Buried inside my 2002-03 Regional Director's report was 3 proposals I had made for changes to the JCNA bylaws or policies, hopefully to be discussed and debated among members, delegates and clubs over the course of 2003 and then brought to the 2004 AGM (Los Angeles in March) as actual motions. I'd like to republish them here in order to get them out into the "public domain" well in advance. I will list the three seperately and invite any comments people may have.

First:

Objective: encourage a wider variety of activities at the local level.

Background: because of the possibility of ôcheatingö, JCNA bylaws limit any individual club to one sanctioned concours per year, forcing members to expose their cars to other clubs and other judges in an attempt to remove the potential for conflicts of interest. The same set of rules has been arbitrarily applied to the slalom program and the rally program, where conflicts of interest and the opportunity to ôcheatö is much less evident, limiting the number of slaloms and rallies thye can sanction.

Proposal: allow local clubs to sanction an unlimited number of rallies and slaloms per year if that is their desire.

Thanks,

Daniel Thompson

Submitted by NE52-32043 on Thu, 03/27/2003 - 17:54

Slalom times for national standings are based on the fastest reported time for that driver in a particular class. Period. No requirement for multiple races/events, no averaging, etc. Just the fastest time. If you go out once and turn the fastest time in the nation in your class, you win. For rallys, the two reported scores with the least amount of error are averaged, under the new system just adopted, to determine national ranking.

With both of these sports, there is a certain truism: practice makes perfect. The more you do it, the faster you get, or with the rallys, the less error, generally speaking. While allowing clubs in some areas of the country where clubs are far apart to run more than two might work, in the crowded Northeast and certain other areas, most of us have access to 6 or mor slaloms a year, and multiple rallys.

The idea of encouraging more local activities, to me, does not mean adding more rallys and slaloms. Local clubs should be encouraged to run at least one event per month. I'm proud to say, that is what JTC does. Not just rallys and slaloms. We have our concours in the fall. We do a club tour, this year our Adirondack tour to British Invasion. We do a "Spring Dust-off" with a driving tour and dinner, a summer pool party, an end of year holiday party, a cultural tour, and on and on. Our biggest problem is coordinating our calendar with the Jaguar Auto Group, JCSNE, JANE and other local clubs to avoid serious conflicts. And that doesn't even begin to include the miriad of British car shows and events happening all over the Northeast.

Yes, encourage local clubs to be more active. It's worked for us. But I don't really think that throwing the doors open for more slaloms and rallys is the answer.

Steve Weinstein, JTC-NJ
'72 E-type 2+2
'89 XJS Coupe

Submitted by dthompson@gbc.ca on Thu, 03/27/2003 - 11:32

Mark,

We are talking about two different issues here. I'm asking the general JCNA population and delegates to approve the sanction of multiple (more than 1 or 2) slaloms and/or rallies per club in order to encourage activity.

The slalom committee and the rally committee are empowered to find equitable and fair ways of establishing national "winners" in each event. That's their job. I'm not going to touch that one, it's far too complicated!

Daniel

Submitted by marks@jcca.us on Thu, 03/27/2003 - 11:12

I've lost track of what was passed at the AGM, but as long as JCNA rankings are based on slalom/rally rankings at the different events vs. actual times, then I would be in favor of this.

Where I see a problem is that if the continental rankings are based on actual times, and a club has access to a very fast slalom venue, members from their club would have an unfair advantage for national rankings based on that. Likewise, if rallies are easier in some areas (like Arizona where roads go for miles between intersections), or if the same route is taken, multiple times, those entrants would have an advantage.

If continental rankings are based on actual times, I would offer one of two alternatives. Either each slalom/rally would have to be held at a different venue or take a different course, or, my preferred solution, multiple slaloms/rallies could be held at the same venue/course, but only the fastest score from all the slaloms/rallies held by a single club during that year would count toward the JCNA rankings. That would mean that the entrant would have to attend another slalom/rally held by another club, which, I think, is a good thing.

Mark Stephenson
Jaguar Club of Central Arizona