What happens with regional/national points, entry fees, etc. for the races that we didn't get to run?
Working on all that. Probably be a couple days before I have answers. Have to get Emily set for Roebling first then back to VMD...
I think we all recognize Sean and Evelyne were put into a pretty impossible position. You guys did a great job managing that fiasco. I've been a Mid-Ohio apologist for a long time but I'm done now. The place is shitting on its own legacy and it made me sad for a long time but I'm past sad and venturing into angry. A handful of people said point-blank they'll never come back, new surface or no. My boss came up from Cincy for Saturday's races. Full disclosure -- he owns the company and we're a sports architecture firm. So I have a direct interest in Mid-O upgrading their facilities if that were part of the scope with a resurfacing job. While there isn't much "architecting" to do on jobs like that, I'd still love to do some master planning and help clean some things up. There's plenty to address if the money was there. But -- surface first. That aside, he cut right to the point astonishingly fast. He said: "If I am understanding what I am seeing correctly, that ribbon of asphalt is why the rest of the stuff is here, right? So why is it the biggest liability of the facility? Why do they let that happen?" I don't know, Mike. I don't know. I didn't quite have the issues with the hijinx as Chris might have, but there were some times random people would walk into our garage like they knew us, just standing over our bikes and touching stuff. It was a little weird. All in all, a serviceable track would cure 95% of any problems people had with the joint. This is getting too big to keep kicking down the block. PS. If anyone knows decision-makers at Green-Savoree and could serve as a contact bridge (privately) that would be outstanding. I'm willing to bet my firm will do some work at a steep discount to get this place thinking about the big picture.
Serious question- do the car guys have as much of a problem with the surface? If not, nothing's gonna happen.
Mark Junge was driving a van around the track at the trackday the Monday before VMD with some of the coaches in it to show them the "wet line" as it had rained. The coaches I spoke to said the van was sliding on the sealer too.
I went to the nascar race there last year because my wife had tickets from a vendor. It was comical and a crash fest and it wasn’t even wet.
I truly wonder if a new race course (at the scale of a Mid-O) will ever be built in the US in the future. I'm sure most folks here know that Road Atlanta is owned by NASCAR. And I'm confident they bought it as it will be a prime location for a future subdivision.
I think Miller was around 2006 and COTA 2012, I don't believe either are profitable, so it will probably be quite awhile.
All it'll take is one of the 600+ billionaires in the US to decide to build a track... like Mr Barber did- cost/profit being a non-factor.
NCM, New York safety track (or whatever that is called), Pitt Race, the almost was Bluegrass motorsports park. There have been plenty in the last decade but they seem to ignore the needs of motorcycles for the most part.