Originally Posted by Strong Bad

Thanks NC, I also could not agree more with opening around 1pm and staying open late, its seems to get busier the later it goes at most of the tracks I have practiced at. However........No being closed on Mondays!!!!!!! Thats The Chick and I's only consistant day off!!! I am joking of course, but in talking to Mike, given the way SoCal's lease ended up, it was more profitable for the owners to be closed on Tues/Weds as they were the slowest days anyways and it gave track changes a day to "settle" or another day to fix what was not right. I know there are quite a few of us SoCal Monday regulars (about 10-12 of us) that still regularly hang out and long for our Monday SoCal fix so if we are going to open the discussion to what kinds of days to be closed my personal opinion is for being open on Mondays

Originally Posted by Strong Bad

Some thoughts since you asked, I reference back to two of the best tracks here in recent SoCal memory, ....

Taking care of the customers and keeping them coming back. I remember back in the day at MnM we would have tons of regulars, but in addition to that we had out of towners and newbies just show up because they heard how cool the place was, the track was maintained and how the staff took care of them. I remember Joe Stanovich (the owner) being behind the counter and I bought like 100$ worth of parts and tires and he comped my next two practices. Thinking back on it, it wasn't just being nice. It ensured I would come back to spend more money and hopefully tell my friends. Get new people involved. I always thought it would be a good idea to give business cards to the local motorcycle shops and tell them everytime they sold a bike to give out a card that offered 10-15% off any kit sold at the track. I would extend that the the auto techs in the nearby auto malls. Gearheads and tinkers love this hobby so going out and recruiting them is what is needed.

As for the track itself, SoCal's dirt was pretty good all things considered, so something similar to that won't be bad. If you want to check out some really nice high bite dirt, check out Intermountain raceway in Utah, that stuff is amazing. Mainly its about low dust, and some kind of clay that goes easy on tires. Part of what made SoCal or MnM (or any other high bite track) nice is that it was not that hard on tires. Pegasus is currently killing those of us that have to buy tires. I think just as the layout has to be managable to the newbies, it should also be easy on the stuff that wears out the fastest on them (namely tires and motors). Also yet again, give the racers something to want to come back to. At MnM we had a summer supercross series that ended like a motorcross season with points being added up and awards given out.

Having a good parts stock is most likely going to be important, I think part of the reason so many of us SoCal'ers were frustrated is parts availabliity at SoCal was marginal for well over the last year there. Parts were also full pop which made stocking up at Ultimate or LosiPartsHouse more advisable. If you don't want the hassle of distributorship or even say running a successful hobby store in building maybe consider seeing if one of the major hobby stores would sell thier parts through your storefront.

Sorry this went on long, its just that a buddy of mine and I had this conversation like a week ago or so about how to do a track right and we agreed that these were some ways to build a new customer base, keep them, and to grow with the times. I really believe that a new indoor track can be successful in SoCal its just going to take a creative staff to bring in new faces, keep the old ones coming back and come up with great layouts that constantly change and offer new challenges. If you go for it, was an every week, like clockwork guy with my girlfriend and other 2 buddies every Monday at SoCal so we would be happy to be there every Monday at your place as well!!

Originally Posted by B.JAMES

Whats up robert . how have you been let get this track done