No Test Day this year.

[charrbq]

In the past, when there was a test day on Thursday, we've been able to get in and set up on Wednesday. We have two teams coming from two different parts of the country, planning to be there on Wednesday just for this reason. Vacations are set as are motel reservations.
I fully understand about the cancellation of the practice being unavoidable. It will eliminate the third team that was coming, but so be it. I've seen the ARRC schedule, and it is the same as it has always been written as that is all Atlanta region can truly guarantee.
My question is, does anyone know if we will be able to get into the track on Wednesday to set up, or will we have to wait until Thursday? Either way we have to cool our jets on Thursday, but it totally changes travel plans with ten and 14 hr tows.

Thanks.

[Catch22]

As Alex mentioned, there is still plenty of track time available on Friday, so if you need to learn the track, run the Pro IT race. You'll end up spending about the same money as the test day and will get about 1.5 hours of seat time on Friday.

That won't help you much for ARRC sprint qualifying, but it still gets you awfully familiar with the track before the saturday races.

I simply can't understand people cancelling this trip due to the loss of the test day. This race weekend is the best anywhere and Road Atlanta is awesome. Not making the trip because of the test day makes no sense to me.
But I drive a 22 hour round trip to VIR at least once a year simply because VIR is friggin awesome, so maybe I'm just a leetle crazy in the head.

Amy? You comin'?

[RR]

Its not worth it for people hauling 15hours ++ away. Your going to the ARRC because you condsider yourself a regional top finisher. We all have the dream of winning or being on the Podium for the ARRC. New tracks take years to master, a practice day gets your set-up right and a foundation of what and how to drive. No matter who is at falt here, myself and a few other are now NOT attending. Really too bad, and really with all the advance time, couldn't someone have caught this. This is our (IT) runoffs.......does say much for the people in charge.

[Greg Amy]

Originally posted by Catch22@Oct 6 2005, 02:02 PM
Amy? You comin'?

[snapback]61965[/snapback]

My racing year has been downright painful. I've managed to blow up two engines, see all of two checkered flags out of four attempts (with one of those in someone else's car and the other in my ITS Miata, which I managed to sell a good 10 minutes before finding out it's getting moved to ITA at a very attractive weight.) The bright spot of the year was the ITB win at the Summit 12-hour, then the damnable owner goes and rolls it into a rounder shape so we can't defend our '04 VIR 13-hour win. My buddy blows up *his* Spec Miata engine (my ride for the 4-hour NHIS enduro, plus a few other events), then gets it repaired and totals the car at the Summit 12-hour (makes a great table in the shop for putting stuff on, though.)

Did I mention my year sucked?

I've gotten very little track time, I have no more money ('cause I went and bought a nice truck and enclosed trailer immediately prior to blowing up the new engine the last time), I'm almost out of vacation, but I do have four good used and two new Hoosiers (yep, you got it: bought 'em right before the last blowed-up. They look really cool in the tire rack in the nice enclosed trailer.)

There's a 50% chance I may attend the NARRC in a few weeks, and a 0.5% chance I could hit Georgia; this, when I rarely show up given 50/50 odds. However, I was just tellin' Matt last night that that there's good food to be eaten, beer to be drunk, and tall tales to be told, plus it would be really cool to top off a sucky year by driving 15+ hours down to Road Atlanta to blow up the brandy-new engine before getting stone s**t-faced and driving back home 15+ hours. So, I guess you never know...

[Catch22]

Originally posted by GregAmy@Oct 6 2005, 08:28 PM
plus it would be really cool to top off a sucky year by driving 15+ hours down to Road Atlanta to blow up the brandy-new engine before getting stone s**t-faced and driving back home 15+ hours. So, I guess you never know...

[snapback]61975[/snapback]

See, now THATS the racers spirit!!!

[Hracer]

Originally posted by RR@Oct 6 2005, 07:33 PM
This is our (IT) runoffs.......does say much for the people in charge.

