edge indicator of what is to come tomorrow. Concentrate on getting practice numbers continuously improving, and your racer numbers will follow.