Given my pre-waterfest site recon visit I came to WF this year with no great expectations since I already knew certain things would be a problem for certain people. I have been laughing my Butt off for the last few days when reading all the Vortex posts about WF. My pre-waterfest posts on Vortex were labeled by some people as "downers" and by others as being "realistic". Well, it seems that "realistic" was correct in the end.
Sunday morning I had the Chief Judge come up to me and pointed to the auto-x track and said "That is where the auto-x track is, Charlie". (I had been asking on Vortex for FOUR MONTHS where it would be, size etc.) Given the size and layout of the track it is no wonder they never answered that question. My auto-x friends were sooooo glad they didn't come to WF given the track they had this year. Show car judging had good judges and not so good judges depending on the class you were in. Some classes very large (30-40) and others were small (3 or less). The quality of some of the show cars was top-notch. As the day wore on it became difficult to tell with all the dust on everything. They used a tank truck to wet down the ground in certain areas to keep the dust down. I suggested to some WF officials that the tank truck could be used for a wet T-Shirt/Body contest <grin> but they didn't think much of the idea. Glad they had more food vendors and didn't run out of soda/water this year. Prices were typical for car show events so I don't know WTF people were B&Ming about. Taking 1.5 to 2 HOURS to get out of the facility after the show (ie to the end of the access road) was a bummer for many people, especially those with long rides home. Part of my group left earlier than we did and it took them 1.5 hours to get out. My part of our group left after the line died down and it took us 9 MINUTES to get to the end of the access road (RT 46). Funny part was, the first part of our group ended up less than 30 minutes ahead of us even though they left 1.5 hours ahead of us and both of us ran about the same speed once we got to RT46. IMHO continueing to hold WF at this location is simply a Disaster waiting to happen. At some point in time in the future it will rain before or during a WF show. All that dusty dirt will turn to mud. Run 1000 to 2000 VDubs over that area and things will get VERY DIRTY and VERY, VERY UGLY. Hell, there will not be enought tow trucks in surrounding states to get all the VDubs out of the mud for a day or two. Many, many of the Dubs I saw at WF could not be simply pushed out of the mud no matter how many people did the pushing. Anyone think of what would have happened if there had been a brush fire during WF at the facility? The facility admitted that there was a shortage of water to keep the dust down. The one fire truck could not have handled such an event by itself and even with help (oh yeah, how would more fire trucks gotten into the track given the number of dubs using the road to get into/out of the track all day) would have had an EXTREMELY LIMITED water supply. How would have all those VDubs gotten out of the area quickly in the event of a fire? Given the dry conditions, lowered VDubs with hot exhausts, people cooking food on grills and just people smoking there were plenty of potential sources for a brush fire to start. This was the first WF in a couple of years that seemed more organized (in some respects). I did laugh my butt off that it did take 2.5+ hours to get the show cars, etc in the gate (6:30 to 9am) instead of the one hour alotted in the schedule (7:30 to 8:30 am). Judging started around 10am which was earlier than I expected but later than scheduled. The awards ceremony also started earlier than I expected (2:45pm) but later than scheduled. Fortunate for RP the event ended early. Had it ended later + 1.5 to 2 hours to get out + long drives, many more people would be calling for a change of venue for WF '02 than already are. In summary, would I go again.... maybe... Would I go again with even the slighest chance of rain, NFW. I wonder what would happen it they held WF and nobody showed up??? Continue to hold it at Island Dragway and it rains and maybe we will see. Charlie _____________ List Sponsor: http://www.netsville.com To remove yourself from this list, send mail to [email protected] with 'unsubscribe a2_16v' in the body of your message See us on the web at http://www.a2-16v.com Visit the 16V Homepage at http://www.gti16v.org
