Were you pissed with the organisation of Avon - especially Sunday?
Turbo Mini Forums

Well, as someone has already pointed out, grumbling won't make a bean of difference. If you want to make a difference, I suggest that each and EVERY one of us that attended make a point of writing to both Avon Park AND the BMS and tell them what you think. Also give suggestions on how it could be different.

I for one think that if THEY want / insist that the dragsters, (including the crappy lawnmower engined ones) run over the weekend, then it should be as often as they want on Saturday, or on sunday BUT ONLY AFTER 3pm...

I'll be penning a letter myself, and also mentioning the MANY grubles about the event organisation (including the crappy disco).

If anyone beats me to it and finds the postal address for the British Mini Club and Avon Park before me, can they post it up here for everyone else to see.

Vegard - A letter from yourself mentioning that you came xxx miles and was very dissapointed would be good... I'll be posting my letter from home aswell....

Edited by turbodave16v on 18th Jul, 2006.

Dave a letter from you tell them you came xxx miles.

Was a very poor weekend - Thanks to Dev and Barlow (Manchester minis) for the little music we got.

It seemed that we were left to work out what was going on and just do our own thing.

Edited by JT on 18th Jul, 2006.

I'm a mamber of the club but purely for the insurance discount.

I'll give em a good grumbling to as well

Edited by turbodave16v on 18th Jul, 2006.

I agree 100% with what you say Dave, the other thing that pissed me off was when the so called "proper dragsters" just ambled up the centre of the queueing lanes to go and have a run, and to bollocks with everyone else queueing! In my opinion if they were allowed to run (which on the sunday they should not be) then they should damn well queue up like everyone else has to.

The problem, as far as I understand it, is that all the marshalling/safety/timimg is supplied/funded by the dragter boys. so without them there would be no event at all.

They are pretty boring though, especially the kiddywiddy ones.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

I was of the same opinion as Wil. For the most part I thought that the drgsters were queing quite nicely, it was the drag bikes and bikes in general that pushed in.

The price is getting a bit silly now though. I have entered cheeper hillclimbs.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

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Incase you've not found the addresses yet:
British Mini Club,
The Mini House,
18 Aldgate Drive,
Brierley Hill,
West Midlands,
DY5 3NT

and

Shakespeare County Raceway
Long Marston Airfield
Long Marston
Stratford upon Avon
Warwickshire
CV37 8LL

Rich
PS. No jet car either :(

interesting.... the small minifinty party were discussing letters of complaint to the bmc too... the way the 'proper dragster' were able to run when they liked was very unfair... after all we paid 25quid to see a mini show. others paid a lot more to track use.... we didn't pay that kind of dosh to watch dragsters and lawnmowers with kids driving... ok ok I agree its nice to see something a little different on the track but not at the frequency the dragsters were going out... where was the jet car this year???

add to the fact that the dragsters too 10 time more track prep than there its totally unaceptable

all imo of course...

anton

The Sunday was a joke. 50 mins left of drag time to set a decent tome and all the minis are left queuing as the are running drags. Was so pissed off about that.

I thought that Saterday was any car and Sunday was minis only. That seemed to make a lot more sense to me. If I wanted to see a little rude boy do a 20 sec quarter in a 1.2 corsa i'd sit at the traffic lights by my house.

HERE HERE!

fingers on key board now, letters posted this afternoon

even though i only attended sunday to view

they need to be told the errors of their ways
in a nice constructive way of course

the dam lawn mower so call dragsters

i may bring my honda 2.2 HP mower and walk up the track next year

i completely concur with all the above comments .

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i agree with the problems of drag bike jumping the que and not enough time on sunday, i also think that the classes need to be defined better with better rules and better enforced. but the disco was good, you all went to the wrong one.

we took along our own generator and 1K sound system with Denon CD mixer (we would have brought a bigger rig but we thought that would take the piss) we also had a projector screen the size of the long wheelbase high top renault master we took and an xbox/DVD player

Russell

I agree, I was more pissed of with the lack of dodgy disco, than my car not running

Team Racing

yeah, but the dodgems did make up for it. That was the best fun i've had in ages!

