CoTA sounds like it sucks

[wood 11225]

1 hour ago, relapse98 said:

Side by Side video of F1 vs Indy

14 second difference, probably will drop over time.

Yeah, probably. It's hard to believe so many writers think the times from IndyCar's first ever COTA test day are good for a comparison to F1.  They won't get to F1 times, but no reasonable person ever expected that on an IndyCar budget.

Edited February 13, 2019 by wood

[Updawg 2266]

Ouch....doubt the governor will be invited next year.......


Circuit of the Americas is out at least $20 million in state funding after Gov. Greg Abbott’s office rejected the group’s annual application for reimbursement following the 2018 Formula One race at the track. Officials in the governor’s office said track representatives failed to meet the deadline for submitting a required anti-human trafficking plan as part of their reimbursement request.

For the circuit, it means the track in Southeast Austin will forfeit $20 million or more in state funds through the Major Event Reimbursement Program. The state reimbursed COTA $27 million through the program after the 2017 U.S. Grand Prix, $26 million for the 2016 F1 race and $22.7 million for the 2015 U.S. Grand Prix.

That money is an annual payment that COTA has received since the track held its first F1 race in 2012. In the past, track officials have said the state funding was critical to maintaining successful operations at the track. In 2016, the track’s chairman, Bobby Epstein, and Formula One’s chief executive, Bernie Ecclestone, told the American-Statesman that a $5.5 million reduction in state funding would place the future of the F1 race in serious doubt.

On Wednesday, Epstein and other track officials did not immediately return calls seeking comment

[relapse98 634]

Hah. 5.5 would place the future in serious doubt? I bet 20 million really really places the future in serious doubt.

[utee94 15797]

Wow.  That's a pretty serious oversight.  Something like that at my company in Corporate American would get you fired.  It would get entire teams fired.

 

 

Edited February 20, 2019 by utee94

[wood 11225]

1 hour ago, relapse98 said:

Hah. 5.5 would place the future in serious doubt? I bet 20 million really really places the future in serious doubt.

Yeah, and it's probably close to $25M that they'll lose.

[Goofyboy 3268]

WTF does COTA need with an anti-human trafficking plan??

[Paper_jam 831]

I'm talking out of my ass but I would guess that the Texas government wants to make sure there's no organized prostitution or sex slavery going on in connection with major races.

 

[Updawg 2266]

I'm talking out of my ass but I would guess that the Texas government wants to make sure there's no organized prostitution or sex slavery going on in connection with major races.
 

Yep. It has been a big issue for Abbott lately

[faps 806]

Surely this means adios USGP at COTA.

[Goofyboy 3268]

As in this year isn’t going to happen? Man, that would suck.

[Updawg 2266]

I think they have already paid f1 for this year. But this has to hurt

[woohorn 1131]

WTF does COTA need with an anti-human trafficking plan??

Same as Texas educators need to pledge loyalty to Israel.

Sounds like some law firm is gonna get shit-canned over this.

[Steel Shank 9421]

Maybe they need the $ for the wall?

[utee94 15797]

Sure.  The wall to keep the poors out of the VIP areas does need a little maintenance these days.

[wood 11225]

8 hours ago, Updawg said:

I think they have already paid f1 for this year. But this has to hurt

From what I've heard, F1 has been letting them pay after the GP, once they get the money from the State, but they (the major investors) are ultimately on the hook for the sanctioning fee if that money doesn't come. If that's true, then they likely still owe F1 for 2018.

Edited February 21, 2019 by wood

[wood 11225]

14 hours ago, Goofyboy said:

WTF does COTA need with an anti-human trafficking plan??

That was my initial reaction as well, but apparently requirements like these aren't uncommon according to what I'm reading now.

[wood 11225]

 

[Steel Shank 9421]

Read this morning the requirement centers around prostitution and sex trafficking around these big events (like the Super Bowl).

[wood 11225]

COTA threatened by $25m US GP funding hit. State funding could be used for a GP elsewhere in Texas if necessary.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/cota-us-gp-funding-hit/4341567/

The current arrangement covers an F1 race anywhere in the state of Texas, and is not specifically tied to COTA – so in theory an event in another city could claim the funding.

