Hi RPM,

I got back late last night from the CARS AGM.  Rather than wait for the next RPM meeting, I thought I would give an email summary of what happened.

Financials:

CARS is on a good footing, financially.  Insurance rates to the events will remain stable, at least until March 31, but we are expecting an increase from K&K this year, because of the claims we had in 1999.

Some changes to the budget from last year: revenue from licenses is expected to increase, due to the growth of the sport.  There are already quite a few new license holders in 2000, including several american crews. Rallye de Quebec has 44 teams registered so far, and neither Sprongl nor McGeer has registered yet, so there should be several more.  License fees will remain unchanged.  Some of the expenses are also expected to increase:

 Because of the migration toward FIA timing, we have new (FIA) control board designs.  CARS is going to make standard signs and give them to all regions.  CARS is also going to make marshall bibs for all events, clearly labelled (e.g. "steward", "marshall", etc.), and master timing cards for all events.  Travel expense is expected to increase, primarily for Terry to attend all national events, including the pre-event press conferences.

Press officer exepenses are also budgeted to increase, but we're still evaluating some proposals.

5-year plan:

There was some discussion of the 5 year plan at the open board meeting, mostly focused on how we can make the migration to FIA legal cars without bankrupting our competitors.  Some of the news on the progress of Charlevoix's plans was shared, and John McArthur (SCCA ProRally steward, STPR organizer, Rally USA clerk of the course) shared some of the news on SCCA's progress toward WRC.  It is pretty clear that FIA wants a WRC event in North America, and they want it soon.  Whether Colorado or Charlevoix gets it, both SCCA and CARS will need to move in the direction of running group N and group A cars.

The 2000 AGM is scheduled for January 13, 2001 in Montreal.

Sponsorship for 2000 is, so far, the same as 1999: Subaru and Yokohama are still committed, and we have good reason to expect them to be there in 2001.  CARS is still working on several good leads for additional series sponsors.  Contingency money from VW and Daimler-Chrysler is the same as 1999, and Subaru's contingency programme has been renewed with a few changes.

The 2000 rule books are now ready.  Each club has one in their package, plus I have 12 more which will be available for sale at TBird.  The rules change process was discussed in some detail, and we are refining the terms of reference and makeup of the rules committee. "The CARS rules committee should include people with broad experience competing in, organizing and stewarding rallies in various regions of Canada.  Its job is to analyze all rule change proposals in depth, discuss potential implications and effects of each proposal, suggest concrete, precise wording and present options to the board.  Final decisions on each proposal rest with the CARS Board." Jon Gardiner will be asked to remain as techincal advisor and chair of the rules committe.

TV:

There was some discussion about good and bad points of the TV coverage, and some suggestions will be made to the producers.  In general the response has been very good, and the viewership numbers are impressive, especially in Quebec.  In addition to the TSN/RDS broadcasts, we will continue to have Video News Releases available to all TV stations shortly after each event. The exact times and sattelite coordinates are booked about 2-3 days before the event, and this information is given to the stations directly.

National Series:

Once again, the full title of the series is "The Subaru Canadian Rally Championship, sponsored by Yokohama"  The board discussed each of the events' good and bad points.  There is quite a bit of variety between events, and the board sees this as a good thing: not all events can do a media-fest like Charlelvoix and Quebec, but other events are often more fun for the teams.

Future of car classes:

CARS will strike a committee to plan the development of a new class structure, taking into account changes in SCCA, moves towards north american WRC round, cost to competitors, models offered in north america, homologation problems.  I am chairing this committee, and will be recruiting people over the next few weeks.  The committee is to report to the board by May 1, so that we will be able to give competitors a good idea of what to build for 2001.

Web site:

CARS has a new web site under construction, but the DNS entry isn't done yet.  It will be www.carsrally.ca and I'll let you know when it's up.

Paul Westwick 
BC Rally Director,
Coordinator, Specialty Subaru Thunderbird Rally