[snapback]61969[/snapback]

Last I head Mid Ohio in general (and the Runoffs) don't offer test days either. Not that it would change anyone's mind.

[Catch22]

This is our (IT) runoffs.......does say much for the people in charge.

I can just see the conversation now.

Road Atlanta - "We'll be using the track all week for our Panoz cars. There won't be a test day."
Atlanta Region - "But you MUST, simply MUST have a test day. I mean, people are coming from far away!!!"
RA - "Ummmm... Its our track. We'll do what we want."
AR - "Well then, we just won't have an ARRC this year then! I mean, you can't expect us to have an ARRC without a test day. People are coming from FAR AWAY!!!"
RA - "Ummmm. OK. Whatever."
AR - "Yep. that'll teach you track owner types to mess with us."

Sounds kind of silly doesn't it?

[madrabbit15]

I think that it really sucks there is no test day. Now I have to determine which of 3 final drives I am going to use in 2 qualifying sessions. I think that someone had to have dropped the ball at some point in some form or fashion, I mean this is not like this is the first or one of the first years this event has taken place.

It IS pretty cool that people where coming from 15+ hours to come to this event, but if they dont want to come because there is no practice, on a track they rarely run, who can blame them.

Dont forget those of us who live halfway close use to use the laborday weekend to run at RA too, but we lost that as well.

I know that it is easy for many of us to sit back and complain about issues for which we do not even know the whole story on, but this is a club so I will exercise just a little bit of input.

With such a important event and knowing that we would not have a test day, would it not have made just a little bit of sense to have atleast one practice session before qualifying in the 3 days we have the track. I mean we have three races for the same classes. Sprints, Enduro, ProIT, I mean I understand the Sprint and the Enduro, but why do we need a third a race to congest the weekend. When did Pro IT become part of this weekend?

Anyway I guess my point is who can blame people for not coming when there is NO PRACTICE. We have the track for 3 whole days, and people in charge obviously knew this was becoming as issue, would it not have made some sense to revise the schedule just a tad to help the situation, I mean this is the ARRC not just a normal regional.



Derek Ketchie

[R2 Racing]

Honestly, if I had never been to Road Atlanta before and was planning on coming to the ARRC, I would want to have that test day. Luckily my first time at the track was last year and I was able to run the test day. Now this year I feel comfortable enough with RA to not need the extra time to learn the track, but I can absolutely see where people are coming from since I was a RA n00b last year. So goes the way of the ARRC weekend - you have to be out there and up to speed Friday morning! Assuming the weather is dry, I think that we can all agree that the fastest times are set in that morning session.

This year I wanted that day purely to make sure my new engine is up to song and test some new suspension pieces since it didn't look like I would be able to do that before the ARRC. Luckily I got the car all ready to go last night so I can hit the MWHC event at Putnam Park this weekend so I can try this stuff out.

[zracre]

other than the ITC guys, why not run the PRO-IT as practice...you could probably ask the region if ITC can run in the PRO-IT because no test day...same basic field as the enduro...

[RSTPerformance]

Catch22-

Its seems silly to you cause you live so close... I posted my comments simply cause I know that the organizers read this site. I love the ARRC, I think it is the best Regional all year. The lack of the test day was the icing on the cake. The comments were supposed to be an honest and nice way of saying why I wasn't going to go this year. It was also ment to be a simple and honest comment that this is something that the region should worry about in the future as it is something that is important to the drivers who are travaling to attend the event (and based on other comments here, it looks like other drivers/teams feel the same way).

Now if they don't care about those making the journey cause the rummor of keeping them southern boys on the podium, well then they wont make sure this doesn't happen again!!! (yes that was a joke).

Catch22 why don't you come to the NARRC runoffs in a couple weeks??? IMO and based on experience the NARRC Runoffs are a much harder race to win.

Raymond "does anyone outside the Atlanta area think it is silly that we travalers are fustrated that thier is no test day" Blethen

PS: At Mid Ohio for the National Runoffs the entire weekend before the event started on Monday were test days put on by the track for the compeditors (YES I said weekend days were test days).

