Tracy
08-26-2007, 03:26 PM
Scores here:
http://www.driftfury.com/scores/ams1_scores.pdf
Congrats to Ron Ewerth on the win!!!!!!! Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped out. We can't do it without you. Thanks to all of the drivers for coming out and supporting drifting. Thanks to the spectators who came out and tried :)
I have been reading some of the comments, so I figured I should jump in and we should discuss :)
An event is only as big as the people who show up. Based on our past event turnout, this should have been a HUGE event. The main problem was that every track in the SE had an event scheduled this day (we scheduled our event in January and could not move it or else we would have). RA and Spartanburg being the biggest draw from our turnout. That being said, we did have 30 drivers.
Next, at every one of our other events everyone gets 20-30 runs in before qualifying. I apologize that was not the case at this event. I was not there but was told everyone got 14 practice runs and 2 qualifying runs. We get tons of feedback from our drivers and a lot of the Atlanta drivers were asking for a 3rd gear course...so we tried to accommodate. AMS is really the only place in a 100 mile radius for us to do this. The amount of runs you get has a lot to do with the skill level of the driver pool (the more spinners the less seat-time) and the length and design of the course. This was a LONG and FAST course. We had to wait for each driver to completely exit the course before we could start another.
Next, we worked since last year to get this venue. We jumped through hoops for 6 months to get this event situated with them. The only way we could have the event is if we complied with the way they set it up for us (which was a tad bit unorganized and we had to pick up a lot of slack in the morning thus making us run behind). So, that's why the spectators had to be where they were. If you want shade, you ALWAYS need to bring it yourself. That's just the way it is at MOST events (ALL that I have ever attended).
Lastly, The venue is extremely expensive and they require $5mil in insurance where as every other facility only requires $1mil. Thus the price we had to charge. If it make any of you feel better, I travel the country drifting and last weekend I got 9 runs including qualifying at an event that I had to travel to that cost $150. It happens sometimes. We try to give out as many runs as we can. This event was an exception as to how our events usually go. All I can do is try to make it better next time and hope that more people show up. In order to be sure this happens, we will not hosts events when it is so hot out. We will also schedule events like this closer to the off season to ensure that we won't be competing with other events in the SE.
I am hoping that next year we will have sponsors for the series. The more sponsors we have the less we have to charge. That is our goal. Right now we come out of pocket for everything. We don't make money from this guys (in fact we lost several thousand dollars on this one)....we do it so you can drive :) So thanks for the support. It's no roll in the hay for us to do these events. They are hard to get together and even harder to run. I don't expect you to understand that, but we try as hard as we can to have fun events with lots of seat time. I hope to see you guys getting sideways in the future.
If you have any suggestions, please add them. I will either give you a reason why we can't do it...or I will try to make it happen if it is possible :)
http://www.driftfury.com/scores/ams1_scores.pdf
Congrats to Ron Ewerth on the win!!!!!!! Thanks to all of the volunteers who helped out. We can't do it without you. Thanks to all of the drivers for coming out and supporting drifting. Thanks to the spectators who came out and tried :)
I have been reading some of the comments, so I figured I should jump in and we should discuss :)
An event is only as big as the people who show up. Based on our past event turnout, this should have been a HUGE event. The main problem was that every track in the SE had an event scheduled this day (we scheduled our event in January and could not move it or else we would have). RA and Spartanburg being the biggest draw from our turnout. That being said, we did have 30 drivers.
Next, at every one of our other events everyone gets 20-30 runs in before qualifying. I apologize that was not the case at this event. I was not there but was told everyone got 14 practice runs and 2 qualifying runs. We get tons of feedback from our drivers and a lot of the Atlanta drivers were asking for a 3rd gear course...so we tried to accommodate. AMS is really the only place in a 100 mile radius for us to do this. The amount of runs you get has a lot to do with the skill level of the driver pool (the more spinners the less seat-time) and the length and design of the course. This was a LONG and FAST course. We had to wait for each driver to completely exit the course before we could start another.
Next, we worked since last year to get this venue. We jumped through hoops for 6 months to get this event situated with them. The only way we could have the event is if we complied with the way they set it up for us (which was a tad bit unorganized and we had to pick up a lot of slack in the morning thus making us run behind). So, that's why the spectators had to be where they were. If you want shade, you ALWAYS need to bring it yourself. That's just the way it is at MOST events (ALL that I have ever attended).
Lastly, The venue is extremely expensive and they require $5mil in insurance where as every other facility only requires $1mil. Thus the price we had to charge. If it make any of you feel better, I travel the country drifting and last weekend I got 9 runs including qualifying at an event that I had to travel to that cost $150. It happens sometimes. We try to give out as many runs as we can. This event was an exception as to how our events usually go. All I can do is try to make it better next time and hope that more people show up. In order to be sure this happens, we will not hosts events when it is so hot out. We will also schedule events like this closer to the off season to ensure that we won't be competing with other events in the SE.
I am hoping that next year we will have sponsors for the series. The more sponsors we have the less we have to charge. That is our goal. Right now we come out of pocket for everything. We don't make money from this guys (in fact we lost several thousand dollars on this one)....we do it so you can drive :) So thanks for the support. It's no roll in the hay for us to do these events. They are hard to get together and even harder to run. I don't expect you to understand that, but we try as hard as we can to have fun events with lots of seat time. I hope to see you guys getting sideways in the future.
If you have any suggestions, please add them. I will either give you a reason why we can't do it...or I will try to make it happen if it is possible :)