Good question Brian...
Last year we had 5 FV's attend driver's school. One was attracted by the website (He raced 7-9 race weekends). One was drunk at Christmas and decided it would be a good idea to buy the car he searched on the web (he raced 6-7 weekends). One purchased a car with his son and raced 3-4 weekends (his son went to driver's school in 2013 and raced 3-5 weekends in 2014). One broke his engine at driver's school and spent the rest of the year rebuilding but came back for the OWDE (he is now signed off and has gone to another test day or two). The fifth lives in southern NJ and we haven't seen much of him.
Gain of 3 competitors for 2014 and 1 for 2015.
The OWDE attracted 10 drivers. 2 have already purchased cars. One has experience in autocross and called a contact from our website to find out more about the class. The second is a friend of the "drunk guy" from above and has crewed all year for him. A third has an account set aside for his "FV fund" and is excited to join us in the near future. A fourth raced GP for years and was testing the FV waters-he is a maybe. A son of one of the current FV driver's walked away from the event hoping to get back in the car next year.
Gain of 2 sure bets with 3 maybe's.
We'll continue to attend car shows this winter and promote our website. As with any good business it really comes down to having a good product and sound promotion. As they say in marketing "Half the money I spend on marketing is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."
So to answer your question Brian, we gained 3 solid competitors this past summer, and hope to gain an additional 2-3 this upcoming summer with the potential for more. Is it a net gain or loss, who knows, but at least they have brought cars out of garages and barns, gave all of us in the northeast better competition, and allowed us to keep our own run group.