Club Cobra - SAAC #35 at Willow Springs, CA

Quote:

Originally Posted by DAVID GAGNARD (Post 959270)

.......He also gave a REALly good explaination as to how/why the sites are picked for the yearly convention, made a lot of sence, to me anyway!!!!!!!!:

For you, cajun buddy... I'll look it up:

Quote:

It seems like a week doesn’t go by that someone doesn’t suggest that we hold a national convention at a particular racetrack, which — surprise ! — just happens to be near them. Their motive is usually a combination of convenience (for them) and pride in a facility they consider to be their home track. They buttress their suggestion with the fact that (choose one): they know a lot of people who don’t normally attend conventions because they’re too far away but who would certainly come to this one... or that there has never been a SAAC convention in that area... or they know someone at the track and they can “get us a good deal.”

Around the beginning of each year, we used to take a long, hard look at a map of the United States to consider where the national convention might be held, two years out. There were a number of factors, which determined if a particular area was one we would consider. The first was obvious: it must be the site of a racing facility. The open track and vintage race events has become the centerpiece of our conventions, and we cannot conceive of having one without putting cars on a track for some portion of the weekend. Another factor was that the number of trailers and car carriers which bring cars to the convention increases every year and large race tracks are one of the few facilities with enough room to accommodate the space all these rigs require.

Another factor was the location of a previous convention. If it were, for example, at Lime Rock last year, it would be highly unlikely we would go to Pocono (about 3 hours away) the following year. So, a past convention always had an affect on where the next one would be. The next thing we considered was the number of SAAC national members in the surrounding area. Our experience over the past 33 years shows that the average member is likely to travel 500 miles to attend the national convention. That’s a 10-hour drive. Obviously there are a fairly large number of members who are willing to travel farther —either with or without their cars. Witness certain familiar faces from Hawaii, Idaho, California, Washington, Oregon, Florida and Texas who never miss a convention no matter where it is. But they can hardly be considered “average” —as any mental health professional doing a psychiatric profile of them would quickly point out. In general, our thinking was, if we didn’t have a large base of members in a 500-mile radius around a proposed site, it didn’t make sense for us to come to that area.

A side issue that affected the choice of a convention location in this regard was the fact that the size of a local region often did not have any impact on site selection because we found that the number of national members in SAAC regions averages only about 33%. All of our decisions were based on national members—not regional members who are not national members. We could hardly base our decisions on the hope that people who don’t have the enthusiasm necessary to join and support the national organization could be counted on to attend a convention put on by the very group which they had no desire to join.

The bulk of SAAC’s membership is in a triangle roughly between Boston, Charlotte and Detroit. States where populations are high have a correspondingly high number of SAAC members. There are about 275 members in Pennsylvania, 250 in New York, 150 in Ohio, 150 in New Jersey, 150 in Connecticut, 100 in Massachusetts, 150 in Michigan. By contrast, there are 35 in Alabama, 50 in Tennessee, 25 in Oklahoma, 30 in Louisiana, 20 in New Mexico, 10 in Mississippi, 15 in Arkansas. This explains why it isn’t likely you’ll ever see a SAAC convention at Talladega — even though it is an excellent facility.
California is a special situation all by itself. While it would seem that 815 is a large number of national members for a single state, that number is deceiving because those members are spread across a very large geographical area, which is probably closer in size to three or four separate states. The SAAC regions in California are the most active in the club, and between them they probably put on a dozen weekend open track events each year. Getting a weekend date at a large track in California was just about an impossibility for an outside organization, owing to the fact that there are far more groups wanting dates than there are tracks which can provide them. These groups reserve dates in advance, year after year, and the tracks are unwilling to turn their back on such good, “repeat customers” in order to give a weekend to an organization (like SAAC) that only shows up once. California Speedway was an exception because it was fairly new and had not attracted a following, which locked in dates every year.

We didn’t have a “west coast” convention between 1988 and 2002 because a track date was virtually impossible to get. However, even when we were able to get California Speedway and went back to southern California after 14 years, the members in that area already had a large selection of regional open track events already on the calendar, rendering the SAAC convention just another open track event (albeit a very large one). It did not draw the number of participants northeast conventions had drawn from that same 500-mile radius. It also increased the expense and level of inconvenience of members traveling from other areas of the country where membership is the greatest — most notably from the northeast, which is, incidentally, the farthest away.

Things are much the same for other areas of the country, which are out of the mainstream of membership demographics. The Pacific Northwest, the Central Plains states, the Southwest, Colorado, Minnesota, Texas and Florida all suffer from the double whammy of not having a large enough membership base in their 500-mile radius to support a national convention, and also being far enough away from the main areas of membership to just about assure low numbers of members who would be expected to travel from those areas.

We wish it was possible to hold a convention in every area of the country at least once — but in order to do that we would have to be certain that large numbers of members from our strongest membership base areas would attend. Past conventions at Portland, Sears Point, Atlanta and Road America have proven that we can rely on no such assurance.
So, from an attendance standpoint, we’re looking for a sure thing — a convention location that will be convenient for the largest number of members in the club. The reason for this is purely a matter of common sense. The costs of racetrack rentals, as well as every other convention related expense you can name, are increasing every year. For example, the cost to rent Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1998 was five times what we paid in 1991. California speedway was about $35,000 a day the last time we were there. That’s just track rental: everything else (insurance, ambulances and EMS personnel, security, etc) is on top of that). The cost will certainly be higher the next time we go back. If we increased the registration fee and the cost to participate in the open track by the same percentage the track cost increased each year conventions would quickly be priced out of the reach of all but a few.

