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AMP Attendance Limitations


Dave Schotz

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That is correct. If we go over the limit (I think 100 people at any one time) we need to hire a sworn officer to be a security person. It turns out that recently it has been difficult to find any officer to do this, and those we can find are very expensive. 

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Dave,

 

It's in our contract with AMP; it's their rule, which I guess could be pushed on them by the city. I'm not sure. 

 

If anyone knows a sworn officer who might want to make some extra money and help us out, please let the steering committee know!

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We sold out 140 entrants in less than 24 hours for this event and right now there are 12 on the waitlist to get in.  I'm not sure I want to go to a local autocross that has over 140 entries in a single day.  Logistics and the amount of available runs start to get pretty slim with over that many entrants in my opinion. 

One way to make sure you get entered is to volunteer ahead of time for specific essential race day work assignments such as waivers, tech, course setup, teardown etc as those will be preregistered before open registration begins.    

 

   

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19 hours ago, cgroppi said:

Dave,

 

It's in our contract with AMP; it's their rule, which I guess could be pushed on them by the city. I'm not sure. 

 

If anyone knows a sworn officer who might want to make some extra money and help us out, please let the steering committee know!

I don't think there are very many Peace Officers would act on their own these days. Some agency have policy regarding Officers working in a Security capacity. Some allow it and some may not. Also, if an Officer does act on their own, the officer may not be covered by workman's comp or liability insurance if an incident should occur, the Officer would be on his own. Some Officers may not be willing to take that chance. Some Departments will contract for such services than an Officer would be covered in case an incident should occur but, those contract services would be very expensive.

Edited by Nokones
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5 hours ago, SSLance said:

We sold out 140 entrants in less than 24 hours for this event and right now there are 12 on the waitlist to get in.  I'm not sure I want to go to a local autocross that has over 140 entries in a single day.  Logistics and the amount of available runs start to get pretty slim with over that many entrants in my opinion. 

One way to make sure you get entered is to volunteer ahead of time for specific essential race day work assignments such as waivers, tech, course setup, teardown etc as those will be preregistered before open registration begins.    

 

   

San Francisco Region use to average 250-300 entries per event with 8 run groups years ago. The workers were changed on the fly and there were two grids and the downtime between run groups normally didn't exceed 5 minutes. And there was a course walk between run groups 4 and 5 which lasted only about 15-20 minutes. 

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Maybe if the demand is there (and it appears to be)  more 2 day events could be considered. Set it up so if you participate on Saturday you don't run on Sunday OR you're at the bottom of the list for the Sunday event. I personally like the cap on racers as it is, and as mentioned logistics become a concern.

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Did those locations mentioned above have restrictions that mandate the site be cleaned up and vacated by 5 pm?  I believe I've had this conversation with attendees at the Chicago area events before and their site was much more lenient and larger for paddock and grid areas than AMP.  

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At one time, before AMP, we used to have 240 entries (including TO).  That was a hard limit.  3 runs.  Worked well.  That was before AMP and its imposed operating time limits and occupancy limits.  Folks have also gotten used to 4 or 5 runs.  Can't have it all.

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3 hours ago, SSLance said:

Did those locations mentioned above have restrictions that mandate the site be cleaned up and vacated by 5 pm?  I believe I've had this conversation with attendees at the Chicago area events before and their site was much more lenient and larger for paddock and grid areas than AMP.  

Lance is correct. Very difficult to allow 250+ participants and be cleaned up and off site by 5pm. Steve also made mention of past times where we did have the max of 240 or so drivers and got 3 runs. Understandable for a national event, not so great for a local event and many were unhappy with it. 

It's an unfortunate trade off, but right now the only viable option for the Phx region unless track restrictions are lifted or other sites are obtained.

Edited by freakin_elrod
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12 minutes ago, freakin_elrod said:

Lance is correct. Very difficult to allow 250+ participants and be cleaned up and off site by 5pm. Steve also made mention of past times where we did have the max of 240 or so drivers and got 3 runs. Understandable for a national event, not so great for a local event and many were unhappy with it. 

