SBR&DET Bert Olsen DN / G'Man / July 7, 8

If credit card charges are the issue wouldn't it be better if the regions set it up so that you register on line but pay at the track with a check? I know that some regions allow this but some require payment in order to avoid a late charge.
 
msturminator":20gyu699 said:
Dayle,
All your points are valid, except for when I was on Motorsportorg.com and hit Register the fee was $450. No mention of extra charge paying by credit card. Every race that I have ever entered on that web site was the price that was quoted. Chicago region does not even run your credit card until a few days before the event. So I guess I am guilty for not reading the "reply" from Motorsportorg that read "Thank you for registering" I opened it this morning and it said to mail check to "registrar" but nowhere did it say there will be a extra charge for credit card payment. FYI that subject was a mayor discussion in the paddock.

#48
Mike
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I heard about it quite a bit as well. Most of my drivers buddies know I'm also a semi-mucketty muck and a few of them vented their spleen on me during the weekend.....even though I'm not a SBR or DET member. The heat probably had something to do with it as well. I'll be sure and pass on the feedback to the appropriate folks.

Dayle
 
There are different stroks for different folks. This past weekend I had entered the Blackhawk Farm PDX day (test some items & scrub a new set of Hoosier) for Friday & the double regional for Sat & Sunday via MotorSportsReg . Because of my mom's medical issues it required I cancel both events. There was NO increase up front for MotorSportsReg using a CC on line & to date on paper I have received a 100% refund. Check or CC, same entry fee.

Thank you CenDiv Milwaukee & Blackhawk Valley regions. :)
 
Dayle Frame":2af1dt1d said:
We have to keep costs down and this is one way to do it. In these tough times, regins have to watch where they spend every dollar......It used to be that 20% of drivers used CC's...now its more like 60%. Do the math. That means using MSR is very expensive for a region. If drivers used checks, then our costs go down and the we can keep our entry fee static.
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Then you increase the entry fee by $5, allow payment on MSR, which you've already gone through all the trouble to setup and use for registration, and make things stupid simple and easy for your customer base, stop having any possibility of popping surprise charges on them, and stop pissing them off. That's what you do if you want to keep cusomers. And I really don't care if it this stuff was in the supps or not. It probably was, but I didn't even care to look, because that's not the point. The point is that it's not 1984 anymore. People register on their computers, pay with their credit cards, and want all of this to lead to one gigantic "easy button" when they get to the track. Again, this is what you do if you want to keep customers. With how SBR/DET set this up, registration at the track took forever, and then once you actually got up to the window, they had their hands open for more. This is not a sound business model, my friends.

And then there was the 45 minutes to get five people through tech....all of whom already had annuals on their cars, 2012 stickers on their helmets, and their tech sheets filled out. How this should've taken more than ten minutes, I never would've known until Friday night. Wow.

On the bright side, the racing on track was great though! Lots of close, clean, fast racing to be had! During Sunday's race, new track records were set in EP, FP, HP, & GTL. 88-o


**disclaimer: Dayle, I know you're just providing perspective and are not affiliated with putting on this event in any way, so I'm not trying to attack you in any way.
 
It was all about the Ice Racing experience that Mike Moser's car was put back together for Sunday's race!! We had fun starting from the back. Congrats to Mike on the Sunday win. I was lucky to get the finish on Sat. and thanks to Mike helping (i.e. doing) a tranny swap, I was able to get another finish on Sun. Finished 4th but was on Larry's bumper until Lawrence, Rob and Chris started cheering on the penultimate lap and I waved back only to miss turn one. Thanks to Larry for showing me the line!!

Regarding the 5% charge, I was pre-registed and this is the email that I received on July 3rd from the Chief Registrar:


GingerMan Raceway has added another open track opportunity for Thursday evening from 5:00-8:30 pm. The cost is $75 and this in addition to Friday's open practice. Contact GingerMan Raceway for more information. This is not a SCCA sanctioned event.

For those of you planning on paying your registration fee at the track, please plan on bringing a check for your payment. If you choose to use a credit card, there will be a 5% fee added to your registration.

Regards,

Mary Shiloff, Registrar

Normally I pay w/ a CC, but brought my checkbook because of this email.

Thanks Mary, Mike, Lawrence, Rob and Chris, Josh the Track Manager, the ladies at 8 1/2 for letting my kids hangout there in Fridays heat and anyone else that helped out!!
 
