Ronnie Day wrote:
>
> There was considerable discussion about a national all-Datsun gathering
> at the Shasta All Datsun last summer, particularly at the Saturday night
> dinner. Les and Dennis worked at being the focal points of the
> discussion. I think it's interesting that they came to a similar
> conclusion as a number of others regarding time and location, mid-summer
> in Colorado, probably Colorado Springs.
>
> For an extended (three or four days-at least) event, summer is the
> obvious time as a number of folk's vacation schedules depend a lot on
> school dates. Mid summer is least likely to conflict. However, July in
> many parts of the country is far from pleasant. Springs usually offers
> decent weather even in July, has a new road course, and there are plenty
> of things to see and do for the non-car nut family members. Bottom line,
> IMHO, it's the most central location that offers the combination of
> tourist attractions, auto oriented facilities, and tolarable weather in
> mid summer. Come down this direction (north Texas) and it's just too hot
> to do much outdoors, go east and I think you loss many, if not most, of
> the west coast folks. Go west and you loss those from the East and South.
> Not everyone's as crazy as Elayne and I, or the Shoesmith brothers who
> flew in from Australia!
>
> Frankly I doubt it'll happen, on a truly large, multi-model, national
> scale anyway, for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which would be the
> cost. We'd probably give it a shot, but I've already mentioned our
> questionable mental state.
Les and I have been working on this National All-Datsun Meet idea for
some time. We were the ones that suggested Denver, based on a lot of
factors, including its location. But after talking with the Denver Z
club, we dropped Denver from the list. We had tried to throw in with the
organizers of this year's Z convention and put on an all-Datsun show in
conjunction with the Z convention. We thought we had worked this out but
then we got cold feet. We couldn't get the organizers to reply to any of
our emails or phone calls. Now that we have seen the pricing and other
problems with the event we are glad we backed out.
But we haven't given up on the basic idea and we are still working on
it. Here's where we are at this point.
1)it would have to be an all-Datsun event and have good vendor support,
not just from the big Z vendors but also the Roadster specialists etc.
2)there isn't enough support for a single national event (except maybe
every 5 years or something like that) so there would have to be two
regional events (at a minimum) an East Coast and a West Coast
Right now we are looking at trying to work with MSA's "West Coast Z
Nationals event, as the western event but there are a few stumbling
blocks still to work out. While Shast is a great event we haven't really
considered it for a bunch of reasons. First and foremost is that the
Shasta eventS would have to work out their differences and show that
they can and will work together for an all-Datsun event to work there.
Second, the location is limiting and hard to get to for people who would
have to fly in, such as Mr. K, etc. So, while we enjoy the Shastas, we
didn't really see them as being viable for this sort of event.
For an east coast event we have been in touch with Bob Sharp and Bob
Sharp Nissan. They have expressed an interest in reviving some of the
old tech sessions and other events they used to hold back in the good
old days, and they are working with the local Z club on some events.
They indicated they would be happy to work with us on something like
this.
Anyway I just want to let folks know that we haven't dropped this idea,
its just hit a few snags and we had to rethink it a bit. Suggestions and
ideas are most welcome.
--
Marc Sayer
Editor/Publisher
Z Car & Classic Datsun Magazine
http://zcarmag.com
Voice 541-726-6001
Fax 541-746-0863/726-6001
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