The drifting action was awesome… i would honestly say it was just as entertaining as FD or D1 and even more so in the sense that we actually know some of these guys.
I had no qualms about the track lay out other than you couldnt see the whole thing from ANYWHERE… even from the grand stands you couldnt see how early some of these guys were entering and how fast they were going… you only saw them come around the building… that was silly.
I also beleive that DMCC is under estimating the value of the amatuer competition in this market. If there was not Amatuer competition i am certain that 25-40 SON / S1DC other drift guys would not have made the drive + hotel + gas to come see this event. these 25-40 guys brought another 50 people out who otherwise would not have even heard of the event.
And when you take into account how much dead time there was on the track there is really no reason to suggest that the amatuers had too much time.
Moving this event back to a saturday / sunday format, more efficient track scheduling (the crews were great fixing stuff though) and some actual marketing would have made this even better.
As a vendor i was dissappointment by many things. Peter and i, as well as Dave at another time, were talking about how there were dozens of irrelvant cars there… show car sunfires and cavaliers… i can appreciate the number of people it brings, but why the hell was i in the middle of them? There were dozens of you guys that i didnt get to see because you had no interest in that shit either.
moreover, the DMCC drivers had no reason to go over there which means i never got to see them either unless i had someone watch my booth and then walked to the other side of the venue. had i known this would be the case i would not have shown up.
No one knew about this event. I was telling Dave and MArk from PASmag that there was a bike store in Milton that was having a BBQ that had better marketing (radio) than DMCC.
As a vendor i had to fight to get someones attention to give them money to show up… this is totally silly and exposes a major management weakness… i should have been taken care of months in advance and been given the venue lay out to request a specific location as i have been able to do with other events in the past. Dave Pankew runs a better show, i have no problem saying that. And this is not a hit at Streetconcepts at all, it is directed at DMCC very specifically.
As far as i am aware next year is the final year of the 3 year deal for the event at downsview. I can only imagine the implications that has on the pressure for next year to out do these past two.
given what happened this year as compared to last year and the fact that it actually got worse in many ways gives me zero confidence that next year will make the waves it needs to make.
I was glad that i went though, i had a good time and it was worthwhile… i will show up again next year too but there needs to be some serious improvement considering how drift in this province is teetering so heavily on the brink. IMHO someone from DMCC, Kendrick perhaps? needs to sit down with some key ontario people BEFORE the event gets planned and figure out how to make next year better.
Kudo’s to all the guys that did show up, paid a few bucks, spent money at the show and in so doing, backed up their community. If you want drift to go anywhere you have to show up and participate.