Supplementary Classes in Local PAX Class

[Reed Gibson]

To all Cal Club Autocross Competitors,

At the end of the 2020 season the Cal Club e-board voted to offer the newly designated Xtreme Street (XS) classes at our events. Xtreme Street is considered a supplementary class by the SCCA National Office and is not eligible for a Solo National Championship. Because it's considered a supplementary class, Xtreme Street by definition is not a "real" SCCA National Class and cannot be found in the official Solo Rulebook. That being said, it was brought to our attention that Xtreme Street, CAM, and any other supplementary class should not be allowed to run in our region's indexed PAX classes. This is backed up by the current wording of our Supplementary Rulebook which states "All entrants driving vehicles that compete in any SCCA National Solo class are eligible to compete in this Regional Class".

With all this in mind the board would like to apologize to our community for missing this when we added XS-A and XS-B to Motorsports Reg as options for both PAX and PAX-L. It was a simple oversight that we should've seen but we didn't.

That being said, we will henceforth be removing all supplementary classes from PAX and PAX-L in order to stay in compliance with our own rules. Additionally, the board has agreed NOT to alter the points standings of the January 2021 event. We all agreed that it would be unfair to change results after the event has concluded considering those who registered using the indexes were not informed that it was not allowed.

Again, we'd like to apologize to everyone and we appreciate the feedback.

-Reed
Cal Club Vice Chair 2021

[Marshall Grice]

Its great that the board voted on something in December but did anyone do anything about it? There is no mention of XS in our sup regs. Do we get to see the actual sup regs revision wording that was approved in December?

[Rick Brown]

Its great that the board voted on something in December but did anyone do anything about it? There is no mention of XS in our sup regs. Do we get to see the actual sup regs revision wording that was approved in December?

Well, I did. As a result of what was voted on, I added them to MSR and AXWare. I was not the only one who believed allowing them in PAX was part of what was voted on, including the person who requested the vote in the first place.

[Marshall Grice]

yeah, I guess I'm poking at more of a process question. I also know what was proposed but what I don't know is what was discussed or voted on and only know that MSR was updated consistent with what I thought was proposed. Nothing was changed in the sup regs, nothing was announced by the Eboard...it just doesn't come across as transparent and forthcoming. Changing the rules in the dark (no announcement, no rule change) in December for the January event doesn't sit well with me. I think we're all relatively familiar with how the national fastrack process works, while I'm not saying that any of that process applies to our local region it does work well to clearly and openly discuss what the proposed change is and give opportunity for discussion to happen before anything is implemented. This isn't a one off situation, literally the same thing happened with CAM being allowed to run in PAX class in January of 2019 (board voted, MSR was updated, nothing was published, and no changes were made to the sup regs) and now it is being reversed by cryptic post from the Vice Chairman of the Eboard. I don't even know if the board voted to undo the CAM thing. What I'm asking is for the Eboard to get their sh#$ together.

[Reed Gibson]

What we are doing is getting our affairs in order! Currently we have a ruleset (i.e. Supps) that should be mandating how we run our championships. What we haven't done well is publish the results of our meetings, perhaps we need to start publishing the minutes in the open.

Rules wise we need to either stick to what's approved or make a formal change. Here's the process for that per our current Board By-Laws:

"Any rulings or proposals initiated by or through a permanent Cal Club Autocross Committee to change, revise, interpret, or amend these rules or their appendices must be discussed and voted upon at a minimum of two sub-committee meetings, and entered into the minutes of an interim Cal Club Autocross Board meeting. In order to be included in the printed rules for the following year, all items must be completed by the December meeting of the Cal Club Autocross Board."

"Emergency rules changes or actions on protests become effective at the following Cal Club Autocross Board meeting. Following discussion at 2 board meetings these by-laws may be amended by a unanimous vote of the directors."

In this case, one could argue that we have changed our interpretation of the rules. One could also argue that we never enforced the rule appropriately (i.e. rules only matter when you win).

I am of the opinion that we HAD NOT been enforcing the rules we had published and that removing XS and CAM was just following our rules. However, I did suggest that we allow the Directors to vote on this to make sure their voices were the one's steering this decision. Luckily the majority of them agreed with this and that decision can now be backed up by Section 4.8.A of the Solo Rulebook which I've now been made aware of:

"4.8 DEFINITION OF CLASS TYPES A. National Class – Any class defined in the Solo® Rules that is recognized as eligible for a National Championship. This explicitly does not include Supplemental classes."