It's an unfortunate trade off, but right now the only viable option for the Phx region unless track restrictions are lifted or other sites are obtained.

for clarity AMP has a site restriction of 200 folks for their entire complex, not aware of any foreseeable change 

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On 11/2/2021 at 8:45 AM, aweZome28 said:

Maybe if the demand is there (and it appears to be)  more 2 day events could be considered. Set it up so if you participate on Saturday you don't run on Sunday OR you're at the bottom of the list for the Sunday event. I personally like the cap on racers as it is, and as mentioned logistics become a concern.

This would either require the people that do all the things to make these events happen to work 2 days over a weekend.  When I first started autocrossing 20+ years ago I wondered why we didn't have more then one event a month.  At that point the club was running split morning/afternoon event with TO's in the afternoon group.  I figured out that if I registered for the afternoon and signed up to do teardown I could get 2 sets of runs, only eat up half my day and not have to do back to back run/work for 4 groups.  That led to me being recruited into Asst Equipment Chief.

Fast forward to today, I try to get there before gate open to make sure setup serves smooth, serve a event chair throughout the event and still find myself helping with teardown at the end.  I no longer wonder why don't we do 2 event a month.

This is not meant to sound like a rant or complaint but please remember this is an all volunteer run organization and we are constantly looking for volunteers to help cover critical areas.  The only we we could put on more events is with more of these people.  If anyone is interested please reach out to a member of the SC>

 

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There are other Region's that do weekend events a month with each day being separate events. The course is run reversed on Sunday from Saturday's course. The course is usually setup on either Friday or early Saturday morning and torn down on Sunday. After Saturday's event, the start and finish areas are modified for Sunday's course which requires minimum effort. AMP is not like Marana whereas, the course can stay set up overnight. This concept would allow for two events a month with the effort of only one course design/setup.

The registration process can be just as easy for the two days. Drivers that sign up for the two days would sign up for the two days would use the same run group and grid spots for the two days. Drivers that only sign up for one of the days would be assigned the next available grid spot for the day they elect to run.

This has worked very well in other regions for many decades and can worked very well for this Region.

Edited by Nokones
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My comments as a SC member, and these only reflect my opinion and not the SC as a whole

If anyone has a suggestion consider the following questions:

(1) What am I offering to do to make my suggestion happen? And no, suggesting more work for others does not count, lol. Put your volunteer commitment right out there with your suggestion. An offer of extra volunteer work goes a long way to demonstrate personal commitment and perhaps inspire others to do the same. 

(2) Am I a member of the club that I am offering suggestions to? As a member of the SC, I will of course consider any suggestion from anyone either posting on the forum or at event. This club has been successful by changing and adopting new processes and practices. That said, I will admit to a bias that if you are a Phoenix AZ Solo region member and have skin in the game on the ongoing success of our autocross program in Phoenix I listen even more intently. If you are still a AZ Region member and believe they will start an autocross program outside of Maricopa County that is your decision. Otherwise, please consider moving your region of record to  the Phoenix AZ Solo region by sending SCCA an email with your name, SCCA number to membership@scca.com and request the change. (yes a shameless plug for this club)

And thank you to those who have already made the switch!

 

 

 

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What changed from a year ago... we used to have 6 run groups?  4 competition and 2 time only run groups?  We clearly had to have at least 150 cars 'running' through that structure. 

And Kim if you want us to switch... show us some change?  I'd be happy to switch, but right now, I have ZERO problems attending a better site in Tucson... and am not able to attend a 'nice site' here locally... if I don't have calendar reminders on my phone.  

It's a little absurd... and definitely can't help 'grow the club'... would be even more difficult for a newbie to attend. 

