Annual Dragstrip Day, Santa Pod *MR2 magazine coverage*

[Quigonjay]

sent this email to santa pod

"Hi, i am emailing you to voice my concerns over the way one of your recent rwyb days was run and what can only be descibed as dispicable behaviour by one of your officials. The date in question is the 7th october, the club i am a member of is IMOC (internatioanl MR2 Owners club) who had their 2nd annual drag strip day at your venue on this particular date. May i bring your attention to this thread on the IMOC website http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46374
in particular, page 5 of the thread. A time was posted on the thread of 12.1 seconds with a 60ft time of 1.1 seconds, this not possible with a car running approx 300hp on street tyres so the time was questioned, only when a video of the run was posted - http://media.putfile.com/Emmas-1205-Quarter
did it become clear what had happened and what reportedly was happeneing throughout the day. If you watch the video you can see that the girl (emma, pink mr2) in question over stages and instead of allowing emma to reverse you can clearly see the official place his leg in front of the timing beam - is this standard practice for officials at santa pod? Everybody feels cheated and the girl in question was particularly upset after finding out her time was not valid due to this unacceptable behaviour of the offical. I was not at the event myself nor am i a representative of IMOC but i can assure you that myself and other members of IMOC will be distributing this video to various car related forums that we are members of and imploring members to ban the use of santa pod for future events. Unless this issue can be resolved and the girl in question refunded her money we may even consider bringing it to the attention of the press.
thank you for your time
very angry IMOC member
Jay"

[tonigmr2]

Blimey mate, you are cross.

It was very poor though, very poor.
T

[Icsunonove]

Oh my God Jay!

And very poor is an understatement in my opinion. It's absolutely disgraceful. It's the thin end of the wedge. I mean how can you trust any time set at Santa Pod??

I was going to cross post a long post I made on the York Dragway Forum last year which was praising York and moaning about Santa Pod, but it looks like it's been moderated off!

EDIT: No it hasn't, it's been autopruned. I didn't think I'd written anything unfairly anyway. It was simply a statement of fact.

[tonigmr2]

T

[Icsunonove]

Here's why I won't go back to Santa Pod Here's a letter I prepared after my second visit to Santa Pod. There's nothing libellous here, this was my genuine experience. I don't think I ever sent this letter because I figured it would get lost in the deluge of complaints.

====================================

Dear Sir / Madam,

Re: Poor customer service

I have never attended any event at Santa Pod before this year. Some friends invited me to join them at the European finals September 2005 and I accepted. I paid £35 for a weekend ticket.

The weather on the Saturday was obviously beyond the control of yourselves but I was utterly astonished at the poor response after the light drizzle had abated. Bearing in mind the amount of spectators and the price of the tickets I was absolutely gobsmacked by the fact that there appeared to be only two tractors clearing water off the track and then a single turbine drier following on afterwards, creating a huge delay of two hours when then could have easily been some runs should you have been more organised..

Because I was soaked to the skin I decided to drive home on Saturday night instead of camping. But that was a big mistake. I set off early Sunday morning back to Santa Pod because the weather looked like it may be just ok. What an absolute shambles! I was stuck in a queue and it took two hours to get into Santa Pod. Directly behind me in the queue was an entertainer that you had employed to entertain the kids (a clown) who was constantly phoning you, so you should know what I am on about. There were six booths on entry, absolutely disgraceful, you need about 20!

But this anger pails into inconsignificance in context with my second visit to Santa Pod last weekend (Sunday). I attended the RWYB with the Toyota MR2Mk1Club. Entry was fine but I was amazed when I asked at the gate at how many entrants had already passed through the gate and was told about 500. I asked them what was the limit on entries and told there wasn’t one!

Having driven a large distance (nowhere near as far as some of other members) I was told that we couldn’t even sign on! Thanks to our organiser she arranged that we would get the front of the queue at 1.30pm (after lunch).

The rain stopped before lunchtime and the track was started to be dried. I went to look at the state of the track and was amazed to find no-one there as they were having their lunch! Jesus, there were loads of people waiting to even to sign on and the employees had gone for lunch, utterly amazing!

At sign on I asked whether it was worth it (i.e how many runs would I get?) and was told “don’t worry, it will quieten down, you will get loads of runs if you stay to the end”. I asked when the noise curfew was and hence when the event would end but the response amazed me. I was told the noise curfew was 9pm, but that the event MAY continue after the scheduled 5pm finish. I assumed wrongly that due to the amount of disgruntled customers that the event would carry on until 8.59pm.

I signed on and paid my £15 but wish I hadn’t. The queue was enormous and completely unpatrolled by any Santa Pod employee. I waited patiently in line as loads of people queue barged the queue without consequence. The queue stretched a huge distance beyond the fenced areas and hence people were just joining from the side.

