Desert Storm

So I volunteered at my first rally this saturday. It was a blast. Lots of nice people and great weather. But something was a little alarming to me. There were only twelve entries! And by the second day there were eight cars that had not succumb to terminal damage. Even fewer cars finished that day. Sitting on a blockage all day in the desert is not as "spectacular" when only 5 cars go racing by. It was still a great experience and inspiring. But I heard this event used to have loads of competitors. Is this downward trend only local to this area or present in all of US rally? (and Canada)


(I have a few pics of the event, but not sure how to post them here)

Dude, this dwindling entry thing is THE MAIN THING that most of us old Dinosaurs are worried about.
People HAVE cars, but they choose not to enter.

It is a seriously troubling long term trend, and obviously a big part is the doubling and trippling of the entry fees in a short time, and of course the gas price for towing.

Derek Bottles and Nate Tennis, 2 fast, friendly guys both said "When we didn't re-new our licenses, there was zero follow up, no note or email asking what's up, no nuthin"

So while I really try to do as much as I can for recruiting and helping guys get into the sport on the right foot----so they can stay in, nobody in any Organision never seems to be very worried about "customer retention", and we were all in agreement that keeping customers is 10 times easier than finding new customers (and that's what you are really)

Note I was just last week writing to a Swedish guy going up to an event in the middle of the country, it had 280 entries and 158 of them were GpH, like our Gp2.

And there were maybe 4-5 other events that weekend in Sweden.

So same approx size as California, same most of them in the lower 1/3 of the place, 9 million population and that many entrants.

Clearly whatever we've been doing forever is not working, and not working pretty badly.

When are you back up here?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I head north for good probably beginning of August. Someone down here was saying that the rally community is larger up there than it has been down here. Hope thats true!

pics

Oops. I just posted some pics of a Rally America event. Does that mean I'm going to jail?

Slowwpoke Wrote:
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> Oops. I just posted some pics of a Rally America
> event. Does that mean I'm going to jail?

No but the only way to assuage your sin is to always identify who the guys in the cars are, mmmkay?

Got more piccies?


>
>

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Hmm, that red GTI with the green stripe looks like it is seriously hauling.

Those drivers are Lauchlin O'Sullivan/Putnam, followed by me and Brent Ellzey, and then Pete Morris and Sean McMahon.

The low entry thing is scary indeed, its that damn rally lifestyle..eating up the monies to look like you rally instead of actually doing it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2008 08:45PM by Eddie Fiorelli.

Eddie Fiorelli Wrote:
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> Hmm, that red GTI with the green stripe looks like
> it is seriously hauling.

Well how did the ring and pinion feel?
>
> Those drivers are Lauchlin O'Sullivan/Putnam,
> followed by me and Brent Ellzey, and then Pete
> Morris and Sean McMahon.
>
> The low entry thing is scary indeed, its that damn
> rally lifestyle..eating up the monies to look like
> you rally instead of actually doing it.

Have I mentioned it? I just wanted to say you look maaahrvelous! Simply mahrvelous!

How about some results??
>
>
>
> Edited 1 times. Last edit at Mar 16, 2008 by Eddie
> Fiorelli.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

john vanlandingham Wrote:
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> Dude, this dwindling entry thing is THE MAIN THING ...
> It is a seriously troubling long term trend

Has anyone done some (recently, like up to date) statistics of the last 5-10 years or so?

Anders

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Grassroots rally. It's what I think about.

Here are the reasons why I didn't enter and neither did the other three West Coast Turks didn't.

1- RA event, if they don't treat us with the respect, we won't run their event.

2- RA event, we don't have HANS devices, we don't want to spend the extra money on a random item that has NOT BEEN SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN to work in rally crashes.

3- RA event, we want fucking logical answers when we ask a fucking question, none of that "Well we asked the guys in the UK and they said ....... " bullshit.

Don't get me wrong, all our cars are ready to run, we simply chose not to enter.

When Chris Powell came up with the idea of Desert Storm and organised the very first one out of his pocket, I was the cash contributing sponsor of that rally, over and above that I was the idiot putting miles on his rally car to help him do the roads, so don't even ask what I have done for Desert Storm. I hear the "We lost the roads, they won't let us, we don't have resources, we dont have the money ........" cries of the organiser, all I can say is KARMA IS A BITCH.

I hope and pray those who had the balls to ask one of my best friends to talk to me so that I don't show up at a certain function otherwise they wouldn't go there, will read this.

I hope and pray one day they would have the balls to explain why they bacame persona non grata in the middle of a very prestigious rally in the West Coast.

Yet again I hope and pray for World Peace too.

Damn I have the attitude again.

---

Cheers
M.Samli
Phoenix AZ
Gaylant VR4
EVO III GSR (Stolen)


Rallies are no place for traitors



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2008 10:07PM by sagsert.

So Mustfa, why don't you like Pat and Denise? They put on Desert Storm, not any one from Rally America.

---

RichardM

So Moo we are dying to know how you REALLY feel and just how you got there.

---

JohnLane

Overkill is consistently more fun

Well Richard, funny you should ask.

I have a tendancy to not liking people talking shit behind my back, especially people distorting the truth to make it fit their agenda.

As far as RA is concerned, 2 years ago I said that I would not run another RA event, people thought I was alone or that I was gonna flip flop like many did or still do, they were wrong. My decision was triggered by stupid people's stupid actions, same people are still doing similar stupid stuff that made me come to that decision so they can do whatever they wanna do and I can do whatever the hell I please. My decision stands.

---

Cheers
M.Samli
Phoenix AZ
Gaylant VR4
EVO III GSR (Stolen)


Rallies are no place for traitors

Anders Green Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> john vanlandingham Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Dude, this dwindling entry thing is THE MAIN
> THING ...
> > It is a seriously troubling long term trend
>
> Has anyone done some (recently, like up to date)
> statistics of the last 5-10 years or so?
>
> Anders
>
> Raleigh, NC
> Impreza H6 3.0

Ed Brennan has statistics for the SCCA series (through 2004) on his web site (http://www.rallyracingnews.com/).

An hour or two of work on his site would let you come up with similar statistics for the other series (RA, CARS, NASA / USRC)...

john vanlandingham Wrote:
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> Well how did the ring and pinion feel?

Don't you check your PMs? I sent you one after Seed 9 telling you how great it feels. The only thing I need to do now is get more out of my engine or better yet build that 2.0 that's sitting in my garage to match the tranny's range.

> How about some results??
> >

Well, Lauchlin won both days but we placed well taking 3rd overall, 2nd in RA G2 and 1st in CRS2 on Friday and similar on Sat except with 4th overall...now granted that's with a low turnout but hey, still had to finish.

Anders, I also believe the CRS computed some statistics as well fairly recently. Let me see if I can dig it out.

btw DC the Lesser, thanks for volunteering!!!!!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2008 11:05PM by Eddie Fiorelli.