Autocross site?

[kjr914]

I just saw that they charge $5 admission ($4 if you buy online). I just hope that there aren't enough folks who are interested in paying....

+1 Farmers markets, Adams Ave Street Fair, lots of local artwalk/streetfairs are free... Plenty of other stuff to do here already every weekend. If you look at the website, it's brand new, not just a smaller fair getting larger, so it has grand flop potential.

A concerted campaign by ALL car clubs together to move the fair parking to the southeast lot may be the only answer....

PCA should meet with BMW and SCCA about this. If we form a unified front, we can have leverage. If we all fight it out for the remaining weekends individually, we all lose... And time to work with those same groups to find a new AX location. Their revenue from "Special Events" is about 3M/yr total, so how much of that revenue is from the car clubs combined? The stadium may believe that money isn't in jeopardy, so they don't really care about us.

Info on the stadium finances:
http://www.sandiego.gov/fm/proposed/pdf ... alcomm.pdf

[pecivil]

PCA should meet with BMW and SCCA about this. If we form a unified front, we can have leverage. If we all fight it out for the remaining weekends individually, we all lose... And time to work with those same groups to find a new AX location. Their revenue from "Special Events" is about 3M/yr total, so how much of that revenue is from the car clubs combined? The stadium may believe that money isn't in jeopardy, so they don't really care about us.

Ok this makes sense and looks like the only real way forward, short of the fair failing. For sure, moving the parking wont solve the noise & insurance issues with having a driving event adjacent to visitor parking. I can't imagine the problems associated with tons of people & kids parking so close to a full blown autocross. It would only take 1 incident and everyone could be very sorry it was attempted.

To Qualcomm its all about revenue. So you almost have to assume they have written off the car clubs as a combined entity prior to developing the fair? Revenue estimates for auto events on the SE lot + the fair must pen out. So maybe the only real option aside from the united clubs trying to protest, is for the fair revenue estimates to come in under expectations. Maybe they just want to get motorsport events out of the lot entirely and this is the beginning of the end and we don't know it yet. But at a minimum this suggests the hunt for a new venue has become more urgent.

Is a media response something that may have traction? An appeal to the public by the motorheads? I wonder how many people consider us spoiled rich brats playing racecar driver? or consider autoX really cool? When I think of all the people who have seen it going on over the years, all the clubs, etc. I have met many people who have said they have seen "the guys racing in qualcomm parking lot" at least once. What if there was a way to put public pressure on the stadium?

[Cajundaddy]

Surely someone within the PCA knows people who are in the room when these decisions are being made. A little inside knowledge regarding future plans would go a long way towards answering these questions.

[kjr914]

Surely someone within the PCA knows people who are in the room when these decisions are being made. A little inside knowledge regarding future plans would go a long way towards answering these questions.

I did some digging since there is usually a public meeting on these sorts of things....
The Qualcomm Stadium Advisory Board
http://www.sandiego.gov/qualcomm/about/qsab.shtml

The Qualcomm Stadium Advisory Board, the successor to the Qualcomm Stadium Authority, was established in 1998 to serve as an advisory body to the Mayor and City Council, on matters relating to the operations of Qualcomm Stadium. The Board meets on the second Thursday of each month at 8:15 a.m. in the Stadium conference room.

A quick mention here of a future outdoor market in the only minutes published for the year....so I guess getting a representative there is a good idea.
http://www.sandiego.gov/qualcomm/pdf/mi ... 120510.pdf

We have a new event in the horizon and Open Air Market to come in to our parking lot on a
regular basis year round. It may be do-able as long as it comes down for major events.

Don't expect to get a word in, however as the published agenda says:
III. PUBLIC COMMENT
Pursuant to the Brown Act, no discussion or action shall be taken by the Board

From vague memory....without a pre-published agenda, the Brown act doesn't allow discussion of new business....or some legalese gibberish like that.

[Gary Burch]

The Port Authority has any number of huge lots in South Bay, but the last time I asked they were not interested in renting them.
If anyone has pull with the Port it could be worth another try

[tb911]

It looks like nothing but SE Lot next year.......
Probably need to take another look at the NE lot.
We abandoned it when there were better options.
We may not have that excuse any more.
If it is the only option, we might just need to make it work.
Future PDS might need both NE & SE lots.

Is it time to take another look at the Del Mar fairgrounds?

I like the idea of the clubs uniting to work together.

I hate this market. Besides the obvious reason, having to pay just to get in? That is not "european style."
And it may kill the neighborhood markets that are currently so great. Hillcrest on Sunday, Little Italy on Saturday.
And it is so far away -- who wants to drive that far instead of just going to their neighborhood market?
European markets are withing walking distance of home.
It may be a commercial failure, I suppose we can hope (for AX sake) but it may take the full year to go away....

On another note. At the Porsche Driving Experience Roadshow (or whatever they call it) that was at the Stadium a few weeks back, I met a city employee who told me that the city was actively marketing the stadium for more automotive events. My guess is they see all that asphalt and are trying to figure out how to make more money with it. Hopefully he was refering to weekday things (like the Roadshow) but if they are successful that may mean more competition for the SE & NE lots from commercial ventures on weekends too.

[JERRY B]

The asphalt in the N.E. Lot is 5 Times worse than Michael Jackson

[AGill]

<Gulp>...This is not good at all. Keith did some good digging and I agree we should porbably have someone at those meetings.