To provide some balance to this discussion, I was only there for three hours as a spectator and I loved every minute.

I watched a bit of mini racing, then I walked round the pits, spoke to Tom, admired Jims car, then went back to watching the drag cars and then some more minis. Finally went back to the TM pit, said goodbye and was off home.

Yes, there were delays caused by the drag cars, but also by some of the minis. There always used to be long delays at a drag meet.

I thought the balance was about right from a spectators perspective.

Saul Bellow - "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep."
Stephen Hawking - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

It was worth paying the entrance fee just to speak to me then Axel?! LOL!!

On a more serious note, I was only able to attend on the sunday, and paid a tenner to get in, that is about the usual price you'd expect to pay. However I can see why the guys who paid £25 for the weekend plus another £20 to run their cars would be feeling a little hard done by with the British Mini Club taking money off them hand over fist and really not delivering the goods in terms of organisation. Certainly it was evident this year that organisation was on a par with piss up in a brewery, and having attended the showdown 5 or so times in the last 10 years, this years show certainly seemed worse than previously.

i could only make it over for the sunday aswell and the mrs wasnt feeling too great either, so had to leave very early - nevermind

did get very bored of the prep needed for the dragsters and were a pretty piss poor show aswell, would rather see more of the big minis such as carl and stuart

I've seen the future and tbh its Pie

i went to avon the other week, im sure it was £15 to get in for all weekend, so bmc obviously make the £10 on it, fair enough

but what does really get on my monkey is having to wait around for the drag cars, although i noticed after 3 alot more came out so some where obviously being decent, but its a mini show, that on the shakespere county site ISNT advertised as a rwyb

you always get the bikes jumping the queue, im sure its just so they can run them together, but it is chuffing annoying, however last year the 'uddersfield minis car was doing this too which meant i lost out on a run

lack of a dodgy disco was disapointing but the dodgems where chuffing ACE!

what also pissed me off is they extended the running time by 1/2 an hour!!but thats another story

The Butt of the problem is the way it is funded. From what i understand, the british mini club promote the event and take a slice of the money to cover there costs. the rest of the running is by the raceway so they take there bit.

the raceway get paid for every one who enters the grounds and everyone who drags, so as far as there concerned the more people the better, and since the BMC dont have full controll the raceway and there friends can do as they like.

Compare this to the london to Brighton run where everything is organised by the London and Surrey Mini owners club. the LSMOC take a massive finatial risk but by selling tickets in advanced they reduce this. also as a club run event they can do what they like and make up all the rules and the price.

you can complain all you like to the BMC but if they reply they will say its out of there control. if you contact the raceway they will just say thats how its been agreed to be run.

i have nothing against either of these groups and have no links to them. i just think the only way to run a propper large event like this is to have one organising body with enough money to pay the costs up front. this would improve the event and attract more people

also if the facilities were improved and more non drag racing things introduced like all other mini shows then more people would go so increasing profit for the organisers and reducing the need for the proper dragsters

small print
this is from what i have been told, and read between the lines. its my opinion and may not be totaly correct!

I think you have explaind how I understand it very well.

What it needs is a sponsor, more mini things and it could be what it once was and could be again.

Plus where was the jet car?

Edited by Ben H on 19th Jul, 2006.

http://www.twin-turbo.co.uk
http://www.hillclimbandsprint.co.uk/default.asp

A man without a project is like a like a woman without a shopping list.

The showdown has the potential to be the best mini show of the year, not just for the people running there cars but for the drivers spectators and families

just look at mini in the park if this was coupled with the showdown it would be the best event on the calender

yes it is very annoyingthat there was other motors running, being a Mini show. i think the reason why there was other cars/ bkies running was just to pull some money in, as the show on it's own with just minis may not be enough to cover cost to put the show on.

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one thing i found a bit annoying was there was no where for people to show off their cars (or at least i didnt find it) understandably people have them next to their tents etc so they can be fixed, but it didnt feel right to look at peoples cars, walk near their tents etc. oh and hardly any stands..