Can Parking lot Racing Make a comeback?
05-09-2008, 11:00 AM
#31
Suspended
Second, go to city hall and find out who sponsors that fireworks display (maybe go to them to get them on your side, as an ally).
Third, go to a couple of city commission meeting - or read the minutes - and get a feel for who on the council actually supports the little guy, the non-profits, and who doesn't. And then invite them to coffee and have a chat.
Fourth, go to the local newspaper and find out who is the "local section editor" if you're in a large town or the "editor himself" if you're in a small town - and ask for a meeting. Let 'em know exactly what you're planning, and see if you can pique their interest in a local human interest piece (they'll do it as they always need local angles).
Fifth, find an addy for the wallyworld corporate office and the property management division of the corporation - and bend their ear.
Have your ducks in a row and I feel very confident you can pull it off.
05-09-2008, 11:03 AM
#32
Tech Rookie
We did it to ourselves. When parking lot racing started, it was mostly with Tamiya's off road car derived tub chassis cars (crappy compared to today's high tech machines), and a run what you brung mentality. As stated in May's issue of XRC, parking lot racing evolved into a super high tech chassis/battery/motor war.
I believe spec racing is the key. We need to save us from ourselves, or it just happens all over again!
I believe spec racing is the key. We need to save us from ourselves, or it just happens all over again!
Some racers are only interested in upgrades and some are not really into titanium screws etc.
"Run what you brung" is a nice thought, but sometimes rookies are frustrated that the newest car keeps lapping them and they only see the new car, not the skills to keep it on track.
Turnover is always a problem in participation activities especially if the equipment keeps changing year after year.
Cost containment will always be an issue in racing. It shouldn't be for the good of the hobby, but it will.
05-09-2008, 11:49 AM
#33
Agreed. It's up to the individual racers to see the light. You wanna spend $1000 on a setup? Mod class. Don't want to and want to base things on pure driving? Spec class.
There will always be someone who wants to shell out $600 on every aluminum part ...for a drift car. Nobody can stop that. The hobby shop sure won't. It's up to us idiots to realize what we're doing
There will always be someone who wants to shell out $600 on every aluminum part ...for a drift car. Nobody can stop that. The hobby shop sure won't. It's up to us idiots to realize what we're doing
05-09-2008, 02:22 PM
#34
we race in a Home Depot.. we showed up with a car painted up like tony stewarts and the rest is history.. been there like 3 years now.. our offroad track is in a city park, and they are talking about building us an onraod track on the reclaimed dump as part of a reclamation project.. work with your city... parks = low overhead..
05-09-2008, 06:50 PM
#35
This is a perfect venue to talk about what our club is doing.
Syndr0me moved here after we started the club when the carpet track closed last summer. For some background in the late 80's I had an indoor 5000sf carpet banked oval and ran road course on Sundays, very large out site dirt oval and offroad and the stuff to run 1/8 gas onroad. So I had been down this path before.
I got a group to agree on starting a club, but was not shy about the work and what it was going to take. We set up a Non-Profit Corporation and started with ROAR Insurance. Walking into any entity with national club that has been around for 30+ years, Million dollar insurance policy and a very profesional club, your over half way there and you've not done anything.
The non-profit cuts our rental fee for the county fairground building by more than 50% but getting dates is an issue as you are now up against every non profit out there. This includes the police department for training (lost that battle only once!!!). On the parking lot, we have use of a county lot in Greeley, 40 miles north of Denver for free, as the downtown authority is looking for activities. The lot does not draw as much exposure or as smooth as Invesco, but it works as well. We will run 8 races at Invesco and 2 in Greeley this summer.
As someone else said, there are Hobby Towns who put on races in the parking lots. The store in Fort Collins, 60 miles north of Denver and Westminster (subburb of denver) do this every weekend durring the summer. We do not run every week, so the racer count is better (my opinion) but really we want racers at the other locations as people always talk about racing at other places and we have A LOT TO TALK ABOUT.