PDS will just not be the same event without the West lot for Sunday. The demographic of cars is getting more modern by the year (this PDS we only have 1 out of 4 groups with "older" cars which means 75% of the cars are 2000 and newer) which means we have drive faster to find their limits. Will students have as good an experience in these newer cars in the SE lot??? If I ask myself if I have as good an experience in my "old" 993 in the SE lot compared to the West lot the answer is a clear "NO!" Also, we'd probably have to reduce the number of students we allow.

We need a "find a new AX site" committee STAT if there isn't one already.

At least we'll have one more great PDS this weekend before the brown stuff hits the fan

[pecivil]

Was the stadium going to let the clubs know about this at the meeting to decide all the event dates for the 1st half of the year??

That is really poopy. Can you imagine PCA, BMWCCA, SCCA all at the table, and instead of getting 10~12 dates in the west lot only get 6 dates in the SE lot? Now that is a difficult situation to put folks into.
Very inconsiderate to say the least. And Tom says he heard they are going to try to book more auto events? I wonder if that is the giant car sale lots, or car shows, or actual motorsport events.

In looking at the Stadium Minutes (Thanks Keith for finding that) they are asking for money for parking lot fixing and seem to be making it look like fixing it is a priority? That is also interesting. Is that just a funding pipe dream? The city isn't rolling in dough exactly.

The only other places I have autoX'ed is El Toro with OCR, & at Fontana Speedway parking lot. Neither is very close to us. El Toro is fun, Fontana gets very dusty & silty and is not the biggest lot. Similar to our SE lot.

I have worked on several projects at the NOLF in Imperial Beach. Originally designed as the helicopter airbase for the copters assigned to North Island, I dont think they do Air Ops there anymore. The large hangers are full of equipment & other stuff. They have a Ordinance Disposal unit there. I dont know if getting on a base to do autoX is even possible, but they have quite a bit of flat concrete that is close, & has enough room?

[John Straub]

We have tried to get into IB before with no luck...but maybe it's worth another try.

John

[Sawfish]

Was the stadium going to let the clubs know about this at the meeting to decide all the event dates for the 1st half of the year??

That is really poopy. Can you imagine PCA, BMWCCA, SCCA all at the table, and instead of getting 10~12 dates in the west lot only get 6 dates in the SE lot? Now that is a difficult situation to put folks into.
Very inconsiderate to say the least. And Tom says he heard they are going to try to book more auto events? I wonder if that is the giant car sale lots, or car shows, or actual motorsport events.

In looking at the Stadium Minutes (Thanks Keith for finding that) they are asking for money for parking lot fixing and seem to be making it look like fixing it is a priority? That is also interesting. Is that just a funding pipe dream? The city isn't rolling in dough exactly.

The only other places I have autoX'ed is El Toro with OCR, & at Fontana Speedway parking lot. Neither is very close to us. El Toro is fun, Fontana gets very dusty & silty and is not the biggest lot. Similar to our SE lot.

I have worked on several projects at the NOLF in Imperial Beach. Originally designed as the helicopter airbase for the copters assigned to North Island, I dont think they do Air Ops there anymore. The large hangers are full of equipment & other stuff. They have a Ordinance Disposal unit there. I dont know if getting on a base to do autoX is even possible, but they have quite a bit of flat concrete that is close, & has enough room?

Monte EOD mobil unit 11 is based at IB I can get a handle on who the CO is but we need the base CO to get anything accomplished. Perhaps Don Auten can ask around?
Chris

[ttweed]

Sorry I'm in denial this is really happening.... didn't see TT's full map posted & can't delete posts

Marie-

Keep in mind that the map I posted is from the vendor's website, and may reflect some "wishful thinking" on their part, not the actual agreement with the stadium authority. We probably won't know until the car clubs meet with them regarding AX dates for the first 6 months of 2013. If the stadium did actually include the entire "SW Quadrant" in their rental agreement for parking, as it shows, they shot themselves in the foot as far as being able to rent the west lot to the car clubs on the same weekend. The remaining "NW Quadrant" is nearly as small as the "SE Quadrant," and without using the C1/D1 section for pits and staging, it would be difficult to put on a large AX event there anymore. Perhaps if the stadium realizes how much revenue they are going to lose from car club rentals, they will reconsider the parking arrangement with the farmer's market folks, if indeed they gave them half the west lot in the contract. We can only hope at this point, since we didn't have any input on the original arrangement, obviously. I contacted the SCCA clubs and they didn't have any idea this was happening next year either.

TT

[pecivil]

It definitely appears that the stadium board members or whoever either didnt want the clubs to find this out or didn't care.

Would our insurance need to change if there were a parking lot for market patrons very close to our event?
Is my perception of increased risk misplaced? I imagine lots of little kids wandering around fascinated by race cars right next to them.

[Tim Comeau]

Very disturbing news.
We've been looking for other AX sites for many years now, including the military bases. No luck for regular renting schedule.
What bothers me most is that they can have an open air market anywhere, while the car clubs have ONLY the stadium to host our driving events. Do they really believe people will abandon the other local weekend farmer's markets to attend here? They may get the attendance numbers because of all the apartments built recently in the Mission Valley area. I wonder why they can't use only the East lots, while leaving the West lot for driving events?
We need to get together with the other car clubs asap and get some representation with the City/Stadium. Let's figure out how to best deal with this "situation."
BTW, this would have a big effect on PCA SDR's income as well as fun.
*** The video of spokesperson Judy Warfield on their website says it was posted 1 month ago?