Top 10 reasons why Indy date needs to be changed

"So, it is clear from this thread that there are a number of people for whom the dates selected for Indy just won’t work. Who would like to propose the new dates and arrange the venues for an alternative? "

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Ever sense the formation of the ISSCA I have been a member and do enjoy being a member of such an organization. As for attending the national events, MM was my first and it was an experience for sure, I had a blast and learned alot. The prior two events, I was unable to attend because of family, work or finacial obligations. We all have some or all of these obligations to deal with and deal with what we can do and can not. The ECIRS is one of my local events, which includes the LISST day, and has priority over many other events that I attend. When it comes to the 2006 event at Indy, I will have to see the full agenda because it does spand Tuesday thru Saturday, and make a decision as to how that fits into my other obligations and events. But this is my individual choose so I plan on attending as much of Indy as I can fit in to my schedual.
As for the BOD, I am always amazed at what members of different NONE PROFIT organization do and yes sacriface for the organization, and for that I give them all big "THANK YOU".
As for this thread, it is always good to read conflicting opinions, ask questions and provide viewpoints. This gives feedback to the BOD as well as other members, provides new ideas and yes encourages patisipation. I hope to read many addtional comments and viewpoints!
So lets keep them coming and as A reffery say,
"LETS HAVE A CLEAN FIGHT AND NO HITTING BELOW THE BELT"

Barry (1SlowSS)

"Lance, gotta say something in the "wrong way" for me to take it that way. No problem. But I gotta ask, what did you want me to say at drag day? I ain't got ESP. It's about communication. And it's gotta flow both ways to work. If LISST had a problem they wanted to discuss, one of their officers should have taken a moment to mention it to one of the directors present, even if, like me, they don't represent the region. We volunteered to help the whole club, not just our regions. And if it became a problem after I left and they wanted to speak to me about it, Bill's got all my numbers."

Understood, and happy that the message was interpreted properly, and happy as well that you responded. Off the cuff, I have no idea who the director is for that region, but from what I see, he/she needs to SPEAK UP! I would like to believe that if my club was chartered, and I put on an event like the LISST folks do, my regional director would be waving the flag some, and making noise when it comes time to decide when/where nationals are in relation to when one of my region's chatered clubs is holding an event in, or near the same timeframe.

Hoping to see you @ ImpalaFest!

"Gene (and Karl)...it has nothing to do with his actual facial expression or what his glasses are actually doing...it's a figure of speech (I guess from MA only) that does not stem from his glasses...mine are all over the place on my face all day long too. It has everything to do with his attitude towards talking to people...especially ISSCA members at actual events."

I'm not going to let Mike sit alone on this, as I have seen this as well. Like he said, it's a figure of speech. Sometimes he comes across as if he's fed up with you when all you do is say hello. I really don't know what to make of it.

Mike454 wrote:

July 4th weekend really is a stupid weekend to hold the nationals. Regardless of what other events we all like to attend regionally (car related or not), it's the biggest family get together holiday in the country...

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I know every family has there own favorite get-together holiday... but the 4th would rank 4th at best around here. In order: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter... then maybe July 4th.

The other thing that no one has mentioned is that the 4th falls on a TUESDAY in 2006. So... I'm guessing most big 4th celebrations will be held on the 1st or 2nd.... as would most family events.

My take on it... as I would guess members of the Board thought too... was that all of the "Holiday" events would be the weekend before the 4th... and then we could all take advantage of the extra day off of work and not use so much vacation time for the event.

As for the LISST conflict... that is unfortunate. As it seems that neither group is able to adjust the date... I would chalk this up to another "growing pain" of the club. When something like this happens, the club learns from it. My guess is, it won't happen again next year.

If I can I’ll attempt to put a few things into perspective. The BoD voted on and approved the proposal to go to Indy July 2005 in November 2004.

Copied from the minutes of the November Meeting.

