Shootout Feedback

SCrazy

SCCoA Member
Sounds like most people had a really great time this year and while on site I really didn't hear anybody grumbling but.........

In the interest of continuously improving the event please post up any criticisms or suggestions you might have.
 
To be absolutely honest, I think the only way to improve it would be to get more people to show up. I had a ball, managed to meet a few new people, and had way more fun at the track than I was expecting...We may need to put in an order for a little cooler weather for next year though!......Dan

P.S. I plan to have my passport in order next year......just in case!
 
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Since we are getting some new faces around and some old ones that haven't been around for along time. I suggest we skip the armbands and go back to the badge deal like we had last year but as mell butler suggested also put peoples screen name on there. It would make it a lot easier for new people and to put names to faces and faces to screen names etc. plus the arm bands don't do well in the shower lol
 
Attendance was lower than any other shootout I've been to. I'm not sure if the location or the price scared people away. Granted we have to cover the costs so the price is what it is. We don't have a group of 5000 like the Mustang crowd would pull to an annual shootout so cost has to be spread out to a smaller group to cover things like track rental, dyno, food, etc..

Without the sponsors the costs would be even higher so thank you to all who have made donations and to the sponsors who helped make this event a fun successful weekend for those of us who attended.

Now, to the ones who didn't attend, get off your duffs and get there next year so we can continue to have an annual shootout.
 
just more beer

looked like we ran out of that stuff, well some people did,and some of us hid it better that others...lol.:)
Besides that I think everything went well again this year.even the cars did better and stayed together for most. I do second the idea of name tags. I said that on sat when we were standing around.
One more idea, lets do a class where you can't break out.. we look at ALL your time slips and then give you a dial in one second FASTER:eek: than anything you ran this week end.. now the sand bagging will be gone as you will have to run "all out" to make your dial in.:D.. What do you think about that?? Look at everyones time from this last time:confused: and you will see that there needs to be a better way to controll the lifting on the top end of the track..:rolleyes:...Rich
 
Curious as to why the move from Dayton/Xenia to Clay City?

Kentucky was nice and the track was fine. I just wonder what caused the move as over the years Dayton has seemed to be the most popular location.

FYI Kil-Kare is under new ownership and the track has went under a lot of new changes.

I'm willing to attend the shootout anywhere in the country even if I have to fly in for the event so location isn't that big of a deal for me.
 
Curious as to why the move from Dayton/Xenia to Clay City?

FYI Kil-Kare is under new ownership and the track has went under a lot of new changes.

I think you have your answer. I understand they may have priced us out of the game. Having said that, I like the Kentucky location.
 
Kil-Kare wanted to charge an unreal amount for us to rent the track. Kil-Kare has a horrible shut down that is just too short for some of the faster cars. There are several fellas that are on the brakes hard to get stopped there. Clay City is long enough that you can kick it up in neutral and coast back. The hotel has put up with us for two years in a row and with the amount of rooms we take up they allow us to have the banquet hall for free. That saves on the cost of renting one or at times the hotels we were in charged us for it. We also get to cook out, dyno tune and car show in the parking lot, all in one place without driving around town. That equals drinking beers and with those that have families they dont have to pack everyone up. The Hotel is in the perfect spot for those that need to work on/tune their cars. There is the service road, bypass and the interstate that can be seen from the parking lot with easy access to get on for data needed to dial in a car. The liquor store can be seen from the parking lot and is in walking distance if needed. The access to the Hotel is easy and right off the interstate. The track has been great and is super easy to get too. That along with being able to watch others race while you are in your car. Kil-Kare's staging lanes suck along with their shut down being short.... The Clay City track crew was AWSOME at working on the track. I may be wrong, but I dont think we had to come up with some crazy deposit amount at Kil-Kare save the date for our meet and Clay City didnt require one and may be cheaper to rent. They were even willing to move it to Saturday if we needed to. They also said if it rained in the morning they would stay and we could run in the afternoon.

What we need is more people to come out. I have attended this event the past two years without a car. It is a great time to meet people and be around those that I consider to be friends.

So, that is just some of my reasons for having it in Clay City. I know I may be biased, but I think that it has way to many positives compared to Kil-Kare.
 