Edited February 21, 2019 by wood

[Deej 76750]

Maybe if they hadn't been so busy trying to shut down MLS moving to Austin, they would have caught that?

[Wally Pryor 5261]

20 hours ago, utee94 said:

Wow.  That's a pretty serious oversight. 

 

Especially since a cut and paste of the prior year's plan and simply submitting said on time would have been sufficient. 

Yes, someone is probably out of a job. 

[Goofyboy 3268]

Looks like they are banking on the fact they had one for the Moto GP race earlier in the year and used it for all races.

[wood 11225]

14 hours ago, Wally Pryor said:

Especially since a cut and paste of the prior year's plan and simply submitting said on time would have been sufficient. 

Yes, someone is probably out of a job. 

Yeah, I thought initially that it's an odd requirement, but apparently it's more common than I thought. Regardless, they knew going in that it was a required part of the application to get paid $25,000,000 ... and they didn't make certain that it got done. That's mind-blowing and speaks volumes imho. I know Katja Heim fell off the map out at COTA recently, but I have no idea if it's related to this or if it's just more of the same revolving door of COTA CEOs. She was replaced by Rick Abbott.

[relapse98 634]

Anyone else going to the Blancpain GT Word Challenge America at COTA this weekend?

I think I'm going to drag my laptop out there and do some "work" on Friday during their practices. Friday looks to be free with access to Main Grandstand, Turn 1, Turn 15, Paddock. Saturday and Sunday are $30 each or $50 for both.

[wood 11225]

BTW I heard the proposed motorsport hotel/condo deal at COTA is dead & the developer took it to Vegas.

[wood 11225]

On 2/27/2019 at 2:35 PM, relapse98 said:

Anyone else going to the Blancpain GT Word Challenge America at COTA this weekend?

I think I'm going to drag my laptop out there and do some "work" on Friday during their practices. Friday looks to be free with access to Main Grandstand, Turn 1, Turn 15, Paddock. Saturday and Sunday are $30 each or $50 for both.

That shit was deserted...

[relapse98 634]

21 hours ago, wood said:

That shit was deserted...

I didn't make it to that practice. I'm old and not gonna sit in the mist and chill.

[wood 11225]

3 hours ago, relapse98 said:

I didn't make it to that practice. I'm old and not gonna sit in the mist and chill.

No, I meant the whole weekend was deserted. But yeah, it was cold. I think I felt colder at the Disch though than when I was out at COTA that weekend. At least at COTA I could move around a lot. The Disch was pretty packed though all weekend. Maybe that's where everyone was.

[wood 11225]

Anyone else having having issues getting tickets printed out for IndyCar at COTA? I'm buying tickets for Turn 12 and I can't print them out. I have to go to COTA Will Call and pick them up. Kind of a pain.

I also noticed that COTA's website says you can purchase cash parking in lots F & T, but that you have to have a parking pass just to drive onto COTA Blvd. 

LOL. Seems like a bit of a contradiction there.…

[relapse98 634]

No way?!?! It's like COTA might be run by crackheads.

My vendor that usually has an RV setup isn't doing it for Indy. When I asked about it, he offered me tickets which I took him up on. He got 3 day GA passes and I decided to drive up there earlier this week to pick them up instead of fighting to get to will call on Sunday (too much stuff to go the other 2 days). At first, the brand new guy in the window can't figure out that someone else bought my tickets. Then he printed out these little paper tickets. And I was like.. these are 3 day, do I just show this each day or what? So he called the boss and eventually found the bracelets that they had not been instructed on (or he had forgotten about). It's really amazing how poorly run that circuit is. They are complete amateurs that seem to have to start with brand new staff for every event.

As for parking, I'm gonna park at one of those family lots on Elroy. Its $30 cash for T, or I can walk just a bit further for $10 and not have to deal with the crackheads that run COTA parking.

And at previous races, I've never seen a single person checking on COTA Blvd that you had a ticket for a parking lot and only about half the time is there someone checking when you enter a lot.

 

Edit: If they had to do anything special to activate my bracelets, I'm pretty positive that didn't happen. So that might end up with more hilarity.

Edited March 20, 2019 by relapse98

[wood 11225]

16 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

No way?!?! It's like COTA might be run by crackheads.

