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2009 Nationals in Utah?


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I had heard that 944 cup is doing there nationals elsewhere (or at least it is in discussion).

 

Can we buddy up with them and do our nationals durring a regional race out this way.

 

Ed Baus

 

With the 944 Cup series being almost exclusively an East Coast series, would make sense for the 944 Cup to select an East Coast track to have the 944 Cup Nationals for 2009 and 2010.

 

The consensus among Cup racers would also be to change the format, a 3 day event, to reduce the cost and time to participate with the hope of expanding the field size. Tracks making sense for the Cup would be VIR, Watkins Glen, Thunderbolt, and Road Atlanta.

 

The more series particpating would give it more of a National feel. An all German marque national could be marketed in conjunction with some type of Deutch Fest having the intention of developing a larger sponsor/spectator/media interest in the event.

 

Agreed. We should probably bring Carter Hunt/SpecE30 into this discussion.

 

Things to consider:

Weather...the farther south we have this event, the later in the season we could do it.

 

Location.... we should pinpoint a center of the populous and make a logical decision.

 

Car count...the more the merrier! The more entrants we have, the easier it will be to make this happen.

 

Volunteers.....to make this happen, it will take a lot of work.

 

Further south is better....but not too far south. Good weather would be nice but a reasonable drive would also be nice. ; )

 

VIR, VIR, VIR, VIR, VIR..... ; )

 

I'm on your "I'll be glad to help" list also Mark.

 

Cheers.

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I followed the link on the Bluegrass site and sent an email re: track costs. I have not heard anything back. I would think, it being a new track and all, it should be rather reasonable to build a customer base etc. As soon as I hear something, I will report it here. A 3.5 mile track with elevation changes and high speed sweepers could be lots of fun. Also, throw in the fact no one has been there would make it the ultimate in a level playing field.

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I followed the link on the Bluegrass site and sent an email re: track costs. I have not heard anything back. I would think, it being a new track and all, it should be rather reasonable to build a customer base etc. As soon as I hear something, I will report it here. A 3.5 mile track with elevation changes and high speed sweepers could be lots of fun. Also, throw in the fact no one has been there would make it the ultimate in a level playing field.

 

That's even closer for the Elephant drivers so yeah, sounds awesome! ; )

 

Cheers.

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Excellent discussion. But Mark is correct that the amount of work to pull this off will be hugh. Consider using a "sterring committee" to provide leadership, support and direction. And yes Mark I will help!

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A 3.5 mile track with elevation changes and high speed sweepers could be lots of fun. Also, throw in the fact no one has been there would make it the ultimate in a level playing field.

 

X2.

 

VIR would be fine with me too.

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Mark, I was one of the people who said they'd probably go to Utah, but I'm not interested if we don't have a full field. Also, going there in the fall would be my family's "summer" vacation as there is no way we could do that in less than 1.5 to 2 weeks, and that's not an option for people with school-aged kids.

 

I enjoy the show that NASA puts on regionally and especially for Nationals, and I feel that it's continuing to get better and better. However, if 80+% of our drivers are out East and 90+% won't make it to Utah, then my vote is for a Right Coast GTS final in '09.

 

I haven't yet driven a track that I can envision getting tired of (well, Waterford with 275s up front and no power steering might be an exception), and Mid-Oh certainly fits that bill. But if we were to go elsewhere, marquee places like The Glen would certainly be great venues, although Kentucky's elevation changes and absence of "blue bushes" sounds great! As long as we have a big, competitive field with a lots of clean, heads-up and honest racing, I'm game for whatever.

 

And I'm happy to lend a planning hand where needed in the off-season!

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First I like to say it was fun meeting all the GTS guys this past weekend. We had a great weekend considering how it has ended. Major Vanos issues in the Championship race, the tech tent almost taking out a bunch of cars after the race and coming home to a completely water logged home in Angleton, Texas due to IKE!!! I had to drive 20 hours and 1200 miles to go that race. I know you guys will jump all over me for saying this, BUT you are all spoiled. The GTS will never grow at all if you continue to not promote it in other regions. By pulling away from miller you are. I'd like to no how many GTS cars were in that race that weren't from the mid-atlantic and mid west region. Why would any of the west coast guy even consider racing in GTS now. If that is what you want and from listening to most of you don't really care. I can tell you I'll go to PBOC at Daytona before I go to NASA nats if it not at miller. There are a ton of 996 and 997 cup cars out there that could fill GTS -5, but GTS hasn't figured out how to draw the #'s from PCA and PBOC yet. I hope Mark can come up with a good solution. Hopefully we can race with you guys next year.