Recracer":1crn7yml said:
Finished 4th but was on Larry's bumper until Lawrence, Rob and Chris started cheering on the penultimate lap and I waved back only to miss turn one.
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:cowboy: :doh: :wink:

Happy you did two finishes.
 
kruck":2mafveqm said:
Then you increase the entry fee by $5, allow payment on MSR, which you've already gone through all the trouble to setup and use for registration, and make things stupid simple and easy for your customer base, stop having any possibility of popping surprise charges on them, and stop pissing them off. That's what you do if you want to keep cusomers. And I really don't care if it this stuff was in the supps or not. It probably was, but I didn't even care to look, because that's not the point. The point is that it's not 1984 anymore. People register on their computers, pay with their credit cards, and want all of this to lead to one gigantic "easy button" when they get to the track. Again, this is what you do if you want to keep customers. With how SBR/DET set this up, registration at the track took forever, and then once you actually got up to the window, they had their hands open for more. This is not a sound business model, my friends.
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Brian (from MSR) here - We counsel our organizers to charge the same rate online as offline to avoid the scenario that people experienced at the track. The data shows that online entry and (more expensive) payment actually increases participation rates which offsets the increased cost of doing business. It looks like in this case that the payment difference was not communicated well in the pre-reg screens and we will follow up with SBR/DET to make sure it's clear for future events (if they elect to continue the policy).

I fully understand regions are cost sensitive and taking non-credit-card payment is one way of cutting costs. I have first hand experience as a board member of San Francisco Region. Although we have large events with lots of cars, our track rentals run $20k/day so our costs are high too. We cut everywhere we can but we try to invest in places where it will generate long-term, repeat customers. As they say at the National Convention, "make it easy, make it fun" is a good place to start. (For the record, I think they stole that from us :) )

From when I started the company in 2002, my mission was "to make organizing and attending events easier and more fun". I will have to chat with Dayle to see what he means by we are still in our infancy all these years later ( :) ) but we do a pretty good job of meeting that goal today. More than 350 organizations from North America use MSR as a result and we work every day towards doing it a little better.
 
kruck":13vv0gym said:
Dayle Frame":13vv0gym said:
We have to keep costs down and this is one way to do it. In these tough times, regins have to watch where they spend every dollar......It used to be that 20% of drivers used CC's...now its more like 60%. Do the math. That means using MSR is very expensive for a region. If drivers used checks, then our costs go down and the we can keep our entry fee static.
Click to expand...

**disclaimer: Dayle, I know you're just providing perspective and are not affiliated with putting on this event in any way, so I'm not trying to attack you in any way.
Click to expand...

Completely understood. I hope I made a good neighbor last weekend....I know you did.

Dayle
 
pukka":2w5ecd4s said:
I will have to chat with Dayle to see what he means by we are still in our infancy all these years later ( :) ) but we do a pretty good job of meeting that goal today. More than 350 organizations from North America use MSR as a result and we work every day towards doing it a little better.
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Brian,
I said the 'system' is in its infancy. And by that I guess I meant that most regions in our area have only been using MSR for a couple of years and we're still learning how to use it effectively. Its a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, with every region using this tool slightly differently, it can make for some confusion for the driver corps.

I said it before, I envision this being a national system in a few years so that supps, fees, schedules, etc. for a given race can be uploaded into the SCCA website and drivers can go to one place to register for all SCCA events.

Many thanks, again, to you and Ann for all the support.

Dayle
 
Dayle Frame":42knsh8i said:
**disclaimer: Dayle, I know you're just providing perspective and are not affiliated with putting on this event in any way, so I'm not trying to attack you in any way.
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Completely understood. I hope I made a good neighbor last weekend....I know you did.

Dayle[/quote]
Yup. You even got Dad looking at Honda generators, so we can finally get rid of this over-priced, unreliable, loud as hell, POS Onan that's currently in the RV. You should be glad he didn't snag yours. :lol:

Dayle Frame":42knsh8i said:
I said it before, I envision this being a national system in a few years so that supps, fees, schedules, etc. for a given race can be uploaded into the SCCA website and drivers can go to one place to register for all SCCA events.
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I like it. A one-stop shop right on scca.com to register for any SCCA sanctioned event.
 
Dayle Frame":j27i79qr said:
I said the 'system' is in its infancy. And by that I guess I meant that most regions in our area have only been using MSR for a couple of years and we're still learning how to use it effectively. Its a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, with every region using this tool slightly differently, it can make for some confusion for the driver corps.