My vendor that usually has an RV setup isn't doing it for Indy. When I asked about it, he offered me tickets which I took him up on. He got 3 day GA passes and I decided to drive up there earlier this week to pick them up instead of fighting to get to will call on Sunday (too much stuff to go the other 2 days). At first, the brand new guy in the window can't figure out that someone else bought my tickets. Then he printed out these little paper tickets. And I was like.. these are 3 day, do I just show this each day or what? So he called the boss and eventually found the bracelets that they had not been instructed on (or he had forgotten about). It's really amazing how poorly run that circuit is. They are complete amateurs that seem to have to start with brand new staff for every event.

As for parking, I'm gonna park at one of those family lots on Elroy. Its $30 cash for T, or I can walk just a bit further for $10 and not have to deal with the crackheads that run COTA parking.

And at previous races, I've never seen a single person checking on COTA Blvd that you had a ticket for a parking lot and only about half the time is there someone checking when you enter a lot.

 

Edit: If they had to do anything special to activate my bracelets, I'm pretty positive that didn't happen. So that might end up with more hilarity.

Yep, all of this, esp the bold.

And look at your wristbands. There's no bar code. Nothing to activate. They just (sometimes) look to see if you have one on and then let you in. I say 'sometimes' because they never checked for my wristband or asked to see my ticket any of the 3 days over the last F1 weekend. No code, nothing to scan/count, so they actually have no idea how many GA fans are actually showing up to the track ... which is weird, since they submit very specific numbers to the Governor's Office to get the subsidy.

Re: the parking thing about not allowing cars on COTA Blvd, they're clearly going to allow the cars. They're just putting that there as a scare tactic to keep some traffic off of that road for some reason, like they did when they first opened. Probably trying to keep the off-site lots from shuttling people in. Those cops ain't gonna check shit though. They rarely even get out of their cars.

[wood 11225]

And it always seems like they're starting over with a new staff .. because they are. There are very few people actually working at or for COTA. 99.9% of the people working out there on a big race weekend are temp event staff, volunteers, and folks working for other companies at the event. You'll rarely ever see an actual COTA employee even in its natural habitat ... because they're very rare.

Edited March 20, 2019 by wood

[faps 806]

I don't get the point of trying to scare people off of COTA Blvd. There are only 5k (or less) people at COTA during events that aren't MotoGP or F1. They should be embracing the die hards that would actually go to a Blancpain or Pirelli WC or WEC event, not trying to make it harder for us.

I am wondering what the Indy turnout is gonna be like.

[wood 11225]

19 minutes ago, mcbrisket said:

I don't get the point of trying to scare people off of COTA Blvd. There are only 5k (or less) people at COTA during events that aren't MotoGP or F1. They should be embracing the die hards that would actually go to a Blancpain or Pirelli WC or WEC event, not trying to make it harder for us.

I am wondering what the Indy turnout is gonna be like.

Epstein has never been inclined to 'embrace' anyone other than the high-rollers. We are only as important to him as the money we pay him at races, and more importantly, the money he can get from the State by shamelessly exaggerating our attendance numbers.

Re: the crowd this weekend, personally, I'm expecting something like a MotoGP crowd, commensurate with similarly exaggerated attendance numbers by COTA afterward. They're using the same grandstand setup as with MotoGP - a little over 30K reserved seats. But just watch. Those stands will only be 60-75% full, around 20K people, and they'll still tell us there were 50-70K people out there for the race, and 130 -140K for the weekend, like they do with Moto GP.

Edited March 20, 2019 by wood

[relapse98 634]

16 minutes ago, wood said:

I'm expecting something like a MotoGP crowd

Really? With lot C being turned into a USAC track, N being used for camping, nothing in L and M. And it looks like the shuttles only run on the western side of the track (Turn 1 and around over to the main plaza).
It appears to me they aren't expecting much of a crowd. Which is sad since Indy is a great series.

Edited March 20, 2019 by relapse98

[wood 11225]

5 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

Really? With lot C being turned into a USAC track, N being used for camping, nothing in L and M. And it looks like the shuttles only run on the western side of the track.
It appears to me they aren't expecting much of a crowd. Which is said since Indy is a great series.

