CTMX Battle for Ohio Round 2 July 15th-17th

The changes to the track I think worked very well. Created more passing areas. The turnout was great. A few less then past couple years but anytime we can get over 600 for one event in Ohio, it has to be considered a HUGE success. Got a little dry on Sunday but with 90 degrees and that many bikes, it is almost unpreventable. Hope the Chilitown group don't get upset with me for devaluing some insider info but I got to help out on Saturday by flagging the couch racing. It is unbelievable how well prepared that group is behind the scenes. Everyone is in constant contact with each other over the radios and when something comes up it is nearly instantly taken care of. They had a schedule prepared long before the event and were upset that they were 12 min behind. Before the end of racing they were back on schedule. Very cool to see this group work together.

Now the... well... my review.
I think I am officially off the transponder bandwagon. While to do believe it is the way it should be or will be in the future, im just not sure the e-score group is to the level of the Chili group. I was befuddled that a technology company (e-score) is still reliant on a lady keying in the transponder number into her computer and then your info. Why not a barcode reader on the units and a simple card reader that automatically populates the same info that is already on your AMA card? For me, I was in line for almost 15 minuets and only had 3 people in line in front of me. NO way it should take that long. The instant scoring results are great but I did notice someone forgot to set-up the unit for the 6 laps on the A class. Lap times are nice but when you are only running 4 laps, is it really that useful? Not to mention the first lap does not count so you are really only getting 3 laps of data per moto. If it were an rfid system where you are only paying a couple bucks for a sticker then fine, but for 20 bucks I do want more info. Just my opinion.
The ambulance crew is not good. SLOW or no response to downed riders. I will leave that where it is.
We STILL don't need the AMA.
Too many classes, cut D, 30+C, 2-joke , all the "open" classes and just make college and 25+ one class.
oh, and more laps. :)

Overall, another great event for Ohio.
Cant wait for the October race so I can win another chili trophy.
 
We had a great time outside of the hour and a half that I stood in the PRE-REGISTRATION LINE! How in the hell does that happen. We stood there and watched people make it thru both transponder and traditional signup lines in a combined 30 minutes or less (which is borderline ridiculous).

It was a nice gesture for CTMX to give us a free practice pass for the next event but I'd rather have that hour and a half of my life back. No pre-registration for me next time!
 
Woody said:
We had a great time outside of the hour and a half that I stood in the PRE-REGISTRATION LINE! How in the hell does that happen. We stood there and watched people make it thru both transponder and traditional signup lines in a combined 30 minutes or less (which is borderline ridiculous).

It was a nice gesture for CTMX to give us a free practice pass for the next event but I'd rather have that hour and a half of my life back. No pre-registration for me next time!
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I forgot about the preregister line, it did take longer than if, I just were to show up and signup. I don't know why because the girl that was doing the preregistration seemed to know what she was doing and was efficient. That part of the program could use a little attention.
 
john lilly said:
I forgot about the preregister line, it did take longer than if, I just were to show up and signup. I don't know why because the girl that was doing the preregistration seemed to know what she was doing and was efficient. That part of the program could use a little attention.
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I seemed like every group in front of me had 2-3 kids and even though they were AMA/OMA member, almost none of them had physical cards in hand and it took forever for the poor girl to look up all their info. it took me maybe 90 seconds if you actually had your cards.

Seems like last year you had to enter your membership info online and it was a non-issue when you got to the track?
 
Showed up at 7:30 Saturday morning. Straight to sign-up. Matthew jumped in the pre-registration line, I got in the transponder line. JO was in transponder line right behind me. I also agree, most races we go to that require transponders, such as Daytona, deposit is placed on Credit Card and you pay your $20 for transponder in cash, not $25.

Completed that line and jumped in Pre-Registration line for me and Matthew. JO got in the longer day of registration line. Pre-registration did not move! Horrible. Watched JO go through the line and done and gone and I still stood at almost the same point. One of the registration girls came out, and when I asked about missing practice, and how slow the line was moving, her response....."you could have been here at 7:00am, we had no line". Bad response.....THAT IS WHY I PRE-REGISTERED, SO I COULD GET THOUGH QUICKLY! So I was pissed at that point. She gave us a free practice so we could get in another practice since we were gonna miss our practice. When at the window, they told me I was going to have to go through the kiosk system to then sign up for my free extra practice classes. I told the lady that was crazy, she had all my info, and I signed all the waivers, just give me two more class stickers. They finally used some common sense and gave them to me. If they had not given us a free practice, then we would have only got 1 practice for $25 since they only made it through twice. I was pretty frustrated with the whole situation. I will apologize to the girl at the window for being an ass, but the other girl got me pretty pissed.

Racing was great as always. Track changes were great. The humps out of the corners were MUCH better. Lots of passing in the section next to the start now. Watering.......Needs to be done a little at a time. Maybe work a couple sections at a time.......in between motos. My son was in moto 1. Second motos of schoolboy was like racing a mud race. Water where you can, but don't hit jumps as hard so that it is not an accident waiting to happen. Overall the races were fine.

