Getting novices to enter any motorsport event – and keep coming back – is key to the sport’s success. The fact is, RoadRally has perhaps one of the lowest barriers to entry of any form of SCCA motorsport, placing an extra level of responsibility on event organizers to ensure those new entries don’t become a one-and-done. The fact is, with little more than a friend and a car, anyone can enter an SCCA RoadRally – the trick is to ensure those novices have fun, which will keep them coming back for more. To that, there are tips.
Veteran Neohio Region and Great Lakes Division RoadRallyist and organizer Greg Lester has specific recommendations for making first-time competitors feel comfortable and welcome as they approach their first SCCA RoadRally.
Most recently, Lester, along with Ron Johnstonbaugh and Jeff Arendas, organized the well-received 2025 United States RoadRally Challenge® (USRRC), with this father-and-son team turning their RoadRally novice debut into an adventure they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.
“The following things, in no particular order, come to mind when I think about attracting and accommodating Novice teams,” Lester said.
Include a dedicated Novice Class, with separate awards, no matter what “level” (Regional, Divisional, or National) of RoadRally. “Sadly, few National rally organizers bother to recognize Novice teams,” Lester noted.
A few evenings before the RoadRally, host a Zoom meeting to answer questions in a relaxed manner. Make sure that novice teams have received representative samples of route instructions, General Instructions, and the current entry list far enough in advance of the meeting so they have time to formulate coherent questions.
Do not separate novice entries at the back of the field. Rather, assign them car numbers between experienced teams so that there will be some interaction. “I realize this is a controversial subject, but this is my preference,” Lester explained.
If possible, appoint an experienced rallyist as a contact for novices. Ideally, this mentor is not competing, but is familiar with the event and can answer questions that the novices might have.
General Instructions should be written as clearly and concisely as possible. They should pretty much stand alone. No unnecessary regurgitation of Glossary terms not used in the event’s route instructions. There should be little or no need for novices to discover SCCA’s RoadRally Rules (RRRs).
Include parenthetical perfect elapsed times for each instruction, preferably in decimal minute format, (as has been done on many Neohio Region rallies for several years). Instruct novices how to make use of those times. “I realize this might not be workable on most trap rallies,” Lester noted.
Then there’s attracting new people to the event in the first place – for that, remember:
Social media matters. If your Region has a social-media coordinator, make sure event information is splashed around to a variety of car-related sites (cars and coffee groups, adjoining SCCA Regions, marque groups, stage-rally worker groups, etc).
Following these recommendations might not solve every problem a novice team encounters, but they will ease novice anxiety and make them feel more confident and welcome, Lester noted.
Photo by Philip Royle
