Hey all,
Had a good meeting with Mid Ohio President, Michelle Truman, and her Vice
President, Dennis Rhee. Sitting in on the meeting were MG racers Don Munoz,
Jerry Richards and Les Gonda, Turner racer Keith Burnett, and SVRA Competition
Director, Carl Jensen.
They are making changes to be more "user friendly"! No more "Security" staff!
There is a new "Guest Services" staff with new manager. Most comments I
received from participants were positive about the friendliness of the staff
this past weekend. There were still some issues that need to get worked out.
1) The walk gate by the fuel station remained closed all weekend, but I was
promised this was an oversight and will be corrected for the next vintage
event. 2) The parking passes were kind of a mess (who can drive where, park
where, etc.), but it appeared to be a joint SVRA/MO screw up and was
eventually straightened out.
Some positive items. 1) The charge to stay in your motorhome/camper in the
grassy paddock area was $75, which I think was less than past years. 2) We
could drive our trucks into the fenced-in paddock area to get tires and fuel.
3) The new "Guest Services" staff actually smiled and waved a few times as we
drove by in either race cars or street cars.
Both SVRA and MO realize they have lost a number of participants at this
event. We had roughly 250 this year compared to around 400 just a few years
ago. IMHO, this is partly a MO problem, but partly a result of having too
many cars in too many groups which results in too little track time. Track
time for this event was the normal two 25 minute sessions Friday and Saturday
and a 10 lap feature race Sunday. Typical for this kind of event. It gets
back to the issue of "spectator" type events or "club" type events. There
were two additional races for Porsches and I'm sure if Triumphs were featured
we would get some extra track time too.
I am convinced that the MO staff is trying to improve. The proof will be how
we are treated in the future. They realize they have a lot of negative
history to overcome and are willing to keep plugging away.
After my return home, I received a call from VP, Dennis Rhee to follow up on
our meeting and the weekend in general. He wants to hear from competitors,
spectators and car show participants regarding the event. So if anyone wants
to give them feedback, please send to me and I will forward to Dennis.
The Devin TR3 ran fine all weekend. Finished 1st in Class DM and 5th overall
in Group 4. As usual Jack Wohrle let me run in Group 3 and Group 4. I mostly
ran in Group 4 (Sports Racers) and only ran one session with the Group 3
(Production) class. Mainly because it was so hot! Friday the track surface
temp was 116 degrees and it only got hotter as the weekend went on!!
Vroom, vroom,
Jeff Snook
http://www.snooksdreamcars.com
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