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I have never been shut down so fast in my life in trying to give money away. Thats ok I will give it to SKUSA. Have a great day. :bs:
Mike
I’m afraid you may have completley misunderstood what I was driving at. Logistically we have real problems moving “to the streets”. The Rock Island GP has a budget of well over $100,000 and roughly 150 volenteers to make it happen. Rodger R. works practically full time, year round to head it up.
The Greeley GP has a core group of roughly 10 volenteers and a budget of less than $20,000. We have a huge gap between where we are and where we want to go. For us to take it downtown with the resources we have would invite disaster. We have to build credibility before we can get the funds necessary to do it right. What company in it’s right mind would give us $100,000 to stage an event with no track record.
We can’t make everything happen overnight. It will take years for this event to reach the heights that it has the potential to reach. I hope you would like to work with us. Give any of us call to see how you can be a part of it’s growth.
I gotta ask cause I’m confused. How much of a race has to be run in the street’s before it is a street race? All, 1/3, 1/2 what? It did run down a city street, 11th Ave. We did block a city street to do it. The street does run throug a city park (do streets through a park not count). We are looking at expanding it on the city streets that run in/through the park. We have been given permission to do this, but we need to raise the money to compensate for the additional cost of the fencing, etc. that will be required. However, if streets that run through city parks don’t count, then what is the point.
Also, does anyone have an idea for a better location in Greeley? One where we can get a simular deal (infastrucure, etc.) to the one we have, not have to worry about closing a State Highway, irritating the same businesses that we are trying to get as sponsor’s, or ticking off the residential neighbors that are potentially our viewing public? If you do, please, let us know what, when, where, and how, so that we can take it to the city.
Wether it is a holiday weekend or not, there are always choices to be made. Are you racing this weekend, or are you going to…..? We can’t please everyone. As for people being busy on holiday weekends and not attending events like this, explain to me why there are well attended baseball, softball, soccer, etc. tournaments on Memorial Day, July 4th, Mother’s day, etc. Seems to me those people made a choice. If on those weekends, you would rather go camping, to Indy, Aunt Ester’s, or where-ever,well then have fun, after all, that is why we bust our butts at work the rest of the year. :cheers:
Please, Please, Please….keep in mind that if it were not for the volunteer’s, this event would not have happened last year, and won’t happen this year. Someday, maybe we will be in the position to have a paid staff to put this on. So.. feel free to leave your comfy spot behind the computer keyboard and come to the next meeting. Help us plan and organize the GGP.
Drew
Hay the inmate idea isn’t too bad either. Maybe we could get Canyon City interested in a race event. I bet there is all ready some good fencing up. The prison break race. We would automatically have a few thousand cuffed spectators.
Someone compair the Blackrock entry fees/prizes to the Rock Islands entry fees/prizes.
Street races of the past were done mainly in conjuntion with a towns celebration of the town. Stores and property owners were not compensated. Kart racers were compensated for attending and doing well.Check this out. http://www.ekartingnews.com/news_info.php?n=6710
From what I have heard from the CO Karters who have gone to this event, “this is one of the funest races of the year.” Lot’s of seat time, activities, great scenery, big fields…
Sure sounds like a SKUSA/Pro Kart Challenge event to me. Or at least a winning formula for a great kart race. I only wish we had the $$$ and time to check it out this year. Sounds like a good time.
Good luck to those of you who are going! Bring me back a piece of Tri-Tip!
Brian,
There has been many discussions as to when, where, rules, classes, format, activities, sponsors, community involvment, karter involvment, streets, park, yadayadayada…
I have brought up on other threads my involvement with SKUSA and the Pro Kart Challenge, how I personally see a fit with the GGP using the (PKC) format.
At the last GGP planning meeting we all discussed our own opinions on the direction the GGP should go. Everyone at the meeting had great ideas. No decisions were made and we plan on getting together again very soon and will continue to meet right up to the next GGP race.
My post, to answer your question, was to direct attention to this same format I am posturing for at the meetings. It works, it’s fun, and it supports everything I want from a kart event from a consumer standpoint.
Will it flush in our region? That is the question for now. What will be decided will be supported by everyone involved with the GGP, and the 2nd Annual GGP will be successful no matter what, or who’s format and rules are used.Hope I answered your question.
CurtChris also had to cancel his last event due to poor turnout. I had a long talk with Chis last week. His regional series is doing fair but he started with a 7 race series with 1 drop. Most racers decided that their one drop would be his race scheduled for Canada so he had to cancel. His club series is in the tank and he makes more money off rentals. (Does any of this sound familer?) Next year he’s thinking of dropping the regional series entirely or doing only a 2-3 race regional deal to see if that increases the club stuff.