In hindsight this section should have been the basis to readjust MSR to keep us in compliance with our own rules. That's my bad for not finding it when first trying to moderate this discussion.

What I'm ultimately getting at here is that we've done a poor job of taking motions and formalizing them into rules per our own processes. If we are going to make an effort to get back on track then we can't just brush this one under the rug and start fresh in February. If the community feels strongly that PAX/PAX-L should include CAM, XS, CAM & XS, or all Supplemental classes then they need to let their Directors know that's what they want to see changed. If the Directors can come to a unanimous vote, they can have the change in 2021 or they'll have to wait an hope it passes by majority in 2022.

[Marshall Grice]

I'm sorry if my posts come across harshly but we have formal processes defined in the by laws (as you quoted above) that should be followed and they are clearly not being followed. As best as I can tell the 2019 CAM/PAX proposal did mostly follow the by laws (emergency change process) with actual sup reg wording changes proposed and I thought voted upon and approved but then never made it into the sup regs so somewhere the process broke down. Rather than just declaring CAM as ineligible for PAX because that is what the current sup regs state I would prefer to see the board try to resolve what happened in 2019 with the proposed wording changes and make corrections to the sup regs if that is deemed appropirate. The XS changes just seem to be going off the rails at the moment, so I would like to see us regroup and get back on track with some proposed sup reg changes and then either using the regular or emergency change process as appropriate.

[Reed Gibson]

I'm sorry if my posts come across harshly but we have formal processes defined in the by laws (as you quoted above) that should be followed and they are clearly not being followed. As best as I can tell the 2019 CAM/PAX proposal did mostly follow the by laws (emergency change process) with actual sup reg wording changes proposed and I thought voted upon and approved but then never made it into the sup regs so somewhere the process broke down. Rather than just declaring CAM as ineligible for PAX because that is what the current sup regs state I would prefer to see the board try to resolve what happened in 2019 with the proposed wording changes and make corrections to the sup regs if that is deemed appropirate. The XS changes just seem to be going off the rails at the moment, so I would like to see us regroup and get back on track with some proposed sup reg changes and then either using the regular or emergency change process as appropriate.

No worries on the harshness, it was required.

Yes, we need to use the processes we have in place. CAM was discussed but never written into law. I don't feel comfortable making a change on the rationale that we talked about doing it so therefore we did it. If it didn't make it into the rules that year then we can reconvene to add it in formally now. All one of the directors needs to do is make the motion (Scott Mullens, James Yom, Ed Tsui, Rick Brown, Randy Gonzalez). We can hop on a call, discuss, cast a vote and make it so if they all agree.

[Rick Brown]

What's missing here is the thinking when PAX was created. The limit to "National Classes" was not intended to exclude supplemental classes, but to exclude local classes (CSM specifically since it was truly a no rules class, even though we assigned a our own guess at a PAX to it). While supplemental classes may not be Championship level classes, they do have National level definitions and Rick Cone makes an effort to create a PAX. I understand the logic that their PAX may not be fully defined, but there have always been classes with so called soft indexes, and there will always be the potential of people/cars taking advantage of that. We had always offered supplemental classes as soon as they were announced, and I don't recall talk of excluding them in PAX. They need to be offered at the local level in order to see if they will become popular enough to justify becoming a Championship class.

[Earl Merz]

As an outsider (to the rules portion) this did feel like a reactionary decision. Not saying it was, but it leaves that feeling to someone on the outside. Maybe because of the lack of communication with member beforehand. I agree with Marshall that the rules should be followed more closely so members don't come to that feeling.

Now, if a director wanted an opinion from someone who has no skin in that game, I personally feel that all "car" classes should be available in PAX. Or at the very least, any class that can be represented at Nationals. Although this doesn't effect me now, I had already told myself that if I were to win CAM-C three years in a row I would bump myself to PAX. Good thing I didn't say two years.

[Anthony P.]

I'm late to the party... but as a Pax competitor I want the current rules to remain, which don't include supplementary classes. CAM guys don't want a national class, then, well, ok this is a consequence of that. XS is so new with the Pax jumping around like water in acid, is less than ideal for inclusion into an otherwise stable class. If the reason for including XS is to just weaken competition for regular classes, whats the goal? Those people not wanting to compete can go time only and we have a novice class for those in their first year(s?).