Post HotRod Power Tour

[zukitek]

I cannot begin to say enough about how freakin totally awesome our group of folks totally rocked today .ALSCCA could not have asked for a better showing today than we were able to make.

I want to recognize the people who made it happen for ALSCCA today.

In timing and scoring :Matt Williams and Micheal Cholewa

These guys were totally out of their element and were hit with curveballs from beginning to end and they made it GO in the trailer...SIMPLY AWESOME display of adapting on the fly and doing the dayum thing .

At start:Sean Yoder,John Kilgore,and Griffin Burkett

equally awesome in that they worked along with T&S to get people registered as they lined up to run the course .They had NO shelter from the sun for 2.5 hours at a time ...LOVE THE HAT JOHN.

Course setup and design:Clay McCool,Sean Yoder ,and Joseph Brakhage(I hope I spelled that right)...

Guys you hit a total home run on course design . You encompassed EXACTLY what the event organizers wanted to see and the participants wanted to drive while keeping it sedate enough to be safe.

Tech:Wally Lacey,Daniel Stewart,I dropped in as much as I could but it wasnt substantial

The star above and beyond in tech was Wally Lacey ....Man this guy was working all day .I feel like I wronged Wally in that I never got a chance to rotate Wally to the course so he could see the cars run .I swear I didnt mean to keep you stuck over there Wally ..it just played out that way .

Course workers:Me on station 4 accompanied by Chuck Schultz,

station 3 was Joseph Brakhage,I am totally embarassed by this but I do not know the name of the guy with the Green Miata but he helped Joseph at 3

station 2 was primarily if not exclusive manned by Daniel Stewart( a very busy section as far as cones knocked down)

station 1 began with Clay McCool and was taken over by the capable skills of Marc Yearwood who worked the station for about 4 hours

general gopher:Hans Mohnen...this guy showed up and said way more than once "how can I help you Ricky?"He totally hooked us up by going offsite and getting all of the things we didnt have . Thank you Hans !

Bearer of the new pimp printer for T&S:John Waight!!!

Man you dont know how big of a deal it would have been if we had not been able ot print results for the sponsors. It was a huge bailout for me . Thanks John you are my hero once again.

If you worked and I missed you please let me know (green Miata guy) and any one else I didnt thank .Your club appreciates your totally crucial contribution and hopes it can repay you .

I would like to thank Brett with Ridetech(air ride technologies) .Ridetech were the sponsors of the autox portion of the show and they had some very impressive performing products out there on course.

I would like to thank Greg,Mike ,and Eric with HotRod event management for being the coolest friggin guys on the planet to deal with from a event management standpoint.

To say this event went challengeless would be a bit ....well Id be lying.ALSCCA went outside their element by invitation ,we accepted the invitation and we did it . I learned athing or three that were outside of my box of parameters that transfer.

That is all I am going to put in this post but again ...thanks to all envolved and I hope I have the PRIVILEGE to do it again .It was fun overall.

RR

[zukitek]

http://www.hotrod.com/powertour/2010/hrdp_2010_hot_rod_power_tour_day_6_in_birmingham_alabama/photo_14.html

Pretty good pics of the cars and the course can be found .

[TouringBubble]

Even with the issues we faced in the trailer, I had a lot of fun Ricky. Thanks for setting this up.

And OMG at the Ford GT ... I think I can still hear it.

[chuck schultz]

I'm glad I made it over. I had a great time playing with another group of folks who actually drive their cars. I got a couple of snapshots during the breaks - http://www.flickr.com/photos/k4cay/s...7624127085769/

[JohnW8]

Great job guys! Sorry I wasn't able to stay yesterday morning but it looks like you all did a fantastic job!

[EvoLady]

great job guys! wish i had more vacation time at work but sounds like you showed we are a top rate club. THANKS!!!!

[kilgojr]

I think it was a fantastic day and from our conversations with Sergeant Gregory it sounds like we have a new site for NDCC and a foot in the door for another optional site. The Hoover PD showed up in one of their brand new Tahoe's and destroyed the course laying down a top 30 time in one run, IT WAS AWESOME AND HE HAD THE LIGHTS ON!!!!!

The Ford GT had me hurting until late in the evening, that was by far the loudest car I have EVER been around including all of the race cars I have seen. To be a foot away from that car when it took off, literally my chest hurt and my ears rang for atleast a min or two after. But it was good to see someone drive the car around some corners at speed!!!

