Why shouldn't we have more/most/all of next year's events at YYC?

[PedalFaster]

The YYC lot is, in my opinion, the best of our sites. Its size and dimensions allow us to build national-style courses that our other two sites couldn't accommodate, and for those of us who live in Calgary, being on site less than a half hour after leaving home can't be beat.

Fort Macleod can accommodate some fun courses, but they're inevitably very transition- and slalom-heavy, plus it's quite a hike from Calgary. We manage some remarkably fun courses at Westerner despite the site's limitations, but I'd be surprised if anyone liked anything about Westerner more than YYC except for maybe the commute if they lived in Red Deer.

One of you pointed out that people are voting with their attendance. In the past two weeks we had events at all three sites. The Westerner and Fort Macleod events drew only 20 participants each, while the YYC event brought in 107 drivers. (The Fort Macleod event was admittedly just a practice, but as far as I can recall, every YYC event has massively outdrawn every Fort Macleod event other than maybe Nationals.)

I can think of four reasons to keep holding events at Fort Macleod and Westerner:

• Fort Macleod can accommodate very high speed courses that YYC can't. (Although I'd also argue that these courses have dangerously little runoff room.)
  
  
• Fort Macleod's concrete seems grippier than YYC's asphalt.
  
  
• We might be in a "use it or lose it" situation with the other two sites. We expect to lose YYC after next year (?), and it would probably be easier to maintain a presence at the other two lots rather than abandoning them for a year, then trying to get permission to return in 2019.
  
  
• Westerner and Fort Macleod are more convenient for people who live south or north of Calgary, respectively.
  

Regardless, I wonder if we should more, most, or all of next year's events at YYC. What do you all think?

[Reijo]

Perhaps you did not notice that we did actually have more events at YYC (the best lot we have for all the reasons you mentioned) this year?  And that we had less 2 days events (days) in Fort Macleod?  Also, I believe we just had the most intense schedule ever in Calgary (and area).  I think we may have had more events than clubs down south who run year round!   

As you mentioned, YYC may not be here forever since they did mention that they wanted to eventually develop the property.  There are some indicators that the lot may be there for a bit longer than the original discussions seemed to imply.  We have already been told that it will be there for next year and we can book dates already.  I suspect that may extend into the following year or perhaps more.  But that is not a guarantee, so we had best hang onto what lots we have as contingency plans.  I think of it as a fluid situation in that if some company came along and offered the owners a bunch of money for that property, it could easily disappear in a flash.  A new owner may not want us there at all.  I guess we'll see as we move forward.

Speaking of which, by having 2 days events in Fort Macleod was something that was supposed to make it worthwhile to go down there (last year most of the championship events in FM were over 50 entries typically).  It is also the most grippy surface we have and very smooth ... as long as you stay on the runway.    Notably on my old adjustable shocks on the S2000 I used the same settings for FM and Lincoln.

And, yes, we want to keep the other lots.  There have been times when we did not have the "luxury" of so many lots for our use and not that long ago.  So, yes, we want to maintain a relationship with the Town (or the owner).

Furthermore, we do have our eyes open on some other lots and also the couple of motorsports facilities that may be coming along.  I think among the executives and "regulars" there is an opinion that we need to keep our options open ... just in case.  I agree with that.

There is also the thought of building an autox-specific facility.  Now, THAT would be a luxury!  But, that would take a LOT of money....for the land...pavement....access roads, services, utilities, buildings etc.  Note that the LA/CalClub region has been setting aside money for something like at least 15-20 years now (if I recall correctly) ($5/entry).  They foresee the day when they could lose all their sites to run (they are about to lose El Toro AFB due to development) and Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego has crumbling pavement and they may lose that as well.  That leaves them with Fontana/AAA Speedway.  They want to buy cheap land (maybe up in the Mohave desert north and east of LA) and build an autox facility.  Maybe we should start to consider this option more seriously as well.   

There is much more that could be added to this story (and history for that matter), of course, but I think this is good enough for now.

In a sense I feel like we are entering a potential "golden era" of motorsports in Southern Alberta.  I think we are in a good place right now.  Enjoy it!   

[Bitters]

While we obviously had many more events in YYC this year, I think Stephen is hinting at running at levels beyond that. Is there anything preventing us from renting the YYC lot every other weekend during next season? While everyone's situation is different, I know that the out of town event's become a much larger effort with family requirements to balance. Personally, I plan on running every YYC event available next year, but will have to be much more choosy with which out of town events I attend.

In regards to your idea of putting money aside for the club to purchase property for autox... wouldn't hosting more YYC events play better into that idea? They seem to be a lot more profitable given attendance, and would potentially allow the club to put more money aside if we squeeze all of the events possible out of the YYC lot in the next year or two.