Yeah I was being optimistic. From everything I hear & am observing, it seems like sales haven't been going well. Like when they changed the Muse venue from the Superstage to the Amphitheater. It's all about maximizing optics of the crowd size.

Also, with the shuttles only running on the west side, look for Bobby to go into full cheap-ass mode and not run the video boards out past T1. Might have to pay for a rental generator or two and some fuel, don'tcha know.

Edited March 20, 2019 by wood

[Anton Chigurh 3319]

In general, Indy races don’t draw huge crowds outside of the 500.

[elfenix 34221]

3 minutes ago, Anton Chigurh said:

In general, Indy races don’t draw huge crowds outside of the 500.

some of the midwest road courses seem pretty packed.  TMS looks dead on TV. 

[wood 11225]

7 minutes ago, elfenix said:

some of the midwest road courses seem pretty packed.  TMS looks dead on TV. 

Partly because of the massive front straight grandstand, but yeah, it's declined over the years. They used to have the 2nd biggest IndyCar crowd, next to Indy.

[wood 11225]

I was reading something the other day where iirc Epstein was saying they were gonna build the IndyCar crowd up over the years. LOL. Nope. That just doesn't happen. The first-year crowd, barring really bad weather or somesuch, will be the biggest one. And it especially doesn't happen at COTA.

[elfenix 34221]

14 minutes ago, wood said:

Partly because of the massive front straight grandstand, but yeah, it's declined over the years. They used to have the 2nd biggest IndyCar crowd, next to Indy.

i only tried to go to one race there.  and it was cancelled.

[wood 11225]

9 minutes ago, elfenix said:

i only tried to go to one race there.  and it was cancelled.

The one where people started blacking out in T1?

[elfenix 34221]

8 minutes ago, wood said:

The one where people started blacking out in T1?

yep.  firehawk 600.  thought someone had died when we got to fort worth and the message boards said it was cancelled.

[wood 11225]

1 minute ago, elfenix said:

yep.  firehawk 600.  thought someone had died when we got to fort worth and the message boards said it was cancelled.

Yeah that was a mess.

[faps 806]

So I was just thinking, those shitty little scooters all over Austin would actually be kinda useful at COTA. At least where its paved.

[wood 11225]

20 hours ago, wood said:

re: the crowd this weekend, personally, I'm expecting something like a MotoGP crowd, commensurate with similarly exaggerated attendance numbers by COTA afterward. They're using the same grandstand setup as with MotoGP - a little over 30K reserved seats. But just watch. Those stands will only be 60-75% full, around 20K people, and they'll still tell us there were 50-70K people out there for the race, and 130 -140K for the weekend, like they do with Moto GP.

Whoa ... Actually, if what I just heard is true, it's going to be a MUCH smaller crowd than even I thought ... as in, they'll be lucky to get those 32k seats even half full + some people scattered around in GA, etc.

[relapse98 634]

32 minutes ago, wood said:

Whoa ... Actually, if what I just heard is true, it's going to be a MUCH smaller crowd than even I thought ... as in, they'll be lucky to get those 32k seats even half full + some people scattered around in GA, etc.

Spill it!

 

It seems like the marketing for this has been approaching zero.

[Hawndoh 2386]

I'm not sure COTA is actually capable of marketing anything other than F1. I don't think they have actual people in place to do anything about it. 

 

[wood 11225]

1 hour ago, relapse98 said:

Spill it!

 

It seems like the marketing for this has been approaching zero.

I heard they'd only sold, let's say, less than 20k tickets as of a couple of days ago. I'm sure Bobby's giving away thousands of tickets though. He always does, to try & pad the numbers of 'tickets delivered', which is what they use when they present their numbers to the state, in place of 'tickets sold'. 

21 minutes ago, Hawndoh said:

I'm not sure COTA is actually capable of marketing anything other than F1. I don't think they have actual people in place to do anything about it. 

 

Same as it ever was. They hardly market/promote F1 & MotoGP, or WEC/IMSA, X Games, & V8SC when they were here. From what I've heard, that was one of the problems, among others, that those series had when them before they left.

Edited March 21, 2019 by wood

[wood 11225]

Stealth bomber flyby in honor of the stealth crowd ...