He dropped the junior classes from Cascade Locks due to danger considerations. Pre-registrations are way down for it and he’s not sure how it’s going to turn out.
I’m a newbie to karting with observations on the holiday weekend issue.
What would be a terrific spectator turnout? 2,000 people? 5,000?
What’s the potential spectator population within 30 miles of Greeley? 1,000,000 people? 2,000,000?
Even if half of the people leave the area for a holiday weekend, there’s still more than enough people to attend.
The challenge is reaching them and motivating them to attend. This applies for any event – karting, bike race, peach festival, balloon fest, volleyball tournament, etc.
For a first-year event, GGP seemed very well promoted. It’s going to take time to grow, but I don’t think it matters much when it is.
Thanks.
I didn’t get to go to Greeley, so I won’t even try to comment on that race directly, but here’s some general thoughts of mine on temporary/street races…
@BoulderG wrote:
What would be a terrific spectator turnout? 2,000 people? 5,000?
The best spectator turnout I’ve experienced was at the ’01 and ’02 Grand Prix of Barrie in Ontario. SKUSA doesn’t have any of their old info online anymore and Ekarting only goes back to 2003, but the number that comes to mind is 4,000 spectators. I might be totally off base on that. Regardless, it was an absolutely amazing experience to be racing with people lined up 3 rows deep the entire way around the fenceline.
@BoulderG wrote:
The challenge is reaching them and motivating them to attend. This applies for any event – karting, bike race, peach festival, balloon fest, volleyball tournament, etc.
Yeeeessssss! IMVHO, the Barrie race was successful from a spectator standpoint for three main reasons:
1) the race was massively promoted in the local radio and media.
2) the race was held in a highly visible location (in one of the most heavily traveled areas of town). Note that while the race did close down a city street, it wasn’t entirely in the city streets, and doesn’t need to be. There’s nothing wrong with running in a parking lot, as long as it is visible and accessible.
3) Specators could watch the race for FREE. Admission to the pit areas cost money, but just to watch the race was free. I think this is absolutely key to spectator attendance. Nobody has heard of karting, and they won’t pay to watch something they’ve never heard of.I’ve not been to Rock Island, so I won’t try to analyze that race. But I have been to several other street & temp circuits that, for one reason or another, failed to bring in the promised crowds of spectators.
Austin Grand Prix (2002): decent location, reasonably well promoted… but the organizers decided they wanted to make a buck on spectator admissions. There was line of people waiting to get in all weekend. As I watched, they’d get to teh front of the line, find out that tickets were on the order of $15 each, and nine times out of ten, they’d turn and walk away. It was quite disheartening to see.
Dallas Promoto 2003, in conjunction with the IRL race: great location (captive audience), no promotion, nowhere for spectators to watch from. Surprise surprise, nobody came.
Supernats 2003 at the Rio: awesome location, crap promotion. Could have been a great spectator event on location alone, except for the kicker – SKUSA failed to provide easy access to the track for spectators. The only access was at an unmarked and inobvious gate at one end of the pits. And once again, the price of admission was too expensive. I actually saw people coming up to the outside of the fence asking where to go to get in. I can only imagine how many people just gave up and left.
Supernats 2004 at Sam Boyd Stadium: bad location away from the public eye, no promotion.
As far as the date of the race… yes, a lot of people do other things that weekend, but on the same token, it’s a traditional weekend for festivals and events as well. Some people will go in the mountians or go camping, but there’s a surprisingly huge population base in CO that doesn’t have any interest in the outdoors. Regardless, I don’t see the date as the major hurdle to getting spectators to come to the race.
I’m enjoying watching the mostly well thought out responses in this discussion thread and thought I’d throw my two cents in.
Outside of the date discussion which, at this point needs to be put on hold until after the 2007 event since we already have the date and I don’t think its going to change, the GGP has a number of things going for it.
The town is excited about the event, willing to help improve it and use their own resources to do so. They are looking at it as a 3-5 year project, not something that needs to blow up immediately.
The sponsors from last year are excited to come back and planning is ahead of the game this year so there should be better, more planned sponsor participation.
We don’t have a promoter trying to make a quick buck. The people working to put this event together want to improve and enhance karting and karting awareness in Colorado and they understand the timeframe it takes to make an event like this successful. They are aware of what things went well and what things didn’t at the first year event.
Let’s keep providing constructive feedback and suggestions of how to improve the event for next year. I’d love to see two to three thousand spectators but to be honest, I’d be happy to see more karts, some track and pit improvements and more involved sponsors.
Just my two cents although I rattled on a bit more than I intended.
Tim Taplin
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