If this is actually a 'runs issue'... let's go back to 3 runs... and go back to whatever is reasonable for total headcount... we never used to have a 'AM & PM' arrive and Drive, until the 50 maximum limit.  Now we are purposely losing 1 hour every event... to have AM and PM groups... instead of 'everyone arrive early'... walk in the morning... and then you run all day no breaks. 

Best regards,
Dave

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Dave 

Per MSR, a year ago we had 116 entrants in Sept, 129 in Oct and 140 in Nov. In 2019 we had 111 in Sept, 112 in Oct, 107 in Nov. We are now running at 140 entrants. What changed besides covid is an increased demand, at least locally. Not saying that in the past we were not running 150+ cars but with TOs a portion of those 150 cars were obviously the same driver/car also doing comp runs. At the current structure all 140 are unique drivers with a good portion being newbies. That said the SC is looking at ways to increase the number of drivers without reducing the increased number of runs. One step in that direction was doing course set up, whenever possible, the day before the event. 

Kind regards 

Kim 

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Personally, on my end I like the AM/PM format. With events I have for work sometimes, I don't have time to be there all day, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. While I'm hoping to have less schedule conflicts in the future about this, for this season at least, it's worked perfectly for me, and I like not having to sit through groups that I'm not working or running in.

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They say one can never go home again.......AM/PM format, huh?😉

Back in the "early" days when we were running 200-240 cars we had EIGHT Run Groups, with Morning Groups A-B-C-D, and then Afternoon groups E-F-G-H. There were two Driver's meetings, and two course walks. That format was very popular thus the great numbers. During the summer sometimes we ran evening events, that pulled great numbers too. We also ran a Daytime Summer Series every year, and a Driver's School. We had Awards "Banquets" attended by 80-110 people at restaurants.😳

On the other hand, this was mostly at Firebird Skidpad #4, nicknamed The "Postage Stamp". It was smaller. We usually had only three runs, (once in a while four) thus the TO's were very popular. Before you go off on a "Who likes smaller courses tangent", know that the answer was ......many people. Me included. I know people who will not run AMP today because the courses are just too big and too fast. Back in those early days thus we had many more spouses and families attend. Less intimidating. More like an actual autocross, and less like a mini track day.

Also know that we could set up very early, and stay until done. There were no time, number or noise constraints as at AMP today.

So, while AMP is many things, there are also things it is not. There are things I really miss from the early autocross days. Much more sense of community and camaraderie then.

We need to be looking more actively for alternatives, IMO. AMP is a blessing in many ways, but could quickly go away depending on the economy. It's site is highly valued in the business community.

Thoughts to chew on.😎😉

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I started autocrossing in an era like Scott did, over 35 years ago with the Porsche Club and SCCA, 250+ cars at an event days with 8 run groups, and with an Awards banquet that everyone dresses up or at least wear a collared shirt, bring their spouse, have a nice dinner, and collect their hardware for the season.

There was always a break between your run and work groups so you can either watch other drivers run or swap lies with your friends or show your friends all your secret go-fast parts on your car. In those days, you usually spend the whole day on site because it was a social event inner-mixed with a couple minutes of some competition.

After the event, most people hung-out for the BBQ and swap some more lies, than go home so they can get some rest to come back the next day and do the same thing. 

I sure would like to see the social aspect of autocrossing at the events. I know the BBQ may be a problem at AMP but, a year-end awards banquet would be nice.

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I do appreciate the SC is looking at alternative solutions.

Another thought on providing solutions, how much is a security officer for the day? $1,000? 30 additional entrants seems to cover that, no?  Y’all know best if your waiting list is 4 people or 20… but also I’m sure many don’t even complete registration when they see all is full.

 Or go back to 3 runs… if 3 runs = 200 attendees the club wins… if 3 runs equals 100 attendees, then have to figure something else out.  But local events being sold out should not be common as we are experiencing.

And for a club looking for members… the same 130 aren’t going to make the club prosperous by my calculations.

SCCA/Solo has always been a club for encouraging membership and being a family community of camaraderie.

Best regards, 

Dave

Edited by Dave Schotz
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