Robert Russom did a fantastic job destroying the field in a customer car Z06, but was relegated to driving his Lexus in the shootout. Still he showed SCCA proud and was key in starting the talks of the NDCC.

I had a blast and never ever want to see number plates again, my mind is still hurting from trying to figure out pairs!!!

[aufoxy]

YAY NDCCC!!!! (Or whatever it's called now...) I can't wait! Great job guys!!!

[edtype1]

Sorry i missed it also. Very cool about the TDCC.(Teen Drivers Car Control)

[RUSSOM]

GREAT JOB GUYS!!

I never heard a single gripe.

I heard a lot of people talking about wanting to get invloved in doing something like this where they are from.

Easy to get in and get where I needed to go, not a confusing mess.

Tech: No complaints-thats big right there considering that is almost all you hear about tech inspects at a track. If you hear nothing you've done great, if you hear something positive, its unheard of, lol.

How many entrants were there total? Maybe over 200? There were a lot of people running all day and a whole bunch more that would run once, or twice and then leave, so for the guys to keep up with that! and all without any more info. than a car number and a name, no car type/color, nothing, just name and car number. I figured y'all were the normal T&S guys now. Very nice! I saw on many occasions the organizers of the event ask this or that of them and they would produce immediate correct answers.

Besides a short break for lunch and then an appropriate break between the standard runs and the shootout I didn't notice any loss of time other than a very short deal with the timing and then the standard cone clean ups.

If I didn't know better I would've thought ALSCCA was a business that does this day in day out, it went that well.

GREAT JOB AGAIN GUYS!

[TouringBubble]

Honestly, there was one complaint. One driver was upset with what the announcer said about is car while he was on course. He came to the trailer and gave us a piece of his mind ... because the announcer was "busy." Something about not coming down from New York to be insulted. I have no idea what was said ...

[RUSSOM]

I think it was a fantastic day and from our conversations with Sergeant Gregory it sounds like we have a new site for NDCC and a foot in the door for another optional site. The Hoover PD showed up in one of their brand new Tahoe's and destroyed the course laying down a top 30 time in one run, IT WAS AWESOME AND HE HAD THE LIGHTS ON!!!!!

Yes, the conversation was a good one and there were a lot of HPD guys there all having a good time.
Here are the Cliff's Notes"
-Sgt. Gregory is the driver training officer for the city.
-The city of Hoover does their driver training there. The orange and green marks in the lots mark his cone positions. Different colors depending on whether he's training with cars or SUVs. He has several seperate courses throughout the lots.
-A lady with the city has been wanting him to put together a NDCCC for Hoover and even sent him to view and take notes on a course in Dothan recently, but he hasn't had a chance to move forward with anything yet.
-I told him that the club has a very good program, what it includes, where its has been hosted previously, etc. He seemed excited to get my info. as I'm sure this will help to take something off of his plate.
-He said there are a lot of new faces within the city these days vs. a few years ago and he thinks the chances of putting on SCCA events there would be better now.

As for the condition of the Met parking lot, or at least where we were. I would say asphault condition is the same as BRC was 10 years ago. Hoover will probably tend to repairs and then a repave when it becomes nec. too. BRC may never be entirely repaved again.

If this opp. begins to unfold I think we should get some NDCCC's going out there and noticed positively by the city, and then put some autocrosses in place. There are some very nice neighborhoods surrounding the Met and it may not be a bad idea for us to put some db sound limits in place to keep us under the radar. Our problem last time was the "not in my backyard" approach we got from a few.

Has anyone heard any reactions on the news or papers about the reactions from the Power Tour? Because for the "Not in my backyard" types that was a worst case scenario for them:
-Literally thousands of loud muscle cars
-and the thousands of people to go with them and thousands more that came to look, so plenty of traffic too
-a dyno
-an autocross
-tons of litter

If everything was still recieved well I think we've got a great chance!

[geeno1]

I never made it to the trailer, just getting stopped by people. And when the offer was made to hang in some AC for a while I was off.

The Ford GT guy loved the announcer. He said couldn't here him but gave us great converastion the rest of the day. Funny thing is he has never really heard the car because he is always driving it.

As for trying to move to Hoover keep in mind the police chief and mayor and both car guys. They were very excited about the Power Tour and the organizers seemed to be also. We were still talking about it at lunch today.

[Cholewa]

If we ever put on an event like that again, we need a better laptop. It was awesome being there though, some slick cars.

[zukitek]

our teen driver program needs to strike NOW while the iron is hot if that is the direction we want to take .