[Catch22]

Originally posted by RSTPerformance@Oct 7 2005, 06:50 PM
Catch22-

Its seems silly to you cause you live so close...

No Raymond, it seems silly to me because there is NOTHING the region can do about it.

1 - The region doesn't run the test days. Road Atlanta does.
2 - If Road Atlanta doesn't want to run a test day, what are the choices the region has???

Well, I suppose they could cancel the ARRC.
Or, they can do what they are doing and just not have a test day.

Here's a question for you Raymond. Were you going to run the ProIT before you found out there would be no test day? Did you run the ProIT last year?
Seems to me, if you weren't originally going to run the Pro, all you have to do is substitute that for the test day and you're still looking at the same amount of seat time.


IMO the only people who really get hurt by this are people who recently crashed and rebuilt their cars and people who have never seen the track. And this is really only going to effect them in qualifying.
If you run the ProIT and an ARRC sprint, you will get a LOAD of seat time on Friday. Nearly as much as you would have gotten running the sprint and the test day.

Remember, Atlanta Region can do nothing about this but try to make sure it doesn't happen again. BUT, if Road Atlanta decides to do the same thing next year, the results will be the same.

PS - I never planned to attend the NARRC as its well outside my budget, but if I had I wouldn't let the cancellation of a test day change my plans. I'm like Mr. Amy, about the only thing that stops me is lack of funds (and sometimes that doesn't even stop me).

[RSTPerformance]

Catch22-

Ok, I see we are getting off on the wrong foot in this discussion...

No, I don't run the PRO IT race, last year that and the test day and the enduro would have been to much. For us the perfect schedule/weekend (3 or 4 days) is how we did last years event. Test day, Sprint race, Enduro. Plenty of seat time, not stressful with plenty of time to make changes between sessions.

I don't disagree that if all you want is seat time then running the PRO race will make up for it. We are not soley sold on seat time. We are going to the race 1) to have fun (lots of great people down thier in the south ) and 2) to WIN. Last year we qualified 1st and 2nd well ahead of the rest of the ITB field, but that didn't come because the cars are simply fast. We learned the track as drivers more and more every session, and we made adjustments to the car between every session. We need that entire time between sessions to accomplish this. We don't have free time throughout the day to run extra sessions to make up for lost track time to get our value. We didn't finish the race at the ARRC last year because the cars had mechanical failures (Stephen, bad wire on the fuel pump, while I broke a hub). Nevermind normal car setup stuff, if we had issues like this they would never be able to be fixed between the cramped sessions on Friday, thus running the ProIT race doesn't make sence for us. YES some people can handle this with their monsterouse tractor trailers and huge paid crews, but we don't have that, and as mentioned before we use a lot of used parts that results in more mechanical issues than a lot of "top dogs" fighting for the win.

As for the test day, I 100% agree that the region can not do anything about it this year, I would NEVER hold any grudges or be upset in anyway with any of the organizers. I would hope that they will take steps this winter/spring to ensure that thier is a test day on Thursday next year... Maybe the Region wants to rent the track and operate the test day??? I have no idea, I am sure they might have worker issues which would make them hesitant to adding it as part of the schedule.

At anyrate, I agree it would be silly for them to "discuss" with the track about making changes for this years ARRC, but it would be smart for them to "discuss" this with the track for future events. Many people have come to love the ARRC and see it as a benchmark for other large races across the country. In the future years it looks like thier is a push from members in other regions to have a championship as well wich may or may not impact the "unofficial national championship" status that the ARRC has recieved.

Raymond

[eho]

Originally posted by RSTPerformance@Oct 7 2005, 06:50 PM
PS: At Mid Ohio for the National Runoffs the entire weekend before the event started on Monday were test days put on by the track for the compeditors (YES I said weekend days were test days).

For those Runoffs competitors that didn't run the regional the weekend before that, many were lined up at the gate Sun. evening. There were test days the whole week before. Apparently, many of those days cost $1k+!

Ed.

