In speaking with a number of folks at the 2023 SORC, we found that some were confused how the selection process for entry into the SORC is conducted. Some thought people who had attended before, or who had won their class, were automatically selected for entry into the next year’s race. None of this is true. The process is as follows:
Lifers are guaranteed a grid slot until October 1. Should they fail to enter, their slot becomes available. Hopeful entrants who volunteer to become a course worker are guaranteed a grid spot the following year. Official corporate sponsors also receive a grid slot. These are the only guaranteed entries into the maximum grid of 150 cars.
Upon the first Monday in October, entries can be submitted either through USPS, private delivery (FedEx, UPS, etc.), or online. In the last 20 years the event has sold out on the first day of entry. If your entry is not postmarked, submitted to a private carrier, or received online on the first Monday in October, you historically have no chance of obtaining a grid spot. We wait for more than a week for hard copy entries to be delivered. Entrants are classified by postmark and not by the day of actual delivery.
The selection process takes place during an official SORC Board of Directors meeting. The date of the meeting is dependent upon the fall harvest and weather as the majority of our board members are farmers. During the meeting each entry is assigned a number and that number is placed in a bowl. For some years now we typically receive 180 or more Monday entries. Once we establish the number of guaranteed volunteers the selection process begins for the remaining grid slots. Each board member is given a stack of numbered entries. As numbers are removed from the bowl, we ask who has the entry with the number called. That entry is then placed on the grid schedule as the first entrant. The process then repeats itself until the grid of 150 is filled.
Remaining numbers in the bowl are removed in the same sequence and placed on the wait list for possible entry should a slot become available. Entries submitted after the first Monday are set aside as they will have at least 30 entrants before them on the wait list.