I would like to offer a few details from an organisers point of view.
Firstly thank you to all those that take the time to post an opinion. All the feedback is appreciated and is required for an event like this to evolve and grow.
We tried something different by having scrutineering in Warragul during friday. This had it's problems but overall seemed to generate some interest in the event.
Friday night and Saturday had issues but again seemed to go well overall, although both ran overtime. I believe the competitors enjoyed the tracks and challenges.
When designing tracks there is a very fine line between too easy, challenging and too bloody hard. We obviously try for tracks that are challenging can be managed in a reasonable time. This would be easy if we new 3mths ago exactly what the weather would be, how each stage would deteriorate over the the event and which cars would break something and take an hour to be recovered off the stage. (Unlike circuit racing we can't just push them aside and recover them later on a tray)
Sunday was a different matter. I couldn't possibly list all the discussions and decisions that went on during Sunday. We had planned for 4 stages on sunday plus the SSS dash for cash. If the event had been as dry as the last few this plan would have gone ahead and you would have seen an event much the same as every other year.
The difference would have been the side by side racing on stage 11 & 12. This is something that we were trying to make it a bit more exciting for the spectators (believe it or not some people don't like to see car after car draging themselves up cliffs for minutes at a time).
Because of the conditions this plan was never going to work. Decisions had to be made and plans had to change. We chose to keep the 2 car racing (which most drivers seemed to enjoy) and drop the bush stages which have limited spectating opportunities. This meant that tracks had to be quickly reset and lead to some of the delay.
When we saw that we were going to finish early we decided to run the dash for cash as this was the best option for providing spectator action asap. Many other options were considered but when you have about 5 different interest groups that have to be happy with your decision it is a very difficult decision to make.
Now on Monday with 20/20 hindsight I can see what I need to do to run the event perfectly (if you have a spare time machine pm me).
What we do is a balancing act trying to please all the people and you know how often that happens. I would like to think that most of the time we do ok but sunday was a very difficult day
I would like to thank all the volunteers who put in so much time to make this event happen, many of whom spend 100's of dollars of their own money in petrol and other expenses organise an event where they get to work for the weekend (There is so much glory in cleaning toilets and parking cars) We were down on volunteer numbers this year and many of them didn't get to see any racing at all!
Since Jason was mentioned above I would like to say that I was very grateful for his efforts over the weekend. He may not be all things to all people but did a great job under very trying conditions.
Without volunteers there would be no event.
Without competitors there would be event.
Without spectators the event would have no future.
Without sponsors the event would cost so much to compete in or spectate at that no-one would.
Without a property to run at there would be no event.
Without the cooperation of the Local council and other associated red tape producers we couldn't run the event.
But today is Monday, the Ateco for 2007 has been run and won (Congratulations to Peter and Shiloh on a great weekends driving) Hopefully we can learn a little more from this year (as we do every year)
and 2008 will be a bigger and better event.
Any questions?
Glen Patrick, Event Director.
Ps. Anyone who wants to organise/volunteer next year I might pay my $15.
