From another list....

The PRo event at Miller Park drew 37 entrants on Saturday and less than 20 on Sunday. Most felt that, although the event was fun, it was not worth the $99 entry fee. The overall winner was Colin Fiedler from Milwaukee Region in his S2000.

I know it costs ~$8-$10K to rent the Gillette Stadium parking lot per day.

With a dismal turnout like that they won't be making any $$.

Did anyone from here go?

I went. I think there were more than 37 entries, but less than 50. I won the GT3 class in my WRX. The only competition I had was Bob Clark, a local DS autocrosser. He was in his old BMW 325i (which trophied in DS at nationals multiple times) on Hoosiers. The event was somewhat fun, good autox course. We only had 4 people in GT3 so nobody won any money. Only one class had the required 5 entries to win some money back.

The real problem is the price is just too high, nobody really wants to pay that kind of money to do an event like this. The event was poorly run despite the best efforts of one well known autocrosser, who will remain nameless. :) If they would have had say 150 people, I might still be there. :) They had a lot of timing problems on the autocross course, but the skidpad and drag events ran pretty smoothly.

There were quite a few people that came out to spectate, and a few said if it was $50 they would have participated. For $99 I expected a t-shirt or at least something to drink in the 90 degree weather. I got a t-shirt for winning my class, and found that you have to do 2 events to qualify for the national championship event.

Others that may have attended were in Toledo for the tour and Hot Import Nights or whatever it's called being that weekend kept the ricer crowd away.

Miller Park is incredibly cheap to rent for the kind of venue it is, so they may have broken even on Saturday, but not Sunday I imagine.

They were fighting the Toledo tour a bit but that only pulled away maybe 5-10 people who would have done it in my opinion. Colin Fiedler who won it was 4th in STS at Nationals last year.

When they come to Boston, it's the same weekend as the National Tour.

--KC

Do they have results up on the web somewhere from the event?

Not that I've found.

http://www.precisionracingorg.com

--KC

Heh I just noticed I'm standing behind Colin in the picture on their website. Funny he's wearing a SCCA ProSolo trophy winner shirt.

I doubt they post results because they don't really want to show how few people showed up. The autox course was very tight in some spots and very momentum oriented. One of the slaloms paced out to 17, 16, 17... Colin beat everyone by 5 seconds, I was about 6 seconds behind his fastest time. Colin has been consistently beating Wynveen this year by a half a second up here, running stock shocks and using Wynveen's old S04s. He should compete to win AS at nationals this year, imho.

Colin may do the chicago event this weekend, just to qualify for the championship event. The prizes for winning the national title are very good.

When they come to Boston, it's the same weekend as the National Tour.

--KC
I wonder why they schedule opposite national tours?

I wonder why they schedule opposite national tours?
I'd guess the local clubs got first crack at most venues, so they had to schedule when the local wasn't running. Around here, the local organizers are national competitors, so they don't schedule local events on national tour weekends.

Just like MRIU... racing for the rest of the people that don't 'compete' on a semi serious level.

Almsot all MRIU events occured in the same area as a pro/tour. :) I mean think about it... you get a ringer that shows up and just trumps everyone.

-kC

He should compete to win AS at nationals this year, imho.
I agree Colin has more talent(inate) then any driver I have seen...not as much skill(learned) yet, but when everything comes together he is incredible. I hope he whomps on Saini this year, esp since Saini is doing very well is the Pro Spec miata series...I think Colin will start getting big real quick and I wish him the best of luck...

Roy

I was there (not in a subaru)

I think the course was a good mix of tight and open, though the slaloms were a bit tight..

I enjoyed the format of drag/skidpad/autocross, i think it mixed things up a little from a normal autocross. (damn 70mph first gear didn't help me much though)

I talked to Steve (head guy at PRO) about the entry fee.. I told him "i dont think $50 will double your entry #s, but if you can pull even a quarter more in, and then pull off a good event and send them home happy thats what will build the series" He knows he has issues with how the event ran, and I think its the ability to put it all up on the web in real time that has things slowed down right now.

The well known autocrosser (who I will guess leave nameless to, despite his hard work) Said "the idea of this is that your grandmother on Mars can watch you run if she has internet"

I hope they make it look good on Spike TV, I hope they get the bugs worked out, and I hope we have a good showing at the national championships for this series.

Jon K
www.seat-time.com

Anyone go to the June 12th event in Milwaukee? Looks like only 14 cars raced from the website. Nothing on this weekend's event yet that I could find. Does not look like it is doing very well. The high price I think is probably the largest factor.

Honestly I think they may end up pulling the plug on it and save their money, just like PRO did originally. They had _17_ people at the Chicago Saturday event and I don't think they even ran the event on Sunday. The Chicago region Sunday autocross had 150 people...

It's way too expensive and they don't advertise it enough. When Mazda rev-it-up ran in Chicago they had hundreds of people at both sessions. The bad press people are seeing right now is going to kill it in other cities as well.