And a consequence I had only 1 run during the whole afternoon. I was utterly astonished at the lack of respect for your customers and didn’t continue running after 5pm.

Please will you refund both my cost of entry and the £15 I paid to drive the strip.

Yours in utter disgust,

Tom

[tonigmr2]

Interesting quote from Andy Barnes of SumoPower

GTR's that run 7's run a 1.0 - 1.15 60fts fyi ( if you are interested )

And Tim Webster (owner of the Duke car that did those 8.8s)

60' times on the 2 8.8 runs were 1.518 and 1.544.

What amazes me is the lack of quality control - they should've noticed something wrong on printing out the ticket frankly.

T

[Quigonjay]

where did you find those quotes toni?
i guess we wont be using santa pod for future events anymore then?

[tonigmr2]

They are off the GTROC, I asked them they answered.

Fairly conclusive proof, if we needed it.

T

[Icsunonove]

i guess we wont be using santa pod for future events anymore then?

Up to Jo really. I know I won't be going if it's at Santsa Pod (not that I went this time ). Personally I'd prefer to go to York (run down, ramshackle, but friendly and professional)

8.8s run videos here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWXY5pnBtKo

http://videos.streetfire.net/video/3b73 ... 0cd960.htm

[Quigonjay]

lol, yorks cool, really friendly atmosphere, loved it when i was there
EDIT: and nobody walking on the track near the timing lights

[philster_d]

Shame its another few hours further up north tho

[tonigmr2]

Exactly, York is like 3.5 hours from me....

T

[Icsunonove]

Hang on, it's not up to me at all.

I was just saying that I like York and I'll never go to Santa Pod again (unless they get more organised).. Right I'll shut up now!



(PS Great time Phil, well done! And Jay let us know if you get a reply from SP - I won't hold me breath though )

[cartledge_uk]

maybe an article in MR2 only saying what the pod did etc and unproffessionalism etc will change there mind with stills from the video of the staging lights still on whilst the car had left and a certain marshal

[mr2mk1chick]

I was going to use Shakespeare county (for this event) but they were busy the dates i needed, hence pod.

My reservations with york is the poor track surface and track prep (not first hand experience though)

I like how well pod is prepped, and the same for Shakespeare.

However, for mr2's the prep is not too important unless the car is really powerful and struggling for traction.

My first choice for future will be shakespeare - as it is middle of country too.

[un1eash]

I werent happy with pod this year either. Only got 2 runs in and they lost both my time slips, they were getting cars numbers wrong all day, the only one they found was my slowest time so i have no idea what my best time was but i know it was quicker. Wasted money and time going down the strip.

Also they made you que in 3 lanes, but the left lane was moving half the speed of the other 2, people that started queuing 20-30 cars back were going past in the que.

Chris

[Quigonjay]

My reservations with york is the poor track surface and track prep (not first hand experience though)

I like how well pod is prepped, and the same for Shakespeare.

poor track surface? if you are reffering to the entry road to the track and the return road back to the pits i would agree, they are awful, but the track itself is as good as any, as is the prepping. As you say though, what difference does track prep make unless you are pushing x amount of power and using drag tyres anyway?

[Icsunonove]

Jay,

I would agree with Jo that the surface isn't brilliant. But it's not that bad. Remember that Xxxx posted his fastest ever legitimate time at York at 11.3s (?) and 126mph.

Having said which (as you will know) there are two launch positions on each track: One for slick shod cars and one for road tyred cars.

I found it nigh on impossible to match my 60' time at Santa Pod at York.

[mr2mk1chick]

My reservations with york is the poor track surface and track prep (not first hand experience though)

I like how well pod is prepped, and the same for Shakespeare.

poor track surface? if you are reffering to the entry road to the track and the return road back to the pits i would agree, they are awful, but the track itself is as good as any, as is the prepping. As you say though, what difference does track prep make unless you are pushing x amount of power and using drag tyres anyway?

I did say it's not first hand experrience, plus backed up the point that unless you have a lot of power it may not matter:

My reservations with york is the poor track surface and track prep (not first hand experience though)

However, for mr2's the prep is not too important unless the car is really powerful and struggling for traction.

but main choice is location for me if i have to run the event:

My first choice for future will be shakespeare - as it is middle of country too.

However, if someone else want to look after the event anyway, it would be one less for me to do.
i will be reluctant to go back to pod though, as they messed me around with the club stand too - we were bloomin miles away!!

[Quigonjay]

I found it nigh on impossible to match my 60' time at Santa Pod at York.

are you sure it was legitimate?