 

Michael Mills

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I must admit that I too am a bit disappointed by the response here. I do understand that a smaller portion of drivers will attend from the east coast, as was the case this year with west coast and "no coast" participants, but the event has barely been communicated to the NASA community and already there's discussions around not even considering attending the National event in favor of an "East Coast" Championship. Next year will be the first at an alternate venue, opening it to competitors who previously have not had an opportunity to "strut their stuff" on a National stage. As Michael pointed out, some enthusiasm from those at the national level will go a long way to generating some enthusiasm in the series.

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Just a few thoughts here:

Most of the GTS cars are from the midwest and east coast area; GTS was "born" here

1675 miles each way and 24 hours is a bit more than I can invest at this point

even if there would be a GTS contingent going the fields are most likely to be small

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To the points raised by Ian, Michael and others raised above, MMP looks like an incredible place and it'd be great to have more of a truly national draw for the GTS final. However, the fact that the West Coast has lots of eligible cars isn't reflected in past car counts there, and given the current Nationals format, there's no guarantee that their "regular season" car count will grow in '09.

 

With that in mind, and building on some previous comments and ideas in this thread, what if:

 

1. GTS adds a Nationals supp that eliminates the "team entry" method to qualify for Nationals - either you help build the series by running a car in GTS races, or you don't

2. we create a Nationals-like Midwest-/East Coast-oriented Festival of Schnell (or something similary Germanesque) relatively late in the season but pre-Nationals, kind of a semi-final that's open to all

3. GTS establishes a mid-season go/no-go decision point on whether the final happens in MMP - if by that point, West Coast car counts in GTS races are still too thin to justify running @MMP, then the event above becomes our National

4. If MMP does look like a go, then maybe a series sponsor could offer entry fees, fuel funds, etc. to help top finishers at the semi-final to get to MMP

 

Thoughts?

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I must admit that I too am a bit disappointed by the response here. I do understand that a smaller portion of drivers will attend from the east coast, as was the case this year with west coast and "no coast" participants, but the event has barely been communicated to the NASA community and already there's discussions around not even considering attending the National event in favor of an "East Coast" Championship.

I can understand your disappointment with the immediate and rather overwhelming lack of support for this new location, but the unfortunate truth is Miller Motorsports Park, as nice as it probably is, is in the middle of nowhere. As shown in the image below, about the best thing you can say for it is, it's a long way from everybody except, possibly, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

 

populationmap.jpg

 

If the goal was to find a location as far as possible from the entire racing community, then they've done their job admirably. As said elsewhere here, if the goal was to have the Championships on the left coast, then Laguna Seca or even Sears Point (or whatever it's called this week) might have got me dragging my car west. I could sell my wife on the idea of a trip to, say, Monterey a lot sooner than one to visit the Great Salt Lake.

 

If the goal was to serve as much of the population as possible as effectively as possible, then Mid-Ohio remains a good choice as would Road America, Putnam Park, Road Atlanta, Barber or almost anything in the western Mid-Western US.

 

The fact Miller was selected, and that it is inconvenient for virtually everyone going there, well, it makes me wonder exactly what was going on behind the scenes to influence this decision.

 

As for me, I won't be going to Utah. I'm hoping for a great GTS race somewhere I can get to.

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My concern is more that you isolate GTS from NASA. I really loved Mid-Ohio and would be happy to make the 1200 mile trip next year. If I do one trip a year like that I can probably swing it. If GTS pulls away from NASA it will complete isolate that series to the Northeast areas

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Here is the email I got back from Bluegrass. Does anyone with authority want to follow up?

 

Good morning John,

 

We appreciate your interest in renting Bluegrass Road Course. In terms of availability, track 4 will be available (http://www.drivebluegrass.com/road_course/track_map.html) for rental, which includes a 2.50 mile circuit, a 10 degree banked turn, 3200’ front straight, and 100+’ of elevation change.

 

At this time, all of our weekends are reserved for 2009, but I might be able to shift one of our current renters that holds 9/25 – 9/27 to an earlier date to accommodate your event. They are a good friend of Bluegrass and will work with us on this. If you can help me understand more about your racing series, then I will be able to provide you with event specific details that will help you make an informed decision on where to host your 2009 Nationals. Thanks again John and we look forward to hosting your wheel to wheel series in ’09.

 

Drive Safe,

 

Brad

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First I like to say it was fun meeting all the GTS guys this past weekend. We had a great weekend considering how it has ended. Major Vanos issues in the Championship race, the tech tent almost taking out a bunch of cars after the race and coming home to a completely water logged home in Angleton, Texas due to IKE!!! I had to drive 20 hours and 1200 miles to go that race. I know you guys will jump all over me for saying this, BUT you are all spoiled. The GTS will never grow at all if you continue to not promote it in other regions. By pulling away from miller you are. I'd like to no how many GTS cars were in that race that weren't from the mid-atlantic and mid west region. Why would any of the west coast guy even consider racing in GTS now. If that is what you want and from listening to most of you don't really care. I can tell you I'll go to PBOC at Daytona before I go to NASA nats if it not at miller. There are a ton of 996 and 997 cup cars out there that could fill GTS -5, but GTS hasn't figured out how to draw the #'s from PCA and PBOC yet. I hope Mark can come up with a good solution. Hopefully we can race with you guys next year.