[94boosted]

I really think this is a discussion that's better suited to the AGM and/or the Monthly Club Meetings, however in summary I'll say the following:

- We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket (YYC) as the use of this venue after 2018 is unknown. That being said more dates at this location for the 2018 season is definitely something that is being considered
- The town of Fort Macleod has been great to us and that venue does have its unique attributes that make it quite fun, yes there is a lower turnout but that makes it more worthwhile for those that do show up
- Westerner venue was managed by the CSCC not by us so the future of that venue is in their hands

[94boosted]

While we obviously had many more events in YYC this year, I think Stephen is hinting at running at levels beyond that. Is there anything preventing us from renting the YYC lot every other weekend during next season? While everyone's situation is different, I know that the out of town event's become a much larger effort with family requirements to balance. Personally, I plan on running every YYC event available next year, but will have to be much more choosy with which out of town events I attend.

In short the two big obstacles are:

1. Cost, the all-in cost including rental, insurance, port-a-potties, broken cones & equipment, chalk, flour etc. etc. there is a minimum number of participants we need to break even
2. Setting up and taking down; there are a small handful of folks that do the lions share of the work, if we're to do more events we will need more people to step forward and help with setup and take down as well as other volunteering efforts

[MurrayPeterson]

While we obviously had many more events in YYC this year, I think Stephen is hinting at running at levels beyond that. Is there anything preventing us from renting the YYC lot every other weekend during next season? While everyone's situation is different, I know that the out of town event's become a much larger effort with family requirements to balance. Personally, I plan on running every YYC event available next year, but will have to be much more choosy with which out of town events I attend.

Cost, and nothing else.  We could schedule an event 3 times a week and go broke (obvious and silly exaggeration).  YYC is a *lot* more expensive, and to increase the events too much would be to invite us to lose money.

In regards to your idea of putting money aside for the club to purchase property for autox... wouldn't hosting more YYC events play better into that idea? They seem to be a lot more profitable given attendance, and would potentially allow the club to put more money aside if we squeeze all of the events possible out of the YYC lot in the next year or two.

I haven't seen the figures for this year (attend the annual meeting to do so!), but I doubt that YYC is our most profitable venue.  And to be honest, the thought of having our own venue is lovely, but that is forever going to be out of our (financial) reach.  Look at the Badlands facility -- still working on approvals, and still hasn't broken ground.  By the time they are done, I don't even want to think about the millions of dollars needed to make it happen.

[nnywg]

I really think this is a discussion that's better suited to the AGM and/or the Monthly Club Meetings...

- Westerner venue was managed by the CSCC not by us so the future of that venue is in their hands

I think it would very prudent to offer to take over the Westerner bookings from CSCC going forward. Chris was unable to find a replacement before moving, and CSCC has multiple openings in their leadership going in to yearly elections, including Solo Director. 

If SASC doesn't step in here I suspect no one will, which means no Red Deer venue for 2018.  That location seems to take a lot of extra coordination due to other events happening there. 

[zero10]

I really think this is a discussion that's better suited to the AGM and/or the Monthly Club Meetings...

- Westerner venue was managed by the CSCC not by us so the future of that venue is in their hands

I think it would very prudent to offer to take over the Westerner bookings from CSCC going forward. Chris was unable to find a replacement before moving, and CSCC has multiple openings in their leadership going in to yearly elections, including Solo Director. 

If SASC doesn't step in here I suspect no one will, which means no Red Deer venue for 2018.  That location seems to take a lot of extra coordination due to other events happening there. 

I should probably chime in here.
Correct - I was unable to find a replacement before leaving and I believe the position will sit vacant through the upcoming election.

As for future use of the venue - I absolutely agree that Westerner Park is a use it or lose it venue.  If it is allowed to sit unused by us for a year it will likely not be available again in the future.  The reasons for this are 2-fold:
1) Westerner Park knows this is not making them a lot of money, renting the lot for these purposes is seen as a bit of a charity thing, they give back to the community by subsidizing our hobby
2) The RDSCC would likely be very interested in any additional available days.  I believe they have not been getting as many dates as they would like, and they have been taking weeknight rentals to make up for this.  If we weren't there to book the weekend days I expect they would really like to have the lot for as many of them as possible.

It is my opinion that we cannot let our interest in this lot lapse.  If the Autoslalom Director position sits vacant through the upcoming CSCC election then I would like to speak with some of the SASC executive about taking over the lot.

[Sprockett]

YYC is limited time only and we should use it as much as is reasonable. No one would argue that, the question is what is reasonable.