So as someone said, the club track is large for nitro cars. We have put in a cut off for the electics, but even this is a little large. However, we are providing something that no one else does, and the racers on off weeks are running at HT. If they are doing thier jobs, they are talking about the big track at Invesco and we do get many people stopping by. And some new racers.
Last piece, Invesco required more insurance coverage than ROAR provided. We also had racers not wanting to pay $30 to ROAR just to race. Not justfyed in my eyes, but I'm not everyone. But since we had 9 months under our belt, a good reference from the county our current Prez (Yes REV) was able to get double the insurance for under $300/year as a non-profit. Now we really follow all the ROAR rules including the 8" tall exterior boards, so no one can come back and say we should have done something more if we do have an incident.
We are working on building 1/10 scale pan cars again, and have many members running Vintage Trans-Am at the HT tracks. Maybe some day we can have a permanent pavement and indoor carpet track, but what we have right now is on par with anything in the USA.
If you need some help starting a club, PM myself or go the web site and send and e-mail to any officer and we'll be glad to help. Heck for the right entry fee at a race we might even show up.
I make this offer, as we had a lot of help from Magic City RC racers in Montana who shared thier bylaws which we used to get a jump start. Our club went from non-existent August 25th, 2007 to 64 members today with the set up you can see on our site.
Mark Wernimont
Fort Collins, Colorado
Syndr0me moved here after we started the club when the carpet track closed last summer. For some background in the late 80's I had an indoor 5000sf carpet banked oval and ran road course on Sundays, very large out site dirt oval and offroad and the stuff to run 1/8 gas onroad. So I had been down this path before.
I got a group to agree on starting a club, but was not shy about the work and what it was going to take. We set up a Non-Profit Corporation and started with ROAR Insurance. Walking into any entity with national club that has been around for 30+ years, Million dollar insurance policy and a very profesional club, your over half way there and you've not done anything.
The non-profit cuts our rental fee for the county fairground building by more than 50% but getting dates is an issue as you are now up against every non profit out there. This includes the police department for training (lost that battle only once!!!). On the parking lot, we have use of a county lot in Greeley, 40 miles north of Denver for free, as the downtown authority is looking for activities. The lot does not draw as much exposure or as smooth as Invesco, but it works as well. We will run 8 races at Invesco and 2 in Greeley this summer.
As someone else said, there are Hobby Towns who put on races in the parking lots. The store in Fort Collins, 60 miles north of Denver and Westminster (subburb of denver) do this every weekend durring the summer. We do not run every week, so the racer count is better (my opinion) but really we want racers at the other locations as people always talk about racing at other places and we have A LOT TO TALK ABOUT.
So as someone said, the club track is large for nitro cars. We have put in a cut off for the electics, but even this is a little large. However, we are providing something that no one else does, and the racers on off weeks are running at HT. If they are doing thier jobs, they are talking about the big track at Invesco and we do get many people stopping by. And some new racers.
Last piece, Invesco required more insurance coverage than ROAR provided. We also had racers not wanting to pay $30 to ROAR just to race. Not justfyed in my eyes, but I'm not everyone. But since we had 9 months under our belt, a good reference from the county our current Prez (Yes REV) was able to get double the insurance for under $300/year as a non-profit. Now we really follow all the ROAR rules including the 8" tall exterior boards, so no one can come back and say we should have done something more if we do have an incident.
We are working on building 1/10 scale pan cars again, and have many members running Vintage Trans-Am at the HT tracks. Maybe some day we can have a permanent pavement and indoor carpet track, but what we have right now is on par with anything in the USA.
If you need some help starting a club, PM myself or go the web site and send and e-mail to any officer and we'll be glad to help. Heck for the right entry fee at a race we might even show up.
I make this offer, as we had a lot of help from Magic City RC racers in Montana who shared thier bylaws which we used to get a jump start. Our club went from non-existent August 25th, 2007 to 64 members today with the set up you can see on our site.
Mark Wernimont
Fort Collins, Colorado
05-09-2008, 07:02 PM
#36
I hope parking lot racing makes a comeback in Missouri. There are very few tracks in Missouri and starting Sunday I will be hosting a Parking Lot race in Branson, MO. Wish me luck...only 4 people said they will come out on Mothers Day.
