Official 2012 FCRA Championship Calendar

Below is the official 2012 FCRA Universal Championship Calendar:


Round 1: *support race for 12 Hours of Sebring, March 14-16,

Round 2: *Celebration Exotic Car Festival , April 14-17:
*
Round 3: *Monticello, Private FCRA days,*May 18, 19, 20

Round 4: *NJMS FCRA days , June 23, 24

Round 5: HSR Historic Races, Road Atlanta sept 13-16

Round 6: French Quarter Classic FCRA Finale, Nola Motorsports Park Oct . 26-27

Four out of six races count for the championship. Round 2 is at a track that is confidential do to contractual reasons until Jan 31.

 

Terrific thanks.

Other than HSR is any other body going to be our sanctioning body?

 

John, which track for round 2? Also, any thought to weight penalites for noncompliant exhaust/headers? Thanks, Will

 

I will announce our sanctioning body next week.

Will: see my notation about Round 2. I can share it confidentially with FCRA members but we are under contract not to announce track 2 until Jan 31. As for weight penalties we are working on that now. Our goal will not to be punitive but only to even things out. We are testing now.

 

Thanks for sharing, schedule looks great!

One question and a comment:

* For the 4 day events listed, are we on track all days or a subset of that? If you can narrow it down to when we need to be there it would greatly help with booking travel, scheduling vacation from the office, etc.

* May I suggest that you count 5 races instead of 4 for the Championship? Otherwise you could end up with a scenario of crowning champions in June with only 2/3 of the season completed. You would also avoid a situation of a tight points battle where the top 2 only go head to head twice. Plus, IMO, running just 2/3 of the series isn't really championship material. I can't think of a series anywhere, amateur or pro, where someone could collect full points with such limited action. We should encourage a greater level of participation.


EDIT: One more question - is there still going to be test days at NOLA on the dates in February mentioned earlier?

 

5 of 6 counting for the championship works much better!

 

Celebration event is April 12-15

The website will be updated and registrations will start January 31
Lots of great plans for this year, stay tuned for announcements!

Celebration has been named one of the 5 best exotic car events in the world!
http://www.mademan.com/mm/5-best-exotic-car-shows-world.html

www.celebrationexoticcars.com

 

Rob

The series is designed around a targeted budget, which I believe is the key to a successful Ferrari challenge series. I'm not trying to design a series similar to others that exist. The budget was designed around the concept that a guy in Florida or New York could pick to do two rounds close to him, and then travel for two rounds, and design a budget around this. Originally I had only 5 races with a race drop adding to the flexibility. I added a sixth because we got a smoking deal on the last venue and it merely added flexibility.

While I understand people can criticize, the FCRA will not be everything to every person. There will be a lot of racing series that are options if you decide you don't like it. The FCRA will be designed specifically around the particulars of racing a Ferrari and the related challenges and obstacles to do so.

We are going to do the best we can and we are going to make decisions for 2012 with finality. After we do so we have the opportunity to change it for 2013.

The detailed rules that will follow will show that 8 races count, the best 8. If you do 12 you've got a much better opportunity to win with points. If there are ties, the final race will be one of the tie breaking factors.

 

Thanks John, great to see Atlanta on the schedule.

 

John raises a great point regarding costs, and gain opportunity to earn points....counting
4 of 6 does make more sense.

 

Short answer is that I'm not sure. Need to see thr weight penalty for aftermarket exhaust, then decide whether to go back to stock. May need to rebuild the motor. Etc. I'd like to run, I think it will be a great series.

 

What's wrong with your motor? Bad leak down or compression?

 

It was a suggestion, John, not a criticism. I really could care less what you decide, just trying to help you since you have very little racing experience to draw upon.

One of the reasons you want 5 races is for budgetary reasons. Increasing your car count by requiring more races will help you spread costs and lower registration fees for your racers and improve economies of scale for your sponsoring race teams. Higher car counts will also improve sponsorship opportunities.

No one seriously competing for a championship will drop out because they have to do 5 races instead of 4. And anyone not competing is still welcome to do 4 with no change to their plans.

But hey, if you think racing Ferraris somehow invalidates all the decisions that make racing other cars successful so be it. 4 or 5 weekends doesn't matter to me.

 

Down on power.

 

Game On! Looks like a great schedule. So excited about Road Atlanta!

Thanks for all the hard work.

 

Rob

I appreciate the fact that there are a lot of very successful race promotion experts out there who are very successful at attracting sponsorship money and filling grids with cars. And I appreciate your energy and advice on how to do this, but if I don't agree with all of your opinions regarding what will put Ferrari Challenge cars on the grid its not because I have "very little racing experience to draw from." I've been involved with various forms of motorcyle and car racing for over two decades. More to the point I put 42 Ferraris Challenge cars on a grid when I launched this series after five years of due diligence and a decade and a half of experience at promoting Ferrari track events. I appreciate your concern that my perceived lack of experience will ruin what I've created. You might be right, but it is also possible that I considered things you have not. You have certainly been the most vocal, which is fine. You are new to the series and are excited. However, sometimes your comments can be mistaken as insinuations that everyone that doesn't agree with you knows less. If I am wrong and you didn't mean to say that it is fine, but in case you did I wanted to re assure you.

 

John,
Nice work. The schedule looks great. Road Atlanta is a perfect addition. Looking forward to the year.

 

Great calendar, John.

I know it sounds nitpicky, but last year there was a lot of "uncertainty" over the days of the week.

Just to confirm that, wherever the track may be, the Celebration race is complete, over, finis, concluded, on SUNDAY April 15, is that right?

I just could not make a Monday/Tuesday race.

Thanks,

Mark

 

Track days for Celebration are on Thursday and Friday, followed by the concours and Food & Wine party Saturday, and rally and celebrity golf tournament on Sunday.
Registration starts January 31 at www.celebrationexoticcars.com

 

Gotit.

Thanks Jeff.

See you there!

Mark

 

Does that mean we have to register with Celebration or with FCRA? And if the former, will they have a separate section for us or do we register as part of another group.

If I recall we did not register with HSR - but they published the Schedule and Supps.

 

The registration process for the Celebration event will be just one step, at www.celebrationexoticcars.com
The 2012 website update goes live and registration opens January 31

 

In case any of you are as asleep as I have been - with the official calendar being silent on what was to have been a practice session at NOLA in February: This silence means it has been cancelled.

 

Perhaps you can clarify something. The Celebration web site says its 2012 dates are April 12 to 15. But our official dates are April 14 to 17. Are we part of an extended event or is there an error somewhere?