63 replies to this topic

[Jim Drago]

I have been in contact with trusted members of the National staff and they have long recognized this is a destination event on the SCCA calendar. They have assured me that in the next months some of the most seasoned and experienced folks will be working with Lone Star and SWDiv members to help insure this event is a success. All of the concerns voiced in this and other forums will be examined and addressed in order to make this event as great as we all know it can be.


That is all I am at liberty to say, but I feel much better about it and hopefully you do too.


Jim

[MPR22]

Things to ponder for this year, all times based on Austin, Texas Longintude and Latitudes.

Sunrise Sunset
Fri March 8th 6:49 am 6:35 pm
Sat March 9th 6:48 am 6:35 pm
Sun March 10th 7:46 am 7:36 pm

The schedule doesn't accomodate for daylight savings time occuring in the middle of the event. Sundays pre grid activities will take place in the dark if they don't make some adjustments.

[LarryKing]

Pre-grid activities?

[trimless]

Note to self. Make sure headlights are working properly. check.

[MPR22]

Pre-grid activities?

Loading into car, driving to grid, gridding in the proper spot. Oh and if it is overcast or raining we will need lights to qualify.


I personally think its a conspiricy against the pop up head light crowd.

[davew]

I am as skeptical as the rest of you. My hopes are that I will be wrong. I have been assured that the right people are involved in making this event as great as it is hyped to be.

We can all sit and speculate and give our opinions. But lets take a deep breathe and see what happens in the upcoming weeks.

Dave
Chilin' in Wisconsin

[KentCarter]

I don't think anyone is hyping the event as being alll great. It will be an interesting event because of the amazing facility which has amazing panache among drivers. It may be the only time we get to play there...after GrandAm, they may have pre-loaded regrets about letting us on. We'll have to make up for GrandAm as well as behave ourselves well.

It may prove to be only a so-so facility for Miatae. I imagine it will be a zoo, really. COTA has little experience with 500 car fields or with amateurs. I play to just go and enjoy the experience, warts and all.

[William Keeling]

Where do we find test day info (other than the limited stuff on SCCA.com)? If the info we have is correct 575 drivers trying to fit in 300 slots is going to make event registration look easy!

[KW78]

The test day limit may be the real limit for the event, at least from my point of view looking at a 2200 mile trip to run this event.

I want a successful event for the lone star region and for National office Majors program, but last I knew we were still a not-for-profit club. Here is a novel idea: with $375K in entry fees (currently), rent the track from COTA wednesday and thursday, and include 1 day test schedule for an entrant in the current entry fee. Run the early groups wednesday, and the late groups thursday.

Insure the test days with SCCA insurance, protecting everyone.

After the expanded track rental there still should be a 6 figure budget to work with, to run the event. COTA is out of the daily activity loop and collecting rental (I assume the preferred business model), and the event experience is controlled by people in the know, like wednesday parking and registration, etc. etc.

This event is now bigger than the runoffs have been in a few years. Run with the momentum and show the SCCA club members that it is good to belong. We (the SCCA) are at a serious fork in the road for future success with this event! I for one think it is a high risk, high reward opportunity.

Wow didn't realize....

my 02
Kyle

[Yiannis Tsiounis]

$10 says they will fudge up at least another dozen things. Besides what has already happened: cancellation, no-wait-we're-still-on, registration, re-registration, duplicate wait lists.

I registered exactly at 4pm EST when the registration opened and I am 6th on the waiting list for SM. Good thing I had the foresight to register in STL and STU as well. Not confident they won't find a way to screw that up too somehow.

HOW DIFFICULT CAN ALL THIS BE? IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU GUYS SET UP AN EVENT? IS EVERYONE TAKING OUR MONEY AN AMATEUR?

There, I said it. Better blow off some steam now than at the track later. And in case I wasn't clear: GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER SOON!

[Yiannis Tsiounis]

(and I didn't write "fudge". This forum has an automatic replacement for some 4 letter words it seems :-))

[Tom Sager]

$10 says they will fudge up at least another dozen things. Besides what has already happened: cancellation, no-wait-we're-still-on, registration, re-registration, duplicate wait lists.

