The problem is not that they are losing money, it is that compared to weekend kart rentals, they don't make much money on weekend lap attacks. If they have 10 people per session of karting, paying $25 dollars each, and run 4 sessions per hour, they are making $1000 per hour. Yes they need fuel, and maint once in a while. But they can make the same amount of money in 4 hours of kart rentals as they would in an entire lap attack event if 40 people showed up. And that is assuming that they are only running 10 karts per session. They have over 30 karts, and normally run both North and south configurations at the same time on a busy day.

Durring the week however, there are much fewer people renting karts, so they open it up for shifter practice, car days, ect. Weekends are at a very large premium there becaue those will always be the biggest days for rentals. We got luck enough that the Fall attendance was good enough to win up a weekend slot. They let us run through the winter because the weather was poor enough that no one wanted to do rentals. But now that spring/summer is here, they either need really good car day numbers, or they will move on to what makes them the most money. Which right now are rentals, rental kart races, kart race weekends, and drift events. (that's right, the drift boys are smoking us as far as attendence and they bring a lot of spectators too)

If we want a weekend slot in the future, then we need to have really strong showings, and it can't be an all day event like a lapping day, because they still need to do rentals either before of after.

 

^^ what happened to the friday afternoon lap attack? That fit with people that have a normal work week and seems like an unlikely time for a lot of kart activity.

Also, I would be down with paying an extra $20 for lap times. Seems like a good idea

 

^ Both of those were suggestions by me to Mike. IDK why it was so much more popular in the fall? It could have been that it was durring the week, so no one had any conflicting events. I do know that a few people are not doing it because they will not be able to make all of the events becasue of conflicting auto-x days. Or it could be, that in the fall it was new, and people were excited about it, and now they realize that lapping days are a much better value for money vs seat time.

Also, not that it is light until almost 9:00pm it could go back to evenings. Through the winter and early spring it had to be weekends, but now it would be whenever.

 

That's sad we are losing to the drifters. I'd do a Friday afternoon lapping day/attack if it were available. Lapping day preferred.

 

The drift events that I have volunteered at were all sold out, with about 3-7 cars showing up day of that got turned away. The only things that the drifters suck at is getting there on time, teching their cars, and not blowing up... They also make a killing on pizza at those events. They normally go through 20+ pizzas if anyone remembers to order them... It almost makes me want to build a drift car. I think that they actually have an "official PGP drift car" too. It's a 240 with an LS2 from a GTO. I got to ride in it on Wed when I went to talk to Mike. The guy who drives it is really good. Car sounded amazing too.

Anyway, do we want to try and make a push for the lap attack, or the lapping day? I think that the Miata crowd is starting to lean towards the lapping day since its basically the same price, and you get tons more driving. Especially if we can talk mike into the transponer idea. That or I and whoever else has an XT lap timer can pass them around. If we get both transmiters we could finally do that North/south split time I have been talking about since forever.

 

I won't be able to make a lapping day till June 22. But I have 3 others who will come as well. We may have to be resigned to renting out the track if we want to go on a weekend.

 

I think it would be cool to run it like some of the Time Attack events where it's basically a lapping day and some of the run sessions are officially timed for those who are participating. Maybe reserve the last two sessions as hot laps for those who pay extra for the transponder.

The lapping days are a way better value (seat time/$) but I do enjoy "official" competition.

 

The lapping days are a much better value, and ironically (at least for me) it's easier to get a Wednesday off than to have a free Sunday. The lap attacks are a cool concept, but really the only adder is the competition - but that's only relevant to a small handful of people who can run 1:12s. If I can ever get my stable of cars sorted out I will try to support both, but lap attack is not all that appealing - I'm 8-10 seconds off the elite cars and will never win or even come close unless I dump money into the car. I'm also 4-5 seconds off where I theoretically should be and I'd be much better off having 50 or 60 laps to work on those 4-5 seconds than worrying about dick measuring.

 

Can we still measure just cause???

 

Yeah, that's why they should rent out transponders.