“NATIONAL EVENT SITE PROPOSAL FOR 2006:
It was proposed that Indianapolis, IN., be the site of the ISSCA National Convention in July 2006. Facilities to be used include, the Adams Mark Airport (host hotel and car show), Indianapolis Raceway Park (drag racing), Putnam Park Road Course (road racing), SCCA closed stadium parking lot in Speedway (autocross), Clermont Deluxe Drive-In Theater (movie night), and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (lap around the track with photo at the start/finish line).

A MOTION was made proposing Indianapolis, IN as the site of the 2006 ISSCA National event.

Motioned SECONDED

Vote: Aye – 19; Nay – 0; Abstain – 0”

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For all who aren’t familiar with the process of arranging the National Convention of Membership, it is by proposal from “hosting” Chartered Club(s) the guide lines are laid out in the By-Laws, so I won’t post the process in this thread.

Since that time the folks at IndypalaSS have been working diligently lining up the events and venues. During June (2005) we were informed of the available dates in July to hold the event the week of the third and the week of the seventeenth, in a mater of the few days it took for us to confer on the dates and get back with the venues it turned out the week of the seventeenth was no longer available our decision was made for us. I can assure LISST and all that make the LISST day one of their must go events that circumstances not any other reason brings the dates in close proximity. (As for conflicts I too have them three of our four children have birthdays in July the 9th, 14th & 17th – guess who wasn’t there for their birthdays this year.) The best we can do at this late date is hold the award ceremony early Friday as we did in MM so those who can and want to can make the LISST day.

I’ll also point out at this time that we (all ISSCA Members) are fortunate that we have strong Chartered Clubs like IndypalaSS who puts forth the effort to host ISSCA’s National Convention of Membership (add to this list the other clubs that hosted the past two years of ISSCA’s National Convention of Membership) without their leg work and effort I don’t think we would have the events. Also we are equally fortunate to have groups like LISST that have committed to providing venues for Impala SS (B & D bodies, Wagons too) to come together and make new friends. I personally look forward to Impalafest each year, it’s a difficult choice for me to attend because it’s during the birthday of my bride of 25 years but she graciously allows me to do so.

The ISSCA National Convention of Membership is a complex undertaking, with Mountain MadneSS we served one-hundred sixty eight members and had over two-hundred fifty attendees (members families and guests), worked with a budget near forty thousand dollars (yes it was financially self sufficient). We had in addition to the dozen or so (volunteer) directors an additional thirty or so member volunteers who made things come together. Thanks, thanks ever-so-much to all. We worked with four separate venues who allowed us to hold our five separate events completely under the control of our volunteer coordinators (note not all coordinators are Directors).

I hope I’ve shed a little light on the process and how the date was derived. My hope here is to simply let you all know that we understand, we too have to make tough decisions and I can assure you, LISST and the Big Kahuna that we work with the cards we are dealt with without intentions of malaise.

Rick Matthews
ISSCA VP & PRO

All this crying and moaning made me nostalgic for simpler times so I was looking at old NAISSO digests from late '98. Guess what they were discussing:

Some folks were ticked off with the way Troy was running NAISSO.

Some folks were ticked off with the way the site and dates were picked for the '99 nationals and some people wanted nationals to take place somewhere else.

All sounded vaguely familiar (then again, complaining about site/dates of nationals has happened every year since I've been around).

Also found this LISST dates tidbit:

From: John Zupka <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1998 19:38:23 -0500
Subject: LiSSt East Coast Spring Events/BG '99

Just a heads up for early planning next year for east coasters, NY'ers,
etc... I have the SCS schedule for the year and we have some other plans in
the works.. Mark these on your calendar so we can get Karl'e ECIO in our
schedule, and possibly BG.. Perhaps BG '99 should be an east coast/west
coast separate event located strategically so that all could attend??

LiSSt '99 Tenative Events

May 15th - LI Drag Day
May 28th-30th - Epping Super Chevy Show
Mid June - Autocross anyone?? We will speak to Dave Z. about setting this up.
July 15th-18th - Bowling Green?
July 23rd-25th - Maple Grove Super Chevy

John Zupka
LiSSt/NaiSSo mailto:[email protected]

KC

I have seen several references to "what do we do if it rains?" Is this is reference to what happened at the MM autocross? If not, ignore this post. If it is, let me add my $0.02.