I registered exactly at 4pm EST when the registration opened and I am 6th on the waiting list for SM. Good thing I had the foresight to register in STL and STU as well. Not confident they won't find a way to screw that up too somehow.

HOW DIFFICULT CAN ALL THIS BE? IS THIS THE FIRST TIME YOU GUYS SET UP AN EVENT? IS EVERYONE TAKING OUR MONEY AN AMATEUR?

There, I said it. Better blow off some steam now than at the track later. And in case I wasn't clear: GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER SOON!

Hi Yiannis. I'm not attending but I do hope the event goes off well for everyone. Have you ever bought tickets at ticketmaster.com for a hot concert? That's a company that has spent hundreds of millions of $ on IT and even they have bottlenecks and errors that occur during a frenzied sale and some of those problems are related to all the data communications that occurs between your own personal computer and their servers. In other words, you could try to login to the registration sight before me but that doesn't mean that your login actually happens before mine.

Hope they find a way to include you and that the event runs smoothly.

[Chris70]

http://www.dlbracing...=5209&LMID=3486
Looks like they updated the entry list by adding extra run groups for all the classes that were above the limit. I think it is a good sign. Lets hope for the best.
Five new run groups are listed as of 5 pm.
Ademir
S.A.C. racing

[Yiannis Tsiounis]

Hi Yiannis. I'm not attending but I do hope the event goes off well for everyone. Have you ever bought tickets at ticketmaster.com for a hot concert? That's a company that has spent hundreds of millions of $ on IT and even they have bottlenecks and errors that occur during a frenzied sale and some of those problems are related to all the data communications that occurs between your own personal computer and their servers.

Hope they find a way to include you and that the event runs smoothly.

SCCA is very far from thousands of users clicking at the same time! Considering the first fiasco they should have found a way to prioretize registrations. Just like you can't run a National event with a regional license or attend the runoffs without X requirements, they should prioretize the drivers based on their national and/or regional points/finishes/achievements. Any kind of prioretization, even suboptimal, is way better than this mayhem.

By the way, I have a 25 Mbps connection (symmetric up/down) at my house, and I was trying to register using 2 browsers on each of 3 computers. Whatever delay was there, it was not on my side.

In any case, I have choices: I'm going to run an MX-5 (not an SM) in STL or STU.

[Yiannis Tsiounis]

http://www.dlbracing...=5209&LMID=3486
Looks like they updated the entry list by adding extra run groups for all the classes that were above the limit. I think it is a good sign. Lets hope for the best.
Five new run groups are listed as of 5 pm.
Ademir
S.A.C. racing

I am in "SM" (which presumably means not on a waiting list) but I received two emails saying that I actually was in the waiting list. Clarity above all!

[Chris70]

Yiannis, you are listed on group 1A with about 14 other Sm including two of my customers

[Yiannis Tsiounis]

Yiannis, you are listed on group 1A with about 14 other Sm including two of my customers

The correct statement is: Yiannis, you were just moved from 1 to 1A in the last 5 minutes. I wish I had taken a screenshot of the first time I opened this up. Then again, I have an email with "confirmation of registration" from Monday. I need to print it on very soft paper.

Can I have some of the SCCA members as my customers please? If I were treating my own customers like this they would have all dropped me/lynched me/something nasty in any case.

[Johnny D]

The correct statement is: Yiannis, you were just moved from 1 to 1A in the last 5 minutes. I wish I had taken a screenshot of the first time I opened this up. Then again, I have an email with "confirmation of registration" from Monday. I need to print it on very soft paper.

Can I have some of the SCCA members as my customers please? If I were treating my own customers like this they would have all dropped me/lynched me/something nasty in any case.

My thoughts, Hey your in, be greatful and don't shoot the messenger.

And wow, 5 more groups, how are they all going to fit in the schedule. Volunteers working lunch? breakfast and dinner too?
J~

[Yiannis Tsiounis]

My thoughts, Hey your in, be greatful and don't shoot the messenger.

And wow, 5 more groups, how are they all going to fit in the schedule. Volunteers working lunch? breakfast and dinner too?
J~

I know, I know, I just need to blow off some steam...

[Johnny D]

I know, I know, I just need to blow off some steam...

Yep blow it off. I guessing you'll need a few for that weekend too.
J~