After extensive communication with Al Corda, the owner of Rock Falls Raceway, we were informed that the structure of our event does not comply with their track rental agreement in regards to charging people to attend a private event. As such we are not in a position to rent the track without charging said fees and have been forced to cancel the event.
I want to assure you that we did everything in our power to avoid having to cancel the event we all worked so hard to organize. Throughout my conversation with Al I stressed the power of the internet and online communities in regards to attendance and interest in the event. I pointed out the vast number of new potential customers that would be attending and conveyed to him the number of people that had never heard of Rock Falls Raceway. I conveyed the number of forums that were embracing this event as their own and my opinion regarding the tremendous marketing value such an event would have for Rock Falls Raceway. I even offered to cover the remainder of the fees for any amount of cars less than 150 as we were very confident in regards to attendance, but to no avail.
For those that are interested in the position of Rock Falls Raceway regarding this event I will do my best to explain Al’s thoughts. The major reason for his decision is his feeling that our event would adversely affect attendance of his future events like the sport compact day on July 28th. I tried my best to explain that the majority of those attending our event would either still attend the event on the 28th or would never have attended at all. I feel that our event would have had great success based upon the support of local forums and our customer base, not simply because it was another race day at Rock Falls. He also conveyed his dismay with the fact that this conversation occurred at the very last minute, which is based on a simple misunderstanding regarding the terms of the rental which was not realize until recently. He feels that the event was not appropriately advertised and that Rock Falls would not have control over the event and as such their reputation could be marred based on lack of attendance. I once again stressed the power of the internet as well as the marketing and advertising ourselves and the supporting forums had done for the event, but to no avail. Our conversation ended when Al had decided that the risks to his reputation and future events were greater than the marketing benefits of our event.
In a final effort I recommended that we change the structure of the event so that Rock Falls Raceway would collect and charge for attending, but based upon the above states reasons this was not a possibility.
I would like to personally apologize to the forums and individuals that were looking forward to attending this event, and I urge you to visit the following link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/mappg/petition.html
The purpose of this petition is to convey to Rock Falls Raceway to power of the internet and online automotive communities. Perhaps we can persuade Al to reconsider if we can show him enough interest in the event.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and again I am very sorry it came to this.
Chris Carey
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