Thread: On a mission

Please check in so that we can know who all sees this section. I couldn't find a list.

I'm willing to cash that check that my mouth wrote this year in helping to set up next year. Over the next couple weeks I'm going to try and locate several track day organizations in multiple parts of the country that we can try to partner with for next year's convention.

I'm setting the following parameters to start, I'm looking for feedback to know if you think I'm on the right track:

- Partner must have a 3 year minimum event history with the venue so that we can be very certain they will get the date again next year. Everyone on the rollover list gets their next year dates sometime in the 3rd quarter of this year so dates can be confirmed well in advance.

- Hard cap of $300 for the day, would like to negotiate sliding scale to get closer to $250 if we can bring 20-25 drivers to the table. This is going to be my largest challenge I think.

- Must offer at least beginner with instructor, intermediate, and advanced run groups. My thought would be all of our non newbies run together in intermediate. The guys I've spoken with up to this point are good with this idea.

- I'm going to try and find good tracks that will be high on the bucket list of our track junkies, places that would never be in our price range on our own. I will present a list of what I've found within the next couple weeks. I'm welcoming suggestions, post them in this thread. At this point I'd say anything can be on the table.

- After we get a "possibilities" list together it would be up to drag racers in teh group to locate drag strips with good proximity to our list. If I follow properly, all we need to do for the drag racing would be to verify their schedule, correct?

I would suggest that deciding when and where we ultimately go should depend on finding an appropriate drag racing venue close enough to be able to use one suitable hotel. My thoughts would be that once we choose a location and date we confirm with our host our intention to partner with them. Our biggest challenges is now off our plate and no worry about coming up with a deposit or how many spots we need to sell to not lose our ass.

And at this point we can designate a couple folks to set up the hotel and the picnic.

Please feel free to attack and poke as many holes in my theory as you can so we can get this right.

It would be awesome if we could get a Road America track day. Not just due to being close to my place, but the track is epic. There are 2 drag strips with in an hour or so drive from the place as well. Either way, this sounds like a good Idea Joe. It will be much easier to piggy back with someone to keep costs down.

Ben the first tracks on my list included Road America, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, and Lime Rock as places we'd love to run but would not find the money to get a day of our own.

Joe,

Here's the complete Convention Committee usergroup:

@Ben
@BenFenner
@Blair
@Chris101
@Chriscar
@ezcheese15
@Fatboyse-r
@hammerin hank
@happynole
@Jimithin7000
@llaprad1
@LOUROK
@Madtec
@marksr20
@Meeners
@Rob
@SE-Rawkus
@SE-Rican
@SR20GTi-R
@Vadim
@wnwright

Correction to the list above.
Technically I'm not in the Convention Organizer Committee. I'm only a member of this section on the forum because I'm an Admin of the forum.

To answer your question Joe, I do read this section but try to stay out of the planning, and only offer my services when I am needed (for creating new forum sections and such).

(I'll only put my 2¢ in this section if asked directly.)

MVP is doing a 3-day Road America coming up soon in July IIRC (he also does a 2 day weekend Road Atlanta in June) so maybe talk to him about partnering up?

[email]Feffman@mvptracktime.com[/email]

Joe,

We have someone who has stepped up to the plate big time who wants to host a Convention badly and they have a kick ass idea and already somewhat presented to me a awesome package that will keep everyone very happy. He is waiting on a few final details then we were going to present it as a option. I will call you this weekend to chat a bit about it.

I have already talked to him and he is very open to being part of our plans. He would be our man for Road America if we went that route.

Rob that sounds great, the best day for me would be Sunday. Saturday I'll be busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.

And to be clear, I am NOT interested in being the sole host for another convention but I am open to helping. I just figured I would get the ball rolling with ideas I presented when things got crazy this past year.

Excellent! Well if you pair up with Mark for Road America, we'll be involved as long as it doesn't end up conflicting with a NASA Midwest event!

Just saw this thread, but Road America would be great, but it's insanely expensive. Remember, that's where we attempted to have the 2010 convention before we switched it to Mid America. Also, even if you are able to pair up with somebody to get the cost down, the mere fact that it's in the midwest reduces the number of attendees.

So just a thought, but has anyone considered just working together with the west coast guys to bring it back down to one national convention? I really miss the days where it was one convention, and the location was never the same place twice. The west coast guys seem to really have it down now that it's their 3rd year planning, and I think it would be beneficial to work with them and assist any way they need for 2016 and make it 1 big convention again.

As it stands right now, I plan on driving out to the 2016 WCC so long as it doesn't conflict with something like it has for the last 3 years (including this year) for me, and I'm not really sure I can manage to squeeze in both conventions next year. Guess it just depends on what dates they fall on.

I definitely don't have the time to take the lead on anything for next year, but as always, I'm more than happy to assist if there is anything you need help with.