I said it before, I envision this being a national system in a few years so that supps, fees, schedules, etc. for a given race can be uploaded into the SCCA website and drivers can go to one place to register for all SCCA events.
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Thanks Dayle - I figured as much and no offense was interpreted. :) FWIW, we did look into this event, SBR/DET were not taking credit cards through MSR. Their decision to charge extra at the track was with their own merchant account (or something outside of MSR) and wasn't related to our fees. We're helping them update their event docs to better reflect surcharges if they continue it in the future.

Congrats on the win!

Brian
 
Guys,

I've read your comments about registration and tech and we will try to make things better in 2013. As one of the race organizers, let me give our rationale about credit cards for registration and other issues:
1. We should've communicated this better by making this more clear on motorsportreg as opposed to just putting it in the supps. We'll do a better job of this in the future.
2. We try to keep entry fees as low as possible. One way to do this is to only accept checks. If we accepted credit cards on msr, then I believe the fee would be 5%(someone can correct me if I am wrong) and the region would have to either absorb this, or raise entry fees to offset this additional cost.
3. Do the math if everybody paid by credit card: 150 drivers x $22.50(5%) = $3375. That's a significant amount of money, and increasing the entry fee by $5 isn't gonna cover the cost. Those cc fees could be used to cover other expenses(fixing guardrails, repairing pavement, recharging fire extinguishers, buying kitty litter,worker meals and gifts, radio's, fire crew etc.). Or we could raise the entry fee to help offset all or part of this cost.
4. SBR/DET regions will make make money on this years race due to the fantastic turnout we had this past weekend. But, in previous years, our budget was so tight, if we had to absorb the cc fee, we would have been darn close to losing money. Believe me when I say that every year we are very nervous about racers showing up. One bad year of low entries and we could've lost our shirt, and the checking account would be in the red(this has happened to quite a few regions that can no longer "afford" to race).
5. $450 is a bargain for a double national even with the cc fee. Look at registration fees for single nationals around the midwest. Our race figured $225(more w/ cc fee) per race is about what race entry fees were 15 years ago!
6. Tech-we were not aware that tech was slow. We'll try to make this more efficient in the future. What seemed to be the problem?
7. Registration-we weren't aware of longer than normal lines at registration. What seemed to be the problem? Lack of staff, lack of knowledge, racers filling out entry forms at the window? I waited in line for 10 minutes because 1 driver in front of us was doing minor waivers, getting picture ID's etc. Once I got to the window, I was there for less than a minute because I had everything ready.

Finally, if you have any complaints, suggestions, or gripes, please e-mail me at [email protected]. I will make sure each of your concerns is addressed at our post-race meeting. We truly are trying our best to put on a great event for the workers and racers.

Looking forward to your comments. :)

Jeff Luckritz
SM #76
Regional Executive
South Bend Region, SCCA
 
One more thing from the GingerMan track manager:

Photos taken by nick with Redline Photography have just been posted to our facebook page. You know what would be great? If you could send the link to all the drivers from this past weekend. They can see photos from the weekend here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gingerman ... 0229919594.

Please test the link. Also - you could let everyone know that they can contact nick at [email protected] to see photos of themselves from the weekend.

Jeff
 
jluckritz":3mnrmkdf said:
Guys,
2. We try to keep entry fees as low as possible. One way to do this is to only accept checks. If we accepted credit cards on msr, then I believe the fee would be 5%(someone can correct me if I am wrong) and the region would have to either absorb this, or raise entry fees to offset this additional cost.
3. Do the math if everybody paid by credit card: 150 drivers x $22.50(5%) = $3375. That's a significant amount of money, and increasing the entry fee by $5 isn't gonna cover the cost. Those cc fees could be used to cover other expenses(fixing guardrails, repairing pavement, recharging fire extinguishers, buying kitty litter,worker meals and gifts, radio's, fire crew etc.). Or we could raise the entry fee to help offset all or part of this cost.
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Bank fees (regardless of using a swipe terminal vs. paypal vs. MotorsportReg.com) are roughly 3% on average. Yes, your base rate might be as low as 1.9% but when you divide the total fees at year's end by the total dollars processed, 3% is a pretty reliable average.

While SBR/DET were not using MSR for payments, as the Official Registration Service of the SCCA, Regions are entitled to a discount so pricing would have been either 4.25% or 4.75% depending on the plan (see http://www.pukkasoft.com/signup). No organization that I know of eats the fee (at least not in its entirety). We don't like the bank fees either but there aren't many industries that are moving away from plastic (for better or worse)...
 
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