05-09-2008, 07:47 PM
#37
no such thing a a track to big for electric, slap in a 4.5, 3.5, or even a 2.5.
out here in the NW, lowes has been good to one club for allowing use of thier parking lot, we had a race at a home depot once, manager even supplied prizes, customers loved it, don't be afraid, go ask, and check with your local counties and cities parks departments, lots of hidden money in grants for just this sort of thing.
out here in the NW, lowes has been good to one club for allowing use of thier parking lot, we had a race at a home depot once, manager even supplied prizes, customers loved it, don't be afraid, go ask, and check with your local counties and cities parks departments, lots of hidden money in grants for just this sort of thing.
05-09-2008, 08:18 PM
#38
I've been on a track that made a 3.5 look not fast enough.
05-09-2008, 08:25 PM
#39
strap in a 2.5 and gear it up
05-09-2008, 08:29 PM
#40
Gearing up is good, gearing low = exploded rotor in 3.5s or 2.5s
05-09-2008, 08:48 PM
#41
I guess parking lot racing depends on how much effort you put into it...
A parking lot and some cones is the bare minumum.... but how much fun would be derived from that set up?
To do it right i'm guessing you'd need the following...
Parking Lot/Permission to use it
Roar membership for insurance
Pipes
Scoring Sysem
Pit Space/Electricity/Shade
Drivers' Stand
At that point the costs start to escalate. It would be nice to hear from successful parking lot race organizers as to how they went about it and what pitfalls to avoid.
A parking lot and some cones is the bare minumum.... but how much fun would be derived from that set up?
To do it right i'm guessing you'd need the following...
Parking Lot/Permission to use it
Roar membership for insurance
Pipes
Scoring Sysem
Pit Space/Electricity/Shade
Drivers' Stand
At that point the costs start to escalate. It would be nice to hear from successful parking lot race organizers as to how they went about it and what pitfalls to avoid.
http://www.rcracing.com/msgthread.cf...iteMessages=34
and at
www.thegroundpounders.com
we been running races for over 13 years and we out last alot of permanent tracks.
05-09-2008, 09:57 PM
#42
no such thing a a track to big for electric, slap in a 4.5, 3.5, or even a 2.5.
out here in the NW, lowes has been good to one club for allowing use of thier parking lot, we had a race at a home depot once, manager even supplied prizes, customers loved it, don't be afraid, go ask, and check with your local counties and cities parks departments, lots of hidden money in grants for just this sort of thing.
out here in the NW, lowes has been good to one club for allowing use of thier parking lot, we had a race at a home depot once, manager even supplied prizes, customers loved it, don't be afraid, go ask, and check with your local counties and cities parks departments, lots of hidden money in grants for just this sort of thing.
05-09-2008, 10:35 PM
#43
Parking lot racing is alive and well in Socal...Charlie our race director ( OC Circuit) here on rctech....runs races on the 2nd and 4th sunday of each month. He typically has 14 -18 heats of sedans and some gearbox classes ( Like T4 and XXXT trucks, Speed T ) and pretty much any class guys want to run. There is always a big turnout.
05-10-2008, 07:11 AM
#44
Parking lot racing is alive and well in Socal...Charlie our race director ( OC Circuit) here on rctech....runs races on the 2nd and 4th sunday of each month. He typically has 14 -18 heats of sedans and some gearbox classes ( Like T4 and XXXT trucks, Speed T ) and pretty much any class guys want to run. There is always a big turnout.
05-10-2008, 07:17 AM
#45
OC circuit rocks!
Longest running parking lot program is..........The RAMS Club of Northern California. Actually its the longest running club in the US that has always been run on parking lots if I am not mistaken.They just had their 40th anniversary.
It can be done and done well.
Longest running parking lot program is..........The RAMS Club of Northern California. Actually its the longest running club in the US that has always been run on parking lots if I am not mistaken.They just had their 40th anniversary.
It can be done and done well.