Thread: First Annual Florida SE-R Convention

well i will be down to go and donate..speaking of that Nissanboy56....i forgot y our sn...pm me your paypal again so i can donate for this meet coming up. i know your getting food again.

i say we spread the word all over the east coast so people can post this in there local forums and hopefully keep it updated. the farther it goes the better the outcome.

I'm down for it.

As far as where to hold it, anywhere in the state is an easy enough drive really. What'll really determin it is what track is available and how much it'll cost. If this is going to be a yearly thing we'll probably want to move it around as much as possible anyway so it's first year location doesn't really matter (Going to the same place every year get's old).

So how many road course tracks are there in FL?

In North Florida

Daytona International Speedway - http://www.daytonaintlspeedway.com/

Jennings GP park - http://www.jenningsgp.com/ (Motorcycle track, but they may be open to HPDE for cars... would have to call to find out).


In Central Florida

Sebring International - http://www.sebringraceway.com/


In South Florida

Homestead Miami Speedway - http://www.homesteadmiamispeedway.com/

Moroso Motorsports Park - http://www.morosomotorsportspark.com/


There's also the possibility of holding an AutoCross instead which would be easier and cheaper to pull off but I know the current mood is to hold a HPDE.

If I missed any tracks, please add em to the list. Those were the only ones I could remember.

There is a nice little road course here at Gainesville international Raceway: http://www.gainesvilleraceway.com/apcm/templates/trackinfo.asp?articleid=1912&zoneid=69

I know there are a few others also, I have been looking into it for a few years in hopes of a convention. I think that there is a lot to this that has not been taken into account.

Moroso will probably be too expensive, as will Sebring. Homestead may be cheaper but is a little far for a lot of people, gainesville is probably cheaper also, but has the same problem for the south florida guys, though its only 4.5 hours or so.

South Florida is kind of secluded from the rest of the state, I think that a Florida convention needs to be as central as possible, which is probably Sebring, but like I said, that will be very expensive.

Now you cant just go planning a HPDE with a bunch of uneducated drivers. This needs to be considered a drivers education event, but in order to do that, we must have instructors who take out the drivers for a few laps first to show them what to do. But who will participate that has the experience to be an instructor? SERCA usually has enough seasoned drivers, but here in florida I don't think there are enough if any at all.

There are a lot of details to this that I think you guys may not even realize exist.

I'm not qualified to organize a track day, but talking with friends over the years who have been involved, I belive the process is fairly complex and will require more than a paypal account for us to dump our money into. We may need to look into setting up a non-profit corporation for liablity reasons and organizational logistics. Is anyone a laywer or have one in the family that they could lean on to help us set it up if needed? I guess an alternative option would be to pay a HPDE promoter to do the dirty work for us setting up a HPDE, but then they're going to want a substantial fee for it... or we could all just meet up and hold our event in conjunction with an already scheduled HPDE (even easier - but again, at additional cost).

Here's a good link for everyone to check out regarding HPDE event requirements and car prep - http://www.drivenasafl.com/


Some more links to check out:

Chin Motorsports - HPDE production company which holds events in FL - http://www.chinmotorsports.com/

Central Florida SCCA Region 83 - Daytona, Sebring, and Moroso region - http://www.cfrscca.org/

South Florida SCCA Region 11 - Homestead - http://floridaregionscca.com/

I agree, we're going to have a hard time coming up with the money for one of the big road courses listed here, not to mention availabilty issues. How many of us really want to hold our convention on a Wednesday? A smaller track would be much easier and cheaper to secure.

I also agree that we're going to have a hard time finding instructors for the event. I'm certainly not quaified to be an instructor. Is anyone here in the FL club qualified? Without instructor drivers, we can't hold a HPDE. How many people here have participated in HPDE's before?

I forgot about Daytona, I think I remember it being cheaper for a section of the road course than Sebring or Moroso.

Something to think about also is, if we try to join another clubs HPDE, will they really want a bunch of beginner drivers out on the track with them? SERCA divides everyone by skill level, which is a very good way to do it.

I have only participated in 1 at a convention, the others I just watched. The track and picnic catering will be the most complicated things to do, followed by hotel and park reservations for the meet.

I hope you guys realize that we are going to have to cough up around $5,000 up front for the track, and probably another $3,000 for Catering, T-Shirts, Information packets, ect.

There are a lot of things to consider. Renting a track on the weekend is much more expensive than during the week, this is why SERCA always did the track event on friday. The setup makes a ton of sense to me, it always goes like this:

Thursday night - meet and greet at hotel
Friday - HPDE and hanging out at the hotel at night
Saturday - Free day
Sunday - Picnic at a nice park with raffle and car show with trophies for best of each catagory.

We do not have to follow this schedule exactly, but it is a very good model.

Will you are pushing this a little more than it is.

We are going for one track day and one park BBQ day.

We are not bringing mostly FL members and a few others.

My guess is that we will see 50-60 people in SER.

I am figuring that we could also have a caravan out the Miami Beach for the guys who want to hag out after the BBQ