Understand that the autocross event was the event that I was most looking forward to. I've been doing quite a bit of SCCA autocrossing over the last 2 years, but almost never get a chance to run against another B-body. I really wanted to see how this car and driver stacked up against the best B-body racers in existance.

I was in the "Modified" class, so I was also one of the participants that only got one pass. I was extremely disappointed that the event was cut short due to weather. But you know what? It was exactly the right decision. While it is perfectly safe and normal to run an autocross event in the rain, even hail maybe, there is not a sane racing sanctioning body in the world that would have continued racing with dangerous lightning in the area. There were 2 dozen workers standing out in the parking lot with extreme cloud-to-ground lightning on top of us. If anything, we were late in pulling the workers from the lot. As disappointed as I was personally, it was the right thing to do.

Now there may be some arguement for whether we could have gotten things started back up again after the danger passed, and that's somewhat valid. However, remember that our contract dictated that we needed to be completely vacated from the lot, the paddock, everywhere by 5:00. After the rain, I personally do not think there would have been time to set everything back up that the wind had blown over in time to get even one more complete run for the Mod/Race folks, and to vacate the premises. It was just "racer's luck".

Wow! So many responses after just one day off my laptop! Good to see the passion from both sides.

Terry;
Mike 454 was making a playful jab at the 100+ (it seemed) questions during the drivers meeting before the road race. A lot of people seemed obsessed about "what to do if it rains" after the autocross rainout was fresh on their minds. Todd mentioned at least 4 times that "if you don't feel comfortable racing, then don't race but we WILL be racing rain or shine" However, that CLEAR statement was followed up by MORE rain questions. Mike was just having some fun. The rain call on the autocross is disputed by no one.

Rick Matthews; I appreciate your professional and calm response. Emotions run high and you were very thoughtful in your comments. I appreciate that. EDIT: I just saw your PM to me and I appreciate your understanding I am venting. If nothing else maybe ISSCA will show more "awareness" for LISST in the future.

Karl;
You know I have the ultimate respect for you. We just don't agree on this subject. Nothing personal. And if you look carefully, I even gave a smiley face to let you know I was TEASING you about the company man thing. I consider myself a company man 99% of the time - it's not a bad thing. This country NEEDS more people loyal to their cause. Which is why I hope you respect and understand that LISST is my first priority and I will fiercely defend my club. LISST has 7 meetings, a Drag Day, we attend car shows (and donate to OTHER clubs charities), a large Holiday Party, cruises, picnics, etc. We try and make a difference by donating to local charities. ISSCA and the Forum only see a small sliver of what LISST is all about. I see these people up to 15 times a year, plus the people that I am friends with outside the club so please understand this. Just like I am fiercely loyal to you and ECIRS.

As far as calling people 'dicks' - well... I think you took that out of context. I called no one a dick. I said it was a dick move. Which (to me) means it was an uncool move. That's all. I guess I could have picked a better word, but it is what it is. A "not cool" move.

Also, as far as asking politely...that was all behind the scenes last week. Bill Harper and I exchanged emails and all of a sudden he stopped replying to me. As a matter of fact at one point Bill H said to me he didn't think there was much he could do about it but he would at least check on it and at the same time instead of replying to my next response he sent something to the Directors saying TFB.

Meef; Please don't get involved either in my relationship with Karl or with telling LISST how to run Drag Day. You weren't even there. Your statement about relocating "thousands" of members is laughable and shows you have no clue as to the real dynamics. There were about 150-175 ISSCA attendees at MM. LISST Drag Day generally gets 90-100 attendees. More important, as stated, I am a big boy and LISST chalked it up to "too bad, life isn't always fair" for 2005. Things happen. We understand. But to have to have it happen AGAIN, and even WORSE in 2006 sucks the big wazoo (something you ARE familiar with). And NO, LISST will not move our date. It is really hard to get an event that size moved on the calendar PLUS we like to have it coincide with the EFI Days because GM High Tech Mag is there shooting pics and it's good Impala exposure. Then again, why am I explaining myself to you?

