And just like that, it was over.
After three hours and 18 minutes of mostly one-sided debate, 62 years of racing history came to an end when, on November 19, 2019, the Monterey, California County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to end the Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula’s management of the track it is responsible for …
That's a great report on what's going on. Thank you.
Keith Tanner said:That's a great report on what's going on. Thank you.
Yeah, seriously, Thanks for this.
So, a one-man "organization" with no race track management experience is going to save Laguna Seca raceway?? SCRAMP may have had it's faults, but the Monterey County Board of Supervisors were never responsible agents after the US Army handed over the track. Something is rotten here.
Very interesting...thanks for the detailed and nuanced report. At least it seems like they are going to try to run the track right and not just set it up for failure so they can bulldoze it and build shopping malls. Keyword is seems. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it goes.
Shopping malls will never happen there. Mansions would.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Pardon my ignorance, I've never been to the area and my brain lumps all of California together...shopping mall and housing complex was the fate of Riverside, my favorite "demolished before I was old enough to understand the concept of demolishing/i wish i had a time machine to go back and see it" track. 
bluej said:Keith Tanner said:That's a great report on what's going on. Thank you.
Yeah, seriously, Thanks for this.
Thank you, thank you. (And tell your friends. 
)
slowbird said:Very interesting...thanks for the detailed and nuanced report. At least it seems like they are going to try to run the track right and not just set it up for failure so they can bulldoze it and build shopping malls. Keyword is seems. I guess we will just have to wait and see how it goes.
Funny that I thought the opposite. Seems like they've found the perfect guy to take the fall and get paid well for it. Collect a nice paycheck for a few years to put in as little effort as possible while things disintegrate without worrying about needing to use the job as experience for another. Just go back to retirement with the extra loot.
If the volunteers go on strike, that creates a quick easy way for the county to find the operation unable to break even.
Then the property can be used for something else.
slowbird said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
Pardon my ignorance, I've never been to the area and my brain lumps all of California together...shopping mall and housing complex was the fate of Riverside, my favorite "demolished before I was old enough to understand the concept of demolishing/i wish i had a time machine to go back and see it" track.
There are some very different parts of California. Riverside was in a very populous area - basically, LA. Laguna Seca is in the inland hills between a super high money high prestige area and agriculture. Throw a golf course in the midfield/paddock area and put a few houses ringing it and you'll do very well. The houses will likely have nods to racing theme to celebrate the heritage of the site, ignoring the fact that they killed the very thing they are celebrating in that classic tone-deaf manner.
Didn't know they still build shopping malls. How sad the way this went down. SCRAMP was not perfect, but the Narigi thing sounds like a failure waiting to happen. Maybe that's the plan. With all the slick deals going down maybe they'll build a resort there and have a zipline going down the cork screw.
The whole volunteer thing will only matter to who they "work" for.
For instance, if my club rented the track for $15,000, and I could bring my own corner workers, then the workers would work for my club, and benefit the club.
Or if Indycar rented the track for $100k, they could bring their own workers in the same manner.
On the other hand, if Indycar rents the track for $100k, expecting the track to provide all of the workers- then that's a very different equation. If it were me, I would very much question where all the money is going before I donated my time for the Indycar event. Or perhaps if A&D Negiri pays Indycar a fee to come to the track so that they can have an event, and the profit all comes from people attending the event plus concessions- so that many of the workers are directly working to cover the cost plus make a profit- I really can't see people actually donating time to a for profit entity.
But that's just me.
FWIW, I've rented tracks on behalf of a car club, and have paid people that the track suggested to replace our members doing the work- so that we could all enjoy ourselves a little more for a small fee.
David add me to mix of "well done" your report covered all of the aspects as the situation.
I am hopeful as perhaps when an insider tells the board certain types of events are total money losers they will now listen. Time will tell.
Steven Cole Smith said:
Farber pointed out that SCRAMP supplies as many as 700 volunteers a day to run the events, and that those volunteers donated 45,000 hours of time in 2018. While Narigi said he will continue to use those volunteers, “It is presumptive to assume that the volunteers will automatically go to work” for Narigi, Farber said. “No one has approached the volunteer organization to ask if we will support them.” The assumption that the volunteers “will work for a for-profit company, after so many years of supporting a non-profit organization,” is not guaranteed.
It’s arguably Narigi’s biggest concern: If a large portion of SCRAMP volunteers decline to donate time to A&D Narigi, what happens then?
