Mission and Plan

As we all know too well, with the aging of NR2003 software and, at the moment at least, no clear and immediate successor the NR2003 community is shrinking and league rosters are small compared to yesteryear. Within that shrinking community, short tracking is a niche.

There are currently many excellent short track leagues and divisions running with legacies reaching back to the heyday of large driver fields. Unfortunately, what remains today is too many good leagues for too few drivers to fully populate them all. At the same time, individual leagues offer unique value to the community (different nights/times, different mods, fixed vs open setups, and so on...) and each league stands on its own merits.

At Short Track ProCup (STPC) we are working to bridge the gap between the various existing short track series and raise general awareness of their existence. We want to do this by establishing a cooperative effort and working along with the individual weekly leagues. The mission of STPC is to promote quality short track racing online by working in cooperation with established weekly leagues.

To do this, STPC will establish a cooperative of participating weekly leagues and run a 2007 schedule of 12 races from March to November at a rate of about one race every third week. Races will be hosted on participating league servers and STPC drivers must be active members of a participating league. (It is not essential that a participating league host a race; some server arrangements preclude doing so. However, hosts will get added spotlight during the events they host.)

Each participating league may nominate a certain number of drivers to STPC (probably around five). Each league can establish its own criteria for driver eligibility to STPC. For example, one league might stipulate that the top five championship points earners from last season are eligible, while another might nominate the best 5 drivers in attendance, and yet a third give the nod to the drivers with the fewest incidents caused. This is an opportunity for participating leagues to give a benefit to drivers who exhibit the attributes the league wishes to promote. STPC only asks is that nominated drivers be courteous, professional drivers who know how to race short tracks, when to be aggressive and when to back off - in other words, drivers we all enjoy racing hard against.

Participating leagues would adjust their schedule around STPC to make those dates available for their drivers. Since STPC only races every third week, this should only present a mild imposition.

This STPC website (www.stprocup.com) will prominently acknowledge participating leagues and any press releases will always mention the participating weekly leagues. In addition, following each STPC event, a news story mentioning drivers and their regular weekly leagues will be released to a number of prominent NR2003 short tracking forums around the internet.

By approaching the issue in this manner, we achieve a win-win situation. Drivers win because every third week they can look forward to a top quality, well attended race with short-track aficionados from all over the internet. Participating weekly leagues win because they get recognition as a participating league, and as more short trackers want access to STPC they must join and succeed in a participating league to be eligible.

I would like to invite administrators of existing weekly short track leagues to consider participation in STPC. If you are interested, please contact me at mroyer1@comcast.net

Thanks,
Mark Royer
STPC Administrator