I ask everyone once again, would ISSCA schedule against Impalafest? Hell no, there would be rioting. But LISST Drag Day gets whomped again. If nothing else, I am sure I have raised awareness for this. Rick Matthews sent me a PM politely and clearly explaining that ISSCA feels bad, but that they basically had no choice in the dates. I will disagree on that. Maybe they had no choice on the dates for INDY. Either way, I appreciate Rick's understanding response. I am still waiting for a reply from Bill Harper I sent Thursday of last week.

Actually, this is the THIRD year ISSCA will cause a date conflict for the east because to get our cars to Vegas on time, we had to all miss Carlisle (GM Nationals) and load the cars on the trailer.

There are TWO events in the east that are huge for us, GM Nats at Carlisle and LISST Drag Day. We don't have a lot of control over either date.

Rickerwill; It was great to meet you and thanks for coming. Has Bill's wagon recovered from that brutal and crowd pleasing beating you put on it during the autocross?

When I say cajoled members to come I was not only referring to LISST members, I was referring to members from OTHER nearby clubs or people like Noel who would not have come otherwise. Believe me when I tell you I got a bunch of other people who were either on the fence or not planning on attending to come play at MM. I do more for ISSCA than most do. I helped in Vegas last year and I worked at MM this year. You think spending 3 hours in the sun next to Bobo is easy? Just kidding, I had a blast with Fandetti!

Gerry; Thanks for the footage. Been so busy only watched it twice. One important item which backs up my being upset about the dates being so close: You just said while you would have LIKED to attend LISST day you COULDN'T because of your MM commitments. That sucks. We lost 10-20 people that way this year. Some just couldn't do both. And that is 10-20 less people to contribute to charities. Everyone loses.

Gene; I was not referring to the "ECIRS regulars" who are ISSCA Directors as well. We had a bunch. Roz, dW, yourself, Dan L, etc. If you read I said ISSCA Execs. Meaning the big boys like Rick and Bill H and Jay and the other people on the top of the mast in the SScene. I presume some of them could have got to town a day early to see the best Impala event this side of Texas!

As far as not bringing up the conflict of the dates at MM: To be honest, I didn't know there was a conflict until I was home and the LISST officers got together to discuss. I just know the 2nd Saturday in July is our date at E-Town, the date didn't ring a bell with me at first. I was all wrapped up with MM (and maybe some of Rusty's firewater sapped me too).

I still stand by my original beef. ISSCA has stepped on LISST 2 years in a row. LISST is not happy about it. Once, ok, yeah, **** happens. Forgive and forget. But twice? This one is going down like a razor blade sandwich.

Everyone who says "oh too bad, it's unfortunate" hasn't had it happen twice (granted, I accept ISSCA's statement it was unintentional but why don't they have their finger on the pulse of the community to know when the events are, especially after the conflict this year!) to them.

Terry...to add to what BK said...it's not only a jab at what everyone kept repeatedly asking at the meeting. I absolutely agreed with the decision at the autocross too...before it got too bad, they tried to wait it out, because the pavement was hot and it could have dried very quickly...but it did get too bad, so it was cancelled...I also agreed with what was said after it was asked the very first time at the meeting "what will we do if it rains?" the answer was "wether or not you run rain or shine is up to you, but we will continue to hold the event rain or shine."...that answer seemed EXTREMELY clear to most of us, but apparently there was a large majority of people not paying attention at all, or just dumb, because the same question kept coming back "but...do we have to run if it rains?"...it's america...it's a free country...if it rains, and you don't want to race, nobody is holding a gun to your head saying that you have to, if you're not there when it's your turn, oh well, no big deal, move on to the next car in line.

