Quote:
Originally Posted by CMcAllister
"It's the economy, stupid." James Carville
As with many hobbies and avocations, the economy and disposable incomes has a lot to do with who participates and at what level.
We've been stuck in the mud for the past 4 years. I see attitudes, outlooks and reasons to be optimistic getting better every day. I see people with that "let's roll up our sleeves and get busy now" frame of mind.
I'd like to think fuel will come down and travel not be so expensive. Inflation not be such a killer to budgets. Business pick up.
Now that we know what the next few years won't be, we can be optimistic about what they will be.
As we get into 2025, I think people will feel more able to spend some money, get cars back out, and get out of that bunker mentality. When things get tight and uncertain, often parking the race car is the first thing that happens for many people.
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A lot of this does impact all forms of discretionary spending such as our racing and class racing in general. Inflation is a direct impact, but equally impactful is over regulation (or agencies writing their own regulations).
This was thankfully slapped down with the recent Chevron deference reversal. In simple terms, the EPA was writing the regulations when it is the job of congress to do that. The EPA is the enforcement arm under the Executive branch. They cannot write legislation and enforce it which was what they were doing more or less.
Fortunately the RPM Act never proceeded which would have included race cars which the EPA Act specifically excluded. The RPM Act would have included them. That would definitely been headwinds for our collective interests.
Who we vote for is somewhat like the butterfly effect. Good and bad.