TXE36

TWS? I heard it was snowing in North Houston this morning. Calling this off was a good call. Guys will need the time to get to Austin so they can at least enjoy the main event.

I've lived in TX for over 10 years and been driving for nearly 5 and I've never seen so many events canned because of winter weather. Even the weather forecasters here are having trouble as it seems since Oct that the weather forecasts have been pessimistic and every time they weren't pessimistic enough.

-Mike

Bull_D

my general policy is as follows….
don't criticize, offer constructive suggestions.
don't repeat bad outcomes, figure out solutions.
so, here are mine…..

we all know this game costs and has risk. if you can't absorb either, don't play.
from what i understand, there were some who signed up but had not paid.
(that is not the surrender flag in this instance, it is the b.s. flag) i'm sure they had some concern about making it due to weather, or what the weather would be. pay your money and take your chances. some of us have traveled long distances (15 hrs +), through dicey weather. only to have the original cancellation reach us an hour prior to arrival. this brings me to point 2….communication.

evidently messages put out thru clubregistration are delivered by carrier pigeon.
we received the "sorry, it is back on, weather will be great" message this morning at 9:15 am, 15 minutes after we were due at the track and 30 minutes after the second cancel decision was made? our suggestion was to push off the driver meeting til 11 am, to see if things would dry. if not, make the call to dump the day. (with full understanding that this would prohibit any refunds) if it did dry, we could pull off the 12-4 testing session. instead, the decision was made to cancel at 8:45 and that was that. it is now 10:15 and the roads all around the hotel are bone dry. yep, it is cold and breezy, but the track conditions would be totally suitable.

so, in a nutshell…..first off, thanks to VS for organizing, i was really looking forward to experiencing TWS. wag of the finger to those who signed up but did not pay, you pimped the organizer and potentially your fellow track buds. i believe we all understand that if you sign up, you pay and if for any reason other than the track being closed, you don't make it, you don't get a refund.
if you complain and try to get one, you are screwing your buds who did make it and the organizer. second, there needs to be a waaayy better communication method, especially with a small group as we had for this event. we all have phones, and text. send out group texts for updates when there is reason to suspect weather impacts, etc… my other travel mate has yet to receive ANY emails notifying him of any of the numerous changes, so clearly the clubreg email system isn't optimum.

TXE36

One should realize that this is a very odd winter mainly due to excessive sleet and ice. It is normal for it to be cold this time of year, but we usually don't have to deal with the slick stuff. Ice is much nastier than snow, TX drivers aren't experienced with it, and TX does not have the snow equipment like northern states.

The TWS calender is very full. PCA does events in Feb, March, May, Jun, Sept, Oct, and Dec and other organizations fill in the other weekends. The last PCA event canceled was Dec 2013.

For that event Saturday was an obvious right off. They tried for Sunday and it literally went to pieces at 10 PM Saturday night when 20 cars piled up on Hwy 6 in front of the track. I was one of the people who didn't check email Sunday morning and showed up at TWS to about a dozen other people who had done the same thing. Houston to TWS was fine. Anyplace north and west of TWS to TWS was not fine.

The last time before that an event got cancelled before that was 2008 when hurricane Ike went through. Three events canned in 5-6 years due to weather is not a bad track record.

I agree on the point about people not paying. These events are very rarely cancelled. I've been to plenty of cold and wet events at TWS as well as MSRH and I've been to COTA in the pouring rain.

All that said, if you are still in College Station and the roads look good, I'd get going to Austin as the weather tonight may be dicey tonight as well.

-Mike

surlynkid

Was clubregisration not requiring cc payment online? I don't think I have ever been able to sign up for anything at TWS without paying. It is thru PayPal. Was VS collecting instead?

I wish I could just bail on all those rain days, but it is what it is. You sign and pay and get whatever weather you get. Driving in the rain just makes you better.

txhokie4life

My first experience in the rain was in the middle of a race.

My general impressions was that I was pushing all over, until I wasn't,
then I was just loose as hell :-)

Mike

ShakeNBake

we still on for tomorrow?

consolidated

City is already shutting schools and offices tomorrow, wtf. Getting to the 7:15am drivers meeting will be your first session.

Vonschmidt

I have read all the comments here and understand some of you are frustrated. The weather this year is playing havoc with the track schedules it's also playing the same or worse with our construction schedule.

We did the best we could, I sat at TWS Wednesday evening and watched radar and conditions from 4 am till 8. There was simply no option but to cancel.

CR does a great job and I'm surprised at the delay some seemed to have had, I paid a registration of my own included myself in the emails and mine seemed to come through in under a minute. To those that got the messages delayed my apologies.

Thursday I sat at the gate from 6-8 am to personally answer any questions and did not see anyone other than the three brave souls from Florida and Alabama that came in Wednesday night so hopefully everyone got the message.

Finally CR does allow you to register but not pay as some people prefer to send a check. And I was committed to going ahead with the event no matter what but ice and snow were just to much, I was waiting for the locust to descend next.

Thanks to all for the support, I'm going to try and put together a Thursday afternoon series like the old Red Meat and Race fuel one. Open track advanced only Starting in April. Good times on a Great track.

paver

VonSchmidt, any chance we could drive TWS Monday? We would really like to get out there before we head back home.

Vonschmidt

Good morning sorry I was so cold from doing measuring for parking layout yesterday my brain froze and I did not even say goodby to you guys.

I think this would be possible, however before I call the track I would need 6 confirmed drivers at 200.00 each and I would cover the rest of the costs running from 10-2 or 11-3 in private testing format, If we had 10 with 6 on track at any point we could go 10-4 at the same rate.

So check around there if there are enough then I'll call the track buy our date and get Club registration to set up a new event. Everyone would need to sign up and pay on Saturday to make this work.

Its a great track and well worth running in fact I'll be testing there tomorrow.

My phone number is 936-433-1200

TXE36

Just a comment, I got several clubregistration messages while this thing played out. In the past I have had issues with CR messages being tossed into my email's automatic spam bucket so it may be worth checking there.

I'll see you tomorrow Charles at TWS. Forecast is sunny and 62. Today at TWS its freezing drizzle. Monday looks to be wet, but well above freezing. What a winter .

It looks like MVP at COTA today may be no fun, but Sat-Sun looks much better.

TWS Weather

COTA Weather

-Mike

85Gold

Charles

I would be in for Monday at TWS. I have $200 sitting in PayPal from Thursday cancel.

Peter

TXE36

Charles has this up for 2/10 at TWS on Clubregistration.net under American Porsche if you want to register.

-Mike

paver

Just signed up.