The reason I keep poking fun at it is because it seems like we all keep re-stating the same questions sometimes getting answers...sometimes not getting answers...but regardless we're all beginning to sound like a bunch of broken records...I guess it's just my way of trying to point that out so we can try to keep the debate moving forward and actually getting somewhere rather than rehashing the same questions with the same incomplete answers that we're looking for.

So long story short, for the record I had no issue with the rain cancelling the autocross (and I'm sorry I jumped into your car while it was pouring down BK)...and I'm very glad it didn't rain during the road race...because I finished 2nd place in my class and then spun out (like a jackass) on dry clean pavement and I don't want to think about what I would have done on wet pavement, or how far I would have slid in wet grass rather than the dry stuff that caught me...even with my nice tires...because I'm one of those people who would have said "oh well...I'll still try it in the rain, might be fun" even though nobody would have been forcing me.

And for the record BK (if I'm not mistaken)...I think it was Bob Fandetti running the road race meeting...Tod ran the autocross.

Originally posted by HighwaySS:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> See Spot Run wrote: that sheds light on how it was voted on. however, my original question (and the subsequent follow-up) still stands.
did the BoD consider any other proposals??
and
did the BoD give adequate notice so that other clubs could present their proposals??

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There were two proposals submitted for the BoD to consider for the 2005 National Convention of Membership and one proposal submitted for 2006.

The BoD through the events committee and with the assistance of the Directors solicits bids to host the National Convention of Membership. The bid process concluded with the vote in November 2004.
All this was done for Indy by IndypalaSS.


Rick Matthews
ISSCA VP & PRO </font>[/QUOTE]first of all, through all of this i've always said i'm going to be on the fence and probably won't know if i can make Indy until next spring. please don't get the idea that i'm bashing the event. as a member and observer i can't help but to notice that it appears that we have no choice in this and that's what chaps me.
secondly my first question now has been answered as expected. there was ONLY one proposal considered. i can't believe the board is so naive to think that only one club would want to host the nationals on the 10th anniversary of the last production year of our vehicles.
lastly, however the solicitation for proposals was done it evidently didn't reach a large majority of interested parties. several chartered clubs have seemed taken by suprise that they were denied a chance to present alternative packages. hopefully once the new issca website is up, prominent announcements will be posted there and as well as the sscene magazine. although the latter is no guarantee. after renewing last sept. i was told when registering for MM that i wasn't current. i had to dig out receipts and send info back. i just figured the reason i hadn't received any sscenes was because the schedule was still being caught up.
i know you didn't have the PRO position back then Rick, but in the future one thing that can be worked on is improving communication. thanks for finally confirming what i presumed was the answer even though i'm sure it won't be the most popular one.
rock on, rus

Having scanned through all the threads the one that stands out states, you cannot please everyone. I know some folks that could not attend MM because of the date changes. As I recall the original dates for MM were July 7-9 and the east coast charter clubs were hosting the venue. These dates and location were changed due to availablity of a road course at Englishtown.

I plan on attending Indy 2006. These dates work for me. Any other time in July would not work for me. I look forward to doing something different in 2006 for the 4th. This year I was on the beach in Port Jefferson, Long Island with the bonfires and competiting firework shows.

Personally, I believe ISSCA is a bargin. $40: great magazine and the prices for National events cannot be beat. I would like to express my graditude to all the volunteers who have contributed to ISSCA.

After Tulsa, the west coast clubs wanted something closer to home, likewise for the east coast clubs. What's strange is that Tulsa remains the event with the biggest turnout. If I had to guess all future events are going to be held somewhere in the central US.

Indy 2006 has been set. July 4-8 represents a facility availabliity date and nothing else. T-Shirts were sold at MM promoting Indy 2006 on these dates. Daytona does not seem to have a turn out problem with their Thanksgiving weekend Turkey-Run.

Energies should be expended on the 2007 Nationals and I really like the idea of having the 2007 nationals in St Louis.

Nothing can be perfect. All you can do is look back, learn and proceed forward.

Jose Rodriguez