Your opinion on an expanded Annual Quattro event?

[perfution]

Make the annual Q event a real draw. Include the following: 1. At a track, and on same day as a Quattro club driving event. 2. Have tech sessions by attending sponsors. Griot's does one on paint prep, another on wheel restoral, another on suspension tuning, etc. 3. Have friendly competition. Award for most track worthy, best restoral, closest to concours, etc. Ya, this might cost a bit more, but there's tons of upside to upping the caliber of the event for both us and our vendor/sponsor community. Thoughts?

[BakerCoupe]

[Blake@NWAutoSalon]

[Imolavirus@BuehnEngineering]

[BenM@University Audi]

is by doing vendor sponsored stuff like paint prep, suspension tuning know how, strictly during lunch on both days.

The reason I say that is because Audi Club Events are first and foremost for improving driver skill, and that's what the members pay for. It's kind of a different crowd then the car show crowd. Although, it would be cool to motivate people from both crowds to come out. Having any kind of visual judging at a track day though, would probably not work.

It would be better to do something along those lines where it's an auto-X event that's included at say bremerton, where people aren't AS excited to be on the track, nor does tracktime take as much of a front seat because people paid so much to be on a real racetrack.

Just my take though, this is coming from a person who leans towards track days rather then car show type stuff. If I was a person signed up for a track day and there was anything eating into my track time, I would not be a happy camper.

[AlanL]

If you look at the logistics that go along with an Event like the Fall QFest, it is pretty hairy just trying to make sure that all of the parts and pieces of the Driver Education and lapping events go smoothly given the venue of Portland's track. There really isn't all that much room to spare in that facility.

Since it is the premier driver education event for the NW Chapter each year, there is a pretty heavy focus on the track itself and most folks will find their hands pretty full if they take advantage of the opportunities at hand for seat time on the track.

At almost any point in time, at least a third of all of the participants are out on the track either as drivers or riding in the car as an instructor or as a student in an instructor's car. That limits the audience for the vendor as well as the opportunities for the participants who may have to choose between the track and a product demonstration.

It would be really nice to stretch the whole event out enough to alleviate the time crunch we see at present, but that also means we have to plan out reserving the facility for a longer duration and pay more ($2500-3000/day not including insurance) to get it. For Portland's track, that requires reservations a year in advance.

Interesting thought, but it will require some serious planning well in advance to pull it off....

[R1ce]

If I sign up for quattrofest I wouldn't be worrying about a car show, I would want to focus all attention on the driving event.

[perfution]

Show, education and other stuff on Saturday, track on Sunday. And maybe a track teaser on Saturday toward some cross-polinization. (Laps with instructors in students' cars, slide show, etc.) And a couple things of interest for the driver's family in case he/she is having a hard time selling a whole weekend away! Auction for charity? Daycare with gourmet meal one day like was done at Bremerton last year,.... Who in the NW heads up this annual event?

[AlanL]

You can see the timing of each on the NW Audi Club website under the menu item "Upcoming Events".

Tenatively the Sept Bremerton event will include the child care option and will consist of morning ground school (for novices) and AutoX (Advanced in the morning - everyone in the afternoon) on Saturday and lapping on Sunday for all who are interested. Details for meals haven't happened yet. EventMasters for the event are Rainer Elias and myself.

I have less details onhand for the Nov event, but Bernie Strub is slated to run it right now and it is scheduled for a Friday and Saturday this year (Nov. 5,6). The Porsche Club got scheduled for Sunday and the track closes down after that weekend. Not sure how we got aced out of Sunday this year and had to take Friday instead. Those dates were firm as of the track opening last Feb.

As I mentioned earlier - you do have to get your schedule down well in advance to get the most desirable dates for these facilities.

[PDXA4]

That was the very reason I attended my first event...The safety aspect and fellow driver respect made me really enjoy the event...it gave one a tremendous amount of knowledge on the safety aspect of your own car and what a stock car is capable of...
The instructors deserve a huge amount of credit for the amount of work and responsibility that they take on for such an event...

There was no "my car is better than yours" at these events not should there ever be...

I like your thoughts on trying to make the event more attractive.

But I just like the event as it is...when I do get back to the Portland area, I'll be having my girlfriend take part in the event...