[lateapex911]

Not specific about this situation, but in general, I think we have seen a certain disdain for the SCCA club as of late for the past year or two from many tracks.

At Lime Rock, we saw a ...get this....roughly 80% rental increase....more than any other club, I am told. the numbers to rent the track arre in the 40K range. And when the region attempted to help remove certain line items by supplying personell, the bill wasn't reduced.

At NHIS, they are nice enough, and generally tolerant, but it is clear that the NASCAR dates take precedence and supply the track with the bulk of it's yearly profit.

I think we fall into the weird middle ground.......we actually race, and hit each other, so the track has todeall with the mess. Club events are cheaper and much less hassle for the track, and full on races can pad the bank acccount.

I have no doubt that Road Atlanta woudn't give a rats ass about the regions desire to have test day, LOL

[Catch22]

Please note immediately that this is all my personal opinion, but I have served on the Atl Region Board and seen things from the inside out.

First, Atlanta Region has a pretty nice relationship with Road Atlanta. We supply workers for many of their non-SCCA events (The Mitty, Petit, AMA, etc) and in return we get a nice track rental agreement and some good dates.
Keep in mind that RA is an extremely busy track thats booked pretty much every weekend of every year. Just getting 4 or 5 weekends a year there is a major score for the club.

But in this case, its not even an Atlanta Region activity we're talking about as RA staffs and runs the test days, and they've simply decided not to do so this time. Its pretty much that simple.
The region can beg and plead to always have test days in the future, but thats really all they can do. In the end its the call of Track Management.

Given what happened at Barber last year, and the result being that one of the greatest tracks in the country will now likely never see another SCCA race, the loss of a test day is child's piddle.

Finally, we've already lost one weekend this year in this division due to a lack of workers and it looks like there is going to be another one. I suspect that this is going to be a much bigger problem in the near future, and test days may become a real luxury. If we're having problems getting them for weekends, Thursdays and Fridays are going to be REAL tough, even if they are getting paid.
NASA *paid* workers (at least thats what I was told) for a Road Atlanta event in July and had a bare minimum of people out there. Actually so few that SCCA wouldn't have been able to drop the green.
This is not good news.

[bobpink]

Originally posted by Catch22@Oct 8 2005, 02:41 PM
But in this case, its not even an Atlanta Region activity we're talking about as RA staffs and runs the test days, and they've simply decided not to do so this time. Its pretty much that simple.
The region can beg and plead to always have test days in the future, but thats really all they can do. In the end its the call of Track Management.

[snapback]62095[/snapback]

Just so everyone is aware, not having the Test Day simply came down to some miscommunication and everyone involved would have liked to have the day available for the racers coming to the ARRC. Yes, the date has been on the calendar for a year, but s**t still happens. As stated elsewhere in this post, the Atlanta Region, Road Atlanta and the Panoz Racing School are already working to see that this doesn't happen again. Would like to see some of the "shoes" who are passing on the ARRC this year return.

[OTLimit]

It pretty much comes down to what you really want to do. I know that you could tell Chris that there wasn't going to be qualifying, just a random draw, and he would still drive 10 hours to get there.

But maybe he's just not very bright and has inhaled to much carbon monoxide over the years along with contact with waste oil, pump gas, race gas, brake cleaner, etc.

[madrabbit15]

[quote] IMO and based on experience the NARRC Runoffs are a much harder race to win.


I do know know you very well, but respectfully I have to say that this statement is extremly hard for you to justify when you have yet to win this race. Yes I know you guys were on the pole, but reliability is part of winning and again you guys have yet to win this race. If and when you do I will be happily to buy you a six pack, but until that day comes, continually saying that this race has less competition and is easier to win than others is really an impossible statement for you to make seeing how you have never won it.

Again I do not know you and I am not trying to offend anyone. Sorry for the highjack.


Derek Ketchie

[pfcs]

personally, I was hoping you would win it and that the question of why Cris Albin chose not to pursue building his coupe would be resolved peacefully and permanently in the tech shed.