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I know that most of the group are located in central USA and are within a 2-4 hr. range of driving. I know that entry numbers wise it makes sense to have it in Ohio/Kentucky areas but for me it's 12-14 hrs. of driving and approximately a $1000 trip with fuel/hotel/shootout entry fee. It would be nice if at least once in awhile it could be closer to the east/northeast coast. I attended 4 in a row until this year and plan on attending again in the future..........just my 2 cents.
 
scott- The last 2 yrs in Dayton were aweful in regards to the hotel. They were asses. So I think a lot of that had to do with it. They wouldn't let us use a banquet room to eat in so all our eating had to go on outside, and it was cold those yrs. Another thing I saw was kilkare the pit and stands are so far a part. In clay city you are right there. I believe the clay city idea came about after Sal and Anthony inviting us down for the ky hp shootout in 2010 and 2011. So there were some of us who go to see how nice the hotel and track were...and the rest was history..
 
The only thing that I can think of would be for the car show. Maybe some way to access the grass field across from the Hotel so the cars can be spaced out and allow for better viewing and also pictures. That way, if we have the dyno next year it would be walking across a service road, with hardly any traffic, away and close to the hotel.

The food was awsome and the rental of the grill was a great idea!!!

The date was in conflict with the NMRA races in Bowling Green. I dont know if there were any people that went there instead of coming or not. I know in the past there have been a few.
 
I love the location its not far and seems to be kinda in the middle of everyone. As said about the hotel track etc very good setup. Last years attendance was much better. I think the chance of rain plus the fact that so many Ppl are in the middle of builds killed attendance. I will return as long as its not on the moon :)
 
I don't mind the drive from Kansas. Rollin' in the SC is half the fun. As for the cost, Sunday night gambling in southern Indiana I paid for the whole trip minus $100.00. I did make the acquantance of one Missouri H.P. Sarge but even that turned out to be a freebie.:eek:;)
 
I love the location its not far and seems to be kinda in the middle of everyone. As said about the hotel track etc very good setup. Last years attendance was much better. I think the chance of rain plus the fact that so many Ppl are in the middle of builds killed attendance. I will return as long as its not on the moon :)

I wish people wouldn't let the "in the middle of builds" keep them away. I attended without my car for 3 Shootouts and have had just as much fun.
It is tough because the ones who attend basically end up footing the bill for the entire gig. I'm sure there are things we could do to scale back the cost like not providing 3 meals, ditch the dyno or that sort of thing...but those are what the attendees have liked in the past. So basically it's a give or take.

Can't control the weather no matter where it is held. I think of the 7 I have attended we had one with really cruddy cold weather. Again, can't help that.

My feedback is this...
The food was awesome, cant be topped.
Hotel is accomodating and use of banquet hall is a huge plus! It's a fixed location for food, meetings, registrations and gathering place (besides the parking lot).
Track & racing coordination was excellent, easy to get to and low tech restrictions.
Sponsorship participation was great.

I think there are things we could tweak to "shake things up" like Rich mentioned but over all, I think the format worked well.

One thing that might be cool is one of those Tree Simulators for a reaction time competition.

Have an "official" burnout competition at the track or on a public road somewhere.

If car show is located in grassy area, maybe we could get someone to MC it like Duane did at the Track. That was entertaining as heck.

Maybe something for the youngin' to do...like a soap box race of sort so we can engage them some. Or there are always those air inflated bouncy rental thingys.

Just some thoughts. :)
 
I did like that the hotel had the separate banquet room. We also had a big parking lot behind the other hotel that was not being used but I doubt they'd want a bunch of us overflowing into their lot.

The location is fine for me. Like I said I'll go anywhere in the country.
 
I like the location where else can we get so much of what we need for so little? They even left a hose out for us to wash our cars before the car show and the list goes on and on lol. Its obvious they really like having us there and the price is right. My drive is 5 hrs or so but if it was 12 I would still go because of the accomodations.
 
I wouldn't be opposed to alternate venues, but I think Anthony explained pretty well why we are here. I know my drive is only around 6 or so hours and is closer than many, I think it is pretty centrally located to the people who usually attend.

As for Kilkare, the shutdown sucked. The staging are is fine and the concrete pits are nice.

