On Joel's points 2,3,4.....
I 100% agree. We need to make each race weekend an "Event". Our current 5 races jammed into a WAY to small of time frame is flawed for many reasons (safety is one of them, no time to properly check cars over between races). I feel we can do a much better job. And most of the ideas cost absolutely nothing. Making it an EVENT will draw out more people, period. Racers, lappers, Time attackers, marshal, fans.....
I think one of the positions joel mentioned also needs to be the events coordinator - anything happening on a race weekend, not directly linked to racing on track, so the gate, food truck, parade lapping, ride along's, getting other series (Legends, Mini Stocks) to come out, podium, sat night entertainment and camping.
I think it would be fairly straight forward to engage all who come thru the gates, and in no particular order, we need to have and promote:
-2 day event, sat and sun -2 nights of camping, fri and sat -on track done at 5pm sat - so time to tidy cars up, then socialize. -always have a sat night event - pot luck, movie, band, etc. -always have a food truck - easier sell with 2 day event i'd assume -race would have quali and 1 round of deb and pen on sat, another round of deb and pen and sunday, 1 hour after lunch. maybe event have 1 special weekend where we only have 1 round of pen and debert sat, sun is warm up in the am and 2 hr enduro after lunch. -1hr races always preceded with a grid walk - cars on front straight, echelon style (makes it very easy to organize cars, just need grid spots on wall in chalk) - make this a 30min marshals break, so fans, marshals, crew and drivers get to socialize and enjoy the cars! I think this will be big for a few reason - it will make "making" the race more attractive to the racers, the 2 day schedule will allow teams more time to fix cars to make the 1hr, and it will be really really cool for spectators - nothing better than putting a little kid in the drivers seat for a pic - and sometimes with the current schedule we are so busy we just dont have time to do that. -have exhibition runs at lunch - rally car, go kart, solo 2 on front straight, mud truck. also do parade lapping at lunch again. -ride alongs - we all saw how amazing this can be with Nic and the radical - we can do a raffle or ticket draw (you get a ticket with admission) for lunch time ride along each lunch - we dont all have passenger seats, but any car that does and it up for it we can do. Doesn't have to be a race car - lapper, TA or race. -announcer + live stream feed (likely needs to be the same person), also using the FM system we have. -over the 2 days mix time attack, lapping and race. Great opportunity for everyone to intermix. exposure for all groups to other groups. Obviously there are some people that do race and time attack - ben and nic being 2 of them - but I talked to both of them, and they are all for the 2 day weekend. We can make the schedule work.... -have mini stocks on the card for a raced, 2 if they will come. Same with Legends. Ive been told they want to come back. They need a small purse, but I believe the extra fans they bring cover that at the gate. So yeah, that is slightly risky financially, but I feel we need to try. -big social media presents - Jenn has got the ball rolling and things are looking good in that department!
The events this season have shown us there is potential to make things better, I feel right now we are stagnate with our current format. With a little change, and one or 2 people to help Joel with organization, we can have some pretty fun events in 2021.
As always, there will be some who oppose this....to them I say try to look at the bigger picture - all my above thoughts are to try to help our sport and track grow. We are not taking about anything expensive or complex - we are adding a few things (most of which, at some point, we have already done in the past), juggling what we already have - key to this working/happening will be finding someone to help Joel, and everyone being willing to be open to seeing what we can accomplish!
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