Jason Saini

There's a new place to play this upcoming season... the Precision Racing Organization is hosting 29 autocross style events, some at road-courses, in the 2003 season.

There is $20k purse in year end prizes, plus tens of thousands in contingency money.

The rules closely mirror the SCCA's stock, street touring, street prepared and street-mod classes, without some of the SCCA's more 'annoying' restrictions such as outlawing shift knobs and body kits in stock.

Stock is called 'Touring', STS and STX are 'Improved Street', the Street Prepared classes are 'Super Production' and Street Mod is 'Modified.'

I applaud the effort of some friends to get this off the ground, but have some reservations as well. Much llike CART vs. IRL, ALMS vs. GrandAm etc., competition directly between two sanctioning bodies can get ugly. As long as the rules remain such that there can be crossover between the two series, it shouldn't get ugly. Right now, there is crossover from SCCA to PRO, but not PRO to SCCA. So in essence, the PRO is trying to attract a new market, while keeping an outlet for SCCA competitors. It should remain this way. While the SCCA may have it's shortcomings, it has put allot, financially and otherwise, into building an infrastructure that supports, insures and organizes competitions. This investment that the SCCA has made is partially responsible for creating the demand that the PRO is poised to capitalize on... it's important that fact is kept in mind.

Also, the points structure for the PRO concerns me... it needs some tweaking to keep people in 'less competitive' classes from sandbagging and running away with an event. Somehow (and I don't have the answer as to how) the winners at events should be the driver that performed the best, not the one that manipulated the points system best.

But, those concerns aside, I'm excited to run some of these events. It looks like they will be higher speed, as some have said more of a 'solo 1.5' event. Also, their intention is to eventually eliminate competitors having to work at events - I guess that's the Professional part in PRO! If the contingencies keep coming in, and they adopt some class contingency rather than just overall as it stands now, I think the series could do quite well.

Do I wish that these 'changes' to make autocross more modern and viable had happened within the SCCA? Sure. Do I think the SCCA should take notice? Definitely. Hopefully, this ends up making the sport better as a whole.

krazik

Hmm looks very interesting. I will be sure to check them out when they make it to the SF Bay Area.

s2k2fast4me

I'm interested in where the heck they think they are going to run an event in the Bay Area. None of the currently available sites in the Bay Area proper are either large enough or offer good surfaces.

The Pro series looks interesting, but the schedule sure looks optimistic for a first year organization.

-Andy

rzrsedg

I wish they called it something other than "Pro." That's just gonna get confusing. Like:
"Hey - you goin' to the Pro?"
And you'll be all:
"Do you mean the Precision Racing Organization autocross that's coming up?"
And I'll be all:
"No - I mean the SCCA ProSolo event."
And you'll be like:
"Oh - I didn't know what you mean't by 'pro'"



I'm betting that they'll try for Thunderhill and Atwater in the Bay Area. They seem to have a lot of "on-track" autocrosses.

-r