Editor's Note: This is a guest post by Viet-Tam Luu, former Director of the San Francisco Region SCCA. While these are Tam's views on his experience, we don't think it's unique to the SCCA nor women nor road racing. Is the motorsport subculture sufficiently inclusive to stay relevant and healthy? What do you think? Share this with your fellow club members and reflect on what you are doing to engage your next 100, 1,000 or 10,000 members.
Choose three words that would best describe road racing in North America? Allow me; I won’t mince any words here: old, white, male.
It’s not a condemnation of a specific organization or its membership, and it’s not universally true, but any random sampling of the active members in our sport would bear me out.
At the end of a six-year run serving on the Board with San Francisco Region SCCA, I look back and reflect on our particular successes and failings. As a Director, one of my personal goals has been to attract new members to the club. Our stagnant membership numbers show that with regards to that task, achievements are still far outnumbered by unfulfilled and unaddressed opportunities. Like a racer still chasing that elusive pole position, the challenges ahead of us still loom, ever slightly beyond our reach. How do we move forward as an organization? What should the club of the future look like, and how do we get there?
Like every other organization, our clubs do not operate in a vacuum. The social climate in which we live is changing, and it behooves us to understand and adapt.