Hill Climb "feedback thread" (New Pics page 4)

Posting from my phone so this will be short and sweet

BLOODY EXCELLENT! Major large thanks to Ian for sorting out my entry last minute due to communication error on my part....you sir made my weekend as I finally got to give the Tigra a good hiding up the hill

Looking forward to next year!

Personally I'd say that anyone that doesn't want to be woken up by a loud car firing up first thing in the morning probably shouldn't be camping at a motorsport type event. I've been to many shows at santa pod and being woken up by noisy cars going to the track is part and parcel of it.


I wasn't at this year's show but a mate who isn't on the forum did the afternoon session (yellow mk2 escort sport), and he loved it. He wasn't aware that he needed to bring proof of insurance but I'd say that's more down to him not checking the track rules in advance. With him not being a member on here, putting stuff up wouldn't of helped anyway.

bstardchild I'm guessing that by the fact this has only hit three pages and many of the posts have been pretty complimentary that a) you don't need to beat up on yourself too much, and b) the day of ass in the chair comes closer!

Looks like you're doing a pretty good job to me

The last year we were at Prescott we had 600 cars in the show field and it was bursting at the seams... this year at Shelsley we had ~1,000. Also Bugatti Owners Club own Prescott and decided to take back some of the weekends to run their own things again, they may have changed this again though as there was some discussion around it. Additionally people seem to be unable to not drive like idiots through the local villages, which made our event unpopular locally (thanks I think mainly to claymore drifting round a roundabout in the nearest town from the reports we had). We very much enjoyed being at Prescott, the venue was nice, people good to deal with and it was smaller. If the volume of people that turned up at this or last years gathering arrived at Prescott though it would be a bit of a different story, the "club" area would take over all the internal space in the venue outside of the paddock, the management of which would cause delays and traffic jams... the retro parking would be in a steep (very bumpy) field next to the venue and not really part of the show, the day parking would be over the road, which would also mean moving the camping further away, making the whole thing even more difficult to run well.

At Shelsley the left hand side of the show field is smoother than the right, it is about the size of the show field at Prescott, and it is more "prepared" for the same reason, it gets used more. The right hand side of the field isn't often full... and the bit of the farthest side isn't used at all as far as we can tell, the price we pay for being the largest event I guess. We do have plans to make it better, this is only our second year at Shelsley, people forget the horror show (at least from an organising point of view) the first couple of years at Prescott were (club stands too small, layout all over the place, traders with no foot fall, retro parking disconnected from the show). I've got emails asking why we don't go back to Haynes on my other computer.

Of course everyone that was there comments about why don't we do Mallory again, who also conveniently forget how massively (massively) disorganised that was, how bad the roads in were and how disjointed the track action was.

We are well aware of the short comings of the various venues we've used, continue to use and are looking to use in the future. We are also always trying to improve on them, investing financially where we need to (stand pipe in the camping field at Shelsley was put in by us before last year's event so we could use it as a camping field, the entry gate we usesd mainly at Shelsley this year is new and put in by us so we didn't have massive traffic jams on the road outside for hours on end ... also I'm guessing everyone got lunch okay this year yeah?)

I'm not beating myself up but there were things I recognised could be done better on the day and I threw them up or starters - however I am very aware that the "best ideas" for improvements normally come from the suggestions of others rather than me over thinking it......

I'm taking a chair next year

One last thing to throw into the melting pot - it's an idea that got batted around between a few of us on Sunday evening and Monday during litter picking

Every year we normally get asked can we manage to organise it so we have room for some people to have single runs - during the first couple of years at a new venue we know it's hard enough getting sessions to flow properly without adding the complexity of single run participants - mainly due to the traffic movement - we almost got there at Prescott before we moved on.

Here's what we kicked around

Morning session 40 cars - 2 x groups of 20 (all pre-booked)
Running with each group of 20 would be 10 single run cars (we'd stack them in the approach road to the paddock) - they'd run last up the hill
As the cars came back down the hill after the session we'd let the pre-booked cars back into the Paddock and the single session cars could carry on and drive back round to the showfield/retro parking

Afternoon session would run the same way mix of pre-booked and single runs

Timings this year and improvements to the way we ran it would mean that it could be done - only fly in the ointment would be making sure drivers briefings were carried out effectively but even that is do-able during session turnaround

Don't take it personally I'm an ass to everyone, you aren't special.



Let me repeat this again, not for you, but for everyone. Retro Rides Gathering will NOT be running at Prescott again.



That having been said I'd like to do another event there to be honest, but it wouldn't be the size, type or scope of The Gathering. Then again I'd like to do other events all over the place, but I've got a day job, so it all has to be organised in my spare time (which I don't have much of).

In a front wheel drive Volvo with my wife with me, some one has been telling porky pies, I shall make sure not to come to a retro Rides Gathering again, I wouldn't want to bring the Forums name into disrepute.

Attempting to bring things back On Topic.

I'd just like to say, that I had a fantastic time at this year's Gathering, purely BECAUSE of the hill-climb (that's mainly because of the weather incidentally).

It was my first ever run up a hillclimb course, and was a great introduction.
I enjoyed it so much, I'm probably going to have a go, competitively, next year.

If I had any constructive criticism, it would be thus:

Slight lack of understanding as to where the drivers' briefing was to be held (we all found it though).
Announcements over the PA to help drivers get ready for their upcoming slots would have been handy.

Other than that - top marks. I had a wonderful, wonderful time. Thanks!

I think i can clearly say all Filpped Out Kustom cars are highly noticeable and recognisable.

This year both me and crazycruzer were spoken too shortly aftet our arrival for driving too fast on route, behind his wife in her diesel insignia i don't think so. The cars are so noticeable for both colour and noise they are easy targets.

We pride ourselves in the way we drive on the roads, if we want to go fast we go to tracks. One of the main reasons we enjoy the gathering, track action at an affordable cost (bring this all back to topic)

The team put on a good show, Ian puts alot of effort into operating the track and for that we thank him and those who we don't know which help him. I thought this year the track ran well, my only note of dissapointment was the rain but that's just how it goes.

Thank you and as you were.