YYC is expensive but im not sure that means we would ever lose money at an event there. Our break even numbers have to be relatively low and if we were averaging anywhere near that number we could cut down on porta potties.

If we used YYC more we could justify working out storing (a set of?) gear on site and less work would be necessary each event.

Schedule a minimum number of events there in order to keep the venue but do not 'engineer' attendance by requiring travel to those sites for the championship. This will show you the real desire of people to go there and YYC. People have skipped non-champ YYC events in order to go to 'required' champ events in Red Deer and FtMc so the effect is doubled and this year's attendance numbers aren't necessarily representative.

Honesty with the other venues would be a reasonable approach. "We have a great local venue for a limited time and need to take of advantage of it for our membership. Therefore we need to cut back dates for 2018...but we will be back!"

If Westerner does not plan to maintain the lot it's not going to last much longer.

[94boosted]

If we used YYC more we could justify working out storing (a set of?) gear on site and less work would be necessary each event.

Already done

Schedule a minimum number of events there in order to keep the venue but do not 'engineer' attendance by requiring travel to those sites for the championship. This will show you the real desire of people to go there and YYC. People have skipped non-champ YYC events in order to go to 'required' champ events in Red Deer and FtMc so the effect is doubled and this year's attendance numbers aren't necessarily representative.

Honesty with the other venues would be a reasonable approach. "We have a great local venue for a limited time and need to take of advantage of it for our membership. Therefore we need to cut back dates for 2018...but we will be back!"

A potential consequence of dropping the 2 events/venue minimum is that turnout becomes so low at those other venues that the club loses money trying to host events there. And we need to make sure we don't do anything to jeopardize those venues after 2018. 


All this being said we've definitely heard the feedback loud and clear for YYC's popularity and with that venue being confirmed for 2018 this will all be factored into the development of the 2018 schedule.

[Reijo]

Someone recently suggested buying the YYC property.

Shall we start a collection?   

By the way, yes, we have some cones/equipment on-site already .... in the NW corner of the lot there is a truck box that we are renting for the equipment.

[Midnightsky]

Let's not forget, on top of the weekend YYC events we even got the opportunity to run a couple practices there on weeknights.  Im sure the powers that be here at SASC have already been talking about doing that again next season I think we are making great use of the YYC property and having a balance with events at Fort McLeod and Western keeps things interesting. Plenty of seat time to go around

[Reijo]

I really think this is a discussion that's better suited to the AGM and/or the Monthly Club Meetings, however in summary I'll say the following:

- We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket (YYC) as the use of this venue after 2018 is unknown. That being said more dates at this location for the 2018 season is definitely something that is being considered
- The town of Fort Macleod has been great to us and that venue does have its unique attributes that make it quite fun, yes there is a lower turnout but that makes it more worthwhile for those that do show up
- Westerner venue was managed by the CSCC not by us so the future of that venue is in their hands

From the commentary here, it should be possible to see that this is a rather complicated topic and I have to agree with Tom that the whole issue is best handled in a meeting or perhaps a number of meetings.

There are other venues that may be available or may be soon but I won't get into those right now.  In any case, we are fortunate to have a number of choices right now.

This is also a good reason to come to the next monthly meeting and the AGM in November so you can find out what is going on.

R

[zero10]

Schedule a minimum number of events there in order to keep the venue but do not 'engineer' attendance by requiring travel to those sites for the championship. This will show you the real desire of people to go there and YYC. People have skipped non-champ YYC events in order to go to 'required' champ events in Red Deer and FtMc so the effect is doubled and this year's attendance numbers aren't necessarily representative.

Honesty with the other venues would be a reasonable approach. "We have a great local venue for a limited time and need to take of advantage of it for our membership. Therefore we need to cut back dates for 2018...but we will be back!"

If Westerner does not plan to maintain the lot it's not going to last much longer.

A couple thoughts on this:
Forcing travel to other venues encourages variety and my belief is that variety is beneficial to the sport and to our members even if the travel is a little inconvenient.

I don't believe a commitment to book more dates in the future carries significant value to Westerner Park, I feel like they are more interested in the RDSCC than the Calgary clubs and that a temporary reduction in bookings at the venue would certainly become permanent.

Westerner does not plan to put any serious money or work into that lot in the short term, but they have directly stated that WHEN they repave that lot it will no longer be available for rent at anything close to our current pricing ($400-ish per day, they are suggesting it would be 4-digits).  It is not going to last much longer, probably a few more years and it will be too severely degraded to continue simply patching the holes.

[PedalFaster]

Tangentially related question: At U.S. Nationals, they use concrete to patch the track surface wherever it's breaking up after every run day. Could we get permission from Westerner to do the same? It seems like a win-win, since neither party wants the pavement to break up more than it has.