The only complaint I had this year (and I know I'm in the minority) is that when we pitted on the opposite side of the track as the restrooms and food, it became more challenging for my kids to navigate a path to the amenities. It wasn't horrible though. If there were more cars racing, crossing the staging area would be more challenging.

Regardless, I haven't missed one of these yet, and don't plan on it.
 
Keith, one of the problems with an East Coast Shootout is cost. Tracks out east are 2-4x the cost of the little po-dunk tracks we go to. I'll give you guys some ideas on cost -

  • 2003 - We combined with an ongoing event so I think there was no cost.
  • 2004 - Norwalk cost us $1500 for a 1/2 day on a weekday. They provided one staff person to run the tree and timing/scoring. We didn't even have EMT's. The track was nice but the service sucked and we had to be out early.
  • 2005 - Thunder City in Oklahoma (which was WAY out of the way for everyone) cost $2500 for full service. It was one of our worst turn outs, and the roster was nearly the same as it was when the race was in OH, meaning that we traveled a lot further and didn't attract any more people.
  • 2006 - First year at Kilkare cost $1800. It was the cheapest full rental I have ever found.
  • 2007 - Kilkare gave us the same deal. I think there was a stink about this with the owners because the track manager was fired the same weekend as the Shootout.
  • 2008 - Kilkare raised our rate to $2500
  • 2009 - Kilkare raised the rate again to $4500. We couldn't afford it. I shopped around and was quoted prices ranging from $8000-$14000 for an all day private event on a Sunday. Availability is also extremely limited for weekend bookings. Found Muncie Indiana willing to rent to us for $3000 which the best deal I could find, regardless of location. Then people complained about it being in the middle of nowhere.
  • 2010 - We went back to Kilkare. Cost was $4000 but we decided it was worth it because we liked the location.

This is off the top of my head so I am missing a few years somewhere. :confused: But anyway, currently we pay about $3000 for Clay City which makes it the cheapest track I could find that has a paved return road!

Moving to someplace like Cecil, MIR, or any of the tracks you guys frequent out there would mean somewhere around 3-4x the cost of Clay City. Anyone can do math, but when you see that we have had at most 45 racers and at least 25 racers, that means an $8000 (lowball price for east coast) would be $175-350/racer for the rental alone.

I realize that some people would gladly trade their travel expenses for the entry cost, but then again, how many simply would not come? I know for a fact that many of the people local to an event costing that much would stay home making it an extreme expense for anyone traveling a great distance while people local would balk at the cost.

I'm not opposed to moving the event, but that also means that a whole lot of planning and logistics have to be worked out (like for example arriving at the hotel only to find it's across the street from the ghetto), or that what seemed like a simple 10 minute drive turns out to be through murderous traffic with no place for people to feel comfortable leaving the hood of their car open for a car show. It takes a lot of planning to make something work out smoothly and you've got to have local people willing/able to take on the responsibility.

Frankly, that is one of the reasons I have resigned as Coordinator of the SC Shootout. I simply cannot give the time and effort necessary to make the event a success any more. This year the new crew did an excellent job, I'm not sure I'd want to mess with their recipe just now....

I also think that people should not feel bad about missing a year here and there even if you are a die hard. Life happens. I just sincerely hope that anyone who didn't make it this year has concrete plans to attend in the future. It really is a lot of fun, and it genuinely helps each one of us keep the spirit alive.
 
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Due to work and other issues, I haven't been able to make it for a few years. I've come SEVERAL years with no SC (I still have it, but it's stock - I know what it does at the track and dyno, and I have no truck to tow it, so just not comfortable driving it 8-10 hours.)

But even when I flew once year and drove the TL another, I've ALWAYS had a blast and will be putting 2014 on the calendar as soon as we have a firm date.

The idea of moving the event closer to the east is nice, but Dave is right - any track further this way is going to be pricey. And I also agree that having a single location year after year allows us to get REALLY good at doing this. I dealt with very little of the shootout this year (Brian did an outstanding job with the actual coordinating.) I basically mailed checks and handled the back office stuff. But I KNOW being able to go to the same reliable vendors year after year makes this easier and easier. So from the standpoint of having a GREAT event is worth it in my opinion.

I've only heard great things from everyone that made it this year so congrats all!
 
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