". . . what happens then?" is a good question.
alfadriver said:I really can't see people actually donating time to a for profit entity.
Not only that, for-profit entities are not allowed to use volunteer labor. So who they're volunteering for really matters. Indycar could not use volunteer labor, they must pay their workers minimum wage.
Having been to LS, and having it be my favorite track of all time, I'm glad to hear things aren't shutting down.
Strike_Zero said:Steven Cole Smith said:
Farber pointed out that SCRAMP supplies as many as 700 volunteers a day to run the events, and that those volunteers donated 45,000 hours of time in 2018. While Narigi said he will continue to use those volunteers, “It is presumptive to assume that the volunteers will automatically go to work” for Narigi, Farber said. “No one has approached the volunteer organization to ask if we will support them.” The assumption that the volunteers “will work for a for-profit company, after so many years of supporting a non-profit organization,” is not guaranteed.
It’s arguably Narigi’s biggest concern: If a large portion of SCRAMP volunteers decline to donate time to A&D Narigi, what happens then?
". . . what happens then?" is a good question.
Hmmm. Good question indeed.
Then again, if the county threatens to shut the track down, all those volunteers *might* show up and chain themselves to the bulldozers, or at least that's what I hope they would do.
But yeah, the county should not count on getting the volunteer turnout that SCRAMP did. If they do then they are fooling themselves.
My opinion has shifted more negatively since my first comment.
Don't forget that SCRAMP went to the County to ask for more venues to generate $$$ the the county turned them down. The mullion dollar home owners were the most vocal about additional venues due to sound and traffic. You can't complain when you buy a house next to a race track, then complain about the noise and traffic. The BoD caved to those multi million dollar home owners. How typical these days.
Also, the $$$ that SCRAMP earned and gave the County didn't directly go to Laguna Seca, it went into the general Parks and Rec funds, that were then divvied up to all the other county parks. The County has handcuffed SCRAMP for years.
The A&D stand for his sons, that one was killed in an accident on South Boundary road, and filed a lawsuit against the track, that was settled out of court, and the file was destroyed in 2016. How convenient.
Mark my words this will end up with LS looking like Thermal in 5 years. They will find a way to build out on this no question.
Just hold out till everything is electric. Then there will be no noise ordinance.
racer_tim said:Don't forget that SCRAMP went to the County to ask for more venues to generate $$$ the the county turned them down. The mullion dollar home owners were the most vocal about additional venues due to sound and traffic. You can't complain when you buy a house next to a race track, then complain about the noise and traffic. The BoD caved to those multi million dollar home owners. How typical these days.
Also, the $$$ that SCRAMP earned and gave the County didn't directly go to Laguna Seca, it went into the general Parks and Rec funds, that were then divvied up to all the other county parks. The County has handcuffed SCRAMP for years.
The A&D stand for his sons, that one was killed in an accident on South Boundary road, and filed a lawsuit against the track, that was settled out of court, and the file was destroyed in 2016. How convenient.
These days? The issue of people moving to someplace loud, and then complaining has been going on for decades. This is hardly a new thing. Don't put that anywhere near something new. And it's not just rich people- when home prices were cheap enough near airports, complaints happened, and routes had to change.
I've seen this happen in a moderately sized town in Idaho, and I know it's happened here in Detroit. For sure, it has happened near where race tracks have been for decades.
Just want to point that out.
Every event from F1 to SCCA club racing relies on "volunteer" corner workers as well as other postions. I've worked in various spots from tech inspection to corner worker to spotter for USAC, SCCA, IMSA, NASCAR, AMA and a couple more and never got paid a dime................they all fed me lunch of course and some of the lunches were even quite good.
Where are people suddenly getting the idea that race workers get paid when currently at most tracks across the country very few race workers get paid for the weekend.
racer_tim said:The A&D stand for his sons, that one was killed in an accident on South Boundary road, and filed a lawsuit against the track, that was settled out of court, and the file was destroyed in 2016. How convenient.
Agreed, but I did not see where this was mentioned in the post here.
This really sounds like the beginning of the end to me.
Get rid of "racing" management.
Bring in "business" management to save it.
Prove that it just doesn't work and decide to transition to something else that also doesn't work.
Sell off property to "developers" for a nominal amount.
I wonder if there are any developers on the current board or current board members that are owned by one.
The thing about forcing the track to close for some rich locals misses the fact that the track has supported some ridiculously rich car owners over time.
There are HUGE cubic dollars on both sides of this.
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