With regard to track rentals, things have changed drastically in the past twenty years. There was a time when tracks were virtually begging for groups to come in and rent them. Their calendars were set by race weekends and testing sessions, and clubs usually had their pick of the rest. Then various driving schools became popular and these schools began taking more and more dates. Eventually they became such good “customers” that they had first pick of the dates after the actual race events. And clubs were left with whatever remained. At the same time, the number of club events was increasing and as they established themselves, these clubs began reserving track dates year after year. The end result is that now, when a club like SAAC—which tries to rotate its events around the country—comes to a track and asks for a date, in order for the track to give us one it would have to take that date away from another club or group which has been renting the track once or twice a year for the past ten or fifteen years. No track will turn its back on one of its good, “repeat customers” to accommodate another group (even if it is larger) which wishes to come in only once or once every few years.

This is the dilemma SAAC is faced with each year, and in response we are presently attempting to negotiate long term agreements with a couple of different tracks in order that we will be assured of dates at each one every few years. We realize there are pros and cons with this, but when you simply cannot get a weekend date at any major track, the pros and cons hardly seem to matter. We try to keep members posted as details become available, but suffice it to say that the days of SAAC actually “rotating” its conventions among major race tracks around the country is history.

The one, single convention complaint we seem hear the most is that the cost of the dinner is in the high side. We’re told that the meal served at a convention just isn’t worth $40 or $50. It probably won’t surprise anyone to learn that the meal itself doesn’t cost us that much. But there are unseen expenses that pop up when anyone plans a sit-down dinner for between 600 and 1200 people. You have to rent a hall, banquet facility or large tent; there are often charges for tables, chairs, tablecloths, napkins, silverware, lighting and a PA system. And we normally give away 10% to 15% of the dinners. The price per ticket reflects all of these “hidden costs.”

It takes a large number of volunteer workers to make a convention run smoothly and successfully. In some cases they work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. or later.... sometimes for three or four days straight. They have all paid their own way to get to the convention, and after doing that we can’t very well ask them to pay for their dinner, too. Well, we could, but it would be the last time they would ever volunteer. Most of the people who make up SAAC’s convention staff have been shouldering their responsibilities for ten to twenty years or more. They are dedicated and highly skilled, and after all these years of depending on them, we aren’t too excited about the thought of having to replace any of them with someone at the very bottom of the learning curve.
We also provide dinner tickets to guest speakers and other “VIPs” who are invited to attend the convention, and they often bring wives, family or friends. Having invited a former Shelby team driver or noted automotive journalist, it would be downright tacky for us to ask them to pay for the rest of their party’s meals. That’s just a matter of good manners and to do any less would reflect negatively on our organization.

Convention hotels are another area of major concern for us. Our first choice would be to use one, large hotel where everyone could stay. The Hyatt Regency in Dearborn had 800 rooms and the last time we were there, in 1990, convention participants took 750 of them. But the simple fact is that there just aren’t large hotels near racetracks, which have enough rooms for everyone in our group. So, our second choice is to reserve blocks of rooms in a handful of medium-sized hotels near the track. In the very beginning of convention planning, usually a year and a half out, we go through a lot of trouble to lock up the number of hotel rooms we think members may need at such hotels. It would be infinitely easier for us to merely advise members of the convention date and location and leave it to each individual to reserve rooms on their own. But we go through the extra effort for several reasons. One is that members continually tell us they enjoy being at a hotel where a large number of other convention attendees are staying. They enjoy socializing and seeing interesting cars in the parking lot. If they are not familiar with the area, they like the feeling of security of arriving in a strange city or town and knowing they will have a place to stay and they won’t be there alone.

Getting the hotels to block out rooms which coincide with the dates the track has available is always a gigantic headache. We try to choose larger hotels which are part of national chains because they are usually willing to provide group discounts and also because they have complimentary room policies. Normally they will give the club one complimentary room for every 50 booked by members of the group. We provide those comp rooms to some of our volunteer staff because they have made a major commitment to work at the convention and we want to recognize their efforts, which are considerable.
When members choose to use other — usually less expensive — hotels in the area, they do not think they are doing any harm. On a personal level, they are only saving money for themselves. Some regions have been known to check out the area in advance and then all make reservations at the same local hotel (not one of the convention hotels) because they all want to stay together. Again, they don’t think they are hurting anyone. But by choosing not to stay at one of the hotels the club has blocked rooms at, they prevent the club from getting some complimentary rooms and they also make it much more difficult for the club to obtain large meeting rooms and to control large sections of the parking lot. The end result is that we are forced to raise registration fees so that we can cover the cost of rooms we provide to volunteers, which are not covered by a hotels’ complimentary room policy.

Unfortunately, there is no manual or textbook for putting on conventions that we can refer to in order to find answers to questions or solutions to the problems we might encounter. Essentially, we get one chance a year to try new things out or to correct problems that cropped up at a previous conventions. We know it is just not possible to make everyone in this club happy all of the time. But we think that, on the whole, we do a pretty good job of trying. Each facet of a convention is interconnected, like a spider’s web. If you change something in one area, it usually affects all of the other areas. Nothing happens in a vacuum. So when it comes to conventions, there is a lot more to them than the average member realizes. Every decision we make is done for a good reason, but those reasons are not always obvious. We don’t ask Pardee to spin a milk bottle or blindfold him and ask him to throw a dart at a map of the U.S.