 

Michael Mills

 

I will aggree with Nasa has not figured out how to draw from PCA and Pboc ( I run both ). It is very simple.... track time ... track time.... Nasa has none to offer...

Fred Crawford

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Sacha, I support your concept. Having a GTS nationals "Pre-event" that can become the main event if MMP doesn't draw a sufficient crowd is pretty smart. Only down side is that some fence riders, like myself, would not register for MMP knowing that lowered attendance would allow us to push the GTS event to a closer venue. The west coast racers might also hesitiate knowing that the MMP could be lightly attended.

 

I would also like to get a GTS rules change to require a minimum particiapation in the series throughout the year to be elidgeable to run at Nationals. To make the national event bigger and better (where ever it is) we need more regional participation; attracting those BMWCCA, PCA, PBOC, and SCCA racers based on easy classification of the car and a high level of competition.

 

-Sean T

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Hey Guys,

 

 

 

OOooops..........My mistake...no harm intended. We will silently fade into the background.........

Edited by Guest
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A race at Bluegrass would pretty interesting as no one has any real experience there. Kind-of eliminates the home field advantage and is pretty central to a lot of people.

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I don't think that GTS choosing to pull from MMP Nationals will hurt the growth chances out west at all. With all due resepect to the people in that area, I don't think there are more than 5-10 GTS cars out west? I would submit the question about why 50 or 60 of us should drive 2-3 days out there to host a National Event where we MIGHT get a few cars from the region?

 

I think it is incumbant upon the GTS reps in that area to build a field first, once that field grows out there to support a series, then it might make sense for us to do so, but right now, it just doesn't IMO.

 

If the Nationals were a huge draw to GTS membership in a particular area, we would have seen larger growth surrounding regions outside of OH/IN

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Let me give the west coast GTS numbers. There was exactly "zero" GTS cars that ran enough races to qualify for Nationals in 2008 in California. In fact, a quick search of Mylaps didn't turn up one single result for a GTS car in California.

 

If there was someone to go race against from the west, quite a few of us would go to Utah. But it makes no sense at all for us to drive 2000+ miles to race against ourselves.

 

Spoiled??? Damn right we're spoiled. We have the countries finest tracks and highest race car per capita count. It has nothing to do with not wanting to go to Utah.

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Mark, speak for yourself, I don't want to go to Utah.

 

I would probably do whatever it took to get my car to Laguna Seca though, even if I was racing a bunch of Camaros.

 

anyone follow up on the Bluegrass idea or is it just not feasible? From what I hear from my PCA connections, Bluegrass is looking to firm up dates in the next month or so.

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You are all the reasons why I'm not running with PCA or POC any more, sad to see you guys having the same attitude with NASA. You should have staid with PCA.

Glad to be a Honda Challenge guy ! your attitude , make me feels like I should sell my street GT3 RS to not be put in the same basket as you guys.

It's a national event and I will go where ever it take place. ( reason why it's called a National !)

one last note: I'm from so.cal and made the trip 3 times to Ohio, you can check all the BB and you will not find any so.cal crying about how far midohio has been !

benny

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You are all the reasons why I'm not running with PCA or POC any more, sad to see you guys having the same attitude with NASA. You should have staid with PCA.

Glad to be a Honda Challenge guy ! your attitude , make me feels like I should sell my street GT3 RS to not be put in the same basket as you guys.

It's a national event and I will go where ever it take place. ( reason why it's called a National !)

one last note: I'm from so.cal and made the trip 3 times to Ohio, you can check all the BB and you will not find any so.cal crying about how far midohio has been !

benny

 

Benny,

 

You failed to read the entire thread or only read bits and pieces that worked for your opinion.

 

The problem with GTS, so far, is that NO ONE out west runs GTS. West coast lacks a GTS region and competitors. It was mentioned on this thread that if that were to change next year, there would be no issues having a nationals event out west.

 

It would be similar to a situation where there was NO ONE who runs Honda Challenge out west. And in addition, no Honda Challenge West group.

 

That is the main issue here. Not that people dont want to drive out there, but that there is no west coast competition to even drive against!

 

Let me give the west coast GTS numbers. There was exactly "zero" GTS cars that ran enough races to qualify for Nationals in 2008 in California. In fact, a quick search of Mylaps didn't turn up one single result for a GTS car in California.

 

If there was someone to go race against from the west, quite a few of us would go to Utah. But it makes no sense at all for us to drive 2000+ miles to race against ourselves.

 

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