Auto Meter Northern Class Nationals - weather watch

[Joe Toller]

Originally Posted by Michael Beard

We have already been over this, not only in the event planning thread over a year ago, but also this week in the "what's your best guess?" thread at http://classracer.com/classforum/showthread.php?t=52742

Long-range forecasts are not only terribly inaccurate, even worse, they are destructive. Just starting this thread is likely to lose 20+ cars. We've been doing event promotion for a number of years now, and successfully dealt with any number of weather conditions. The worst problem is NOT the actual weather, but the forecast.

Last year, I studied three different weather services prior to our events, charting not only their long-range forecasts, but also noting HOW those forecasts changed from day to day, how the services compared to each other, and how accurate the original long-range forecast was compared actual race day conditions. They not only don't agree with each other, they don't agree with themselves over time. In short: they're garbage. It's entertainment. They need something to talk about. Forecasts are "ok" about 3 days out, but I've even experienced them being consistently, completely wrong at 3-hour intervals for three straight days!

Last year, for our $20K Doorslammer event, the so-called weather forecasters called for 60% chance of rain all day and all night for that Friday. It rained for 5 minutes all day. We lost an entire day because both we and our racers let them the "experts" talk us out it. BUT, we adjusted our schedule and we ran every race we had on the flyer and paid every dime, running a $5K, $20K, $5K plus a 64-car shootout in two days.

Just over a month ago at Virginia Motorsports Park, we dealt with below freezing temperatures Thursday night into Friday morning. We adapted, and finished a complete race with 324 entries on Friday. On Saturday, we had 399 entries, ran a time shot, a round of buybacks (bracket race, y'know), and ran the first final by 9:30pm. We know how to run a race.

Folks, we have three days to run two classes. We're fine. We are proactive, we plan, and we work hard. We RACE. We run the show, not the "weather entertainment" specialists on TV.

Hell yeah! Racing needs more promoters like you!