I think the Battle series has really out grown the 4 wheelers. You don't have enough time to run practice on Saturday with bike and 4 wheelers, and race them that same day. Then race bikes they next day. The event is just too big. And why have OMA gate fees gone to $15? BC Charged that for their last race and it was just a super series race.

Entry....$90 (me, wife, 2 kids, friends kid, and grandpa)
Practice $50
Races $75 (3 classes)
Transponders $50
Gas $100
Track Food $40

Weekend probably cost me $405 and I did not camp and slept in my own bed.
 
john lilly said:
I forgot about the preregister line, it did take longer than if, I just were to show up and signup. I don't know why because the girl that was doing the preregistration seemed to know what she was doing and was efficient. That part of the program could use a little attention.
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I am surprised you remember anything...ha ha
 
FWIW....I pre-registered.
Arrived Friday, zipped up there, walked right up to the window. Handed them my transponder and two membership cards, signed a couple forms, got my band and stickers, and was on my way in 5 minutes.

I slept till about 9:15am Saturday, brushed my teeth, put my gear on, and headed to staging....:p
 
John250 said:
Showed up at 7:30 Saturday morning. Straight to sign-up. Matthew jumped in the pre-registration line, I got in the transponder line. JO was in transponder line right behind me. I also agree, most races we go to that require transponders, such as Daytona, deposit is placed on Credit Card and you pay your $20 for transponder in cash, not $25.

Completed that line and jumped in Pre-Registration line for me and Matthew. JO got in the longer day of registration line. Pre-registration did not move! Horrible. Watched JO go through the line and done and gone and I still stood at almost the same point. One of the registration girls came out, and when I asked about missing practice, and how slow the line was moving, her response....."you could have been here at 7:00am, we had no line". Bad response.....THAT IS WHY I PRE-REGISTERED, SO I COULD GET THOUGH QUICKLY! So I was pissed at that point. She gave us a free practice so we could get in another practice since we were gonna miss our practice. When at the window, they told me I was going to have to go through the kiosk system to then sign up for my free extra practice classes. I told the lady that was crazy, she had all my info, and I signed all the waivers, just give me two more class stickers. They finally used some common sense and gave them to me. If they had not given us a free practice, then we would have only got 1 practice for $25 since they only made it through twice. I was pretty frustrated with the whole situation. I will apologize to the girl at the window for being an ass, but the other girl got me pretty pissed.

Racing was great as always. Track changes were great. The humps out of the corners were MUCH better. Lots of passing in the section next to the start now. Watering.......Needs to be done a little at a time. Maybe work a couple sections at a time.......in between motos. My son was in moto 1. Second motos of schoolboy was like racing a mud race. Water where you can, but don't hit jumps as hard so that it is not an accident waiting to happen. Overall the races were fine.

I think the Battle series has really out grown the 4 wheelers. You don't have enough time to run practice on Saturday with bike and 4 wheelers, and race them that same day. Then race bikes they next day. The event is just too big. And why have OMA gate fees gone to $15? BC Charged that for their last race and it was just a super series race.

Entry....$90 (me, wife, 2 kids, friends kid, and grandpa)
Practice $50
Races $75 (3 classes)
Transponders $50
Gas $100
Track Food $40

Weekend probably cost me $405 and I did not camp and slept in my own bed.
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15 to get into a local race,50 bucks to practice, and 50 bucks for a transponder for a 4 laps race on a dusty ass track?? f**k that. Exactly why we didn't go. Had a blast at 62 though!!
 
nitrofish said:
The announcing was sub standard at best.
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This was the one thing I noticed above all this year that was lacking. We couldnt get reception on the advertised radio station and the announcer did a poor job of letting us know what races were on the track/line. Near the end of sunday it started getting better but still never announced what moto number it was. There was a large group of us and it took all of us working together to figure it out. After the motos were complete sunday the most god awful loud crackling music played until we could get out though, nice touch!


My son LOVED the track, I didnt get to participate this year however so like NItro I cant comment. I can say we didnt get the "event" feeling like past races but it certainly wasnt a deal breaker. The pits, grounds, track and amenities were all top notch as usual. I rode around in a borrowed Mule so spectating was easy for me. Speaking of, I think I only saw two pit vehicle drivers ABOVE the state of Ohio driving age.

The days seemed to go smoothly and my son had a lot of great racing all weekend. We will be back for the halloween race. Hopeully I will be racing that event!

The biggest complaint I have is the fact I didnt get to see and talk to all my friends this weekend, just couldnt get around to all of it.
 
premix said:
15 to get into a local race,50 bucks to practice, and 50 bucks for a transponder for a 4 laps race on a dusty ass track?? f**k that. Exactly why we didn't go. Had a blast at 62 though!!
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Dont get banned from this track too!!

50 for a transponder?????
 
Not sure how you guys did not get the big event feel??? Man, the first moto was schoolboy with 36 kids, half of which were on 125. The sound of that many bikes going into the first turn is enough to get me the big event feel (yes. It would be better if the AMA would get off there ass and make the schoolboy class a 125 only class).
What do you expect for the "feel"? And I am serious. What were you missing? Wait, I know. A chili cook off. I'm with you there.
Did I miss something with the dust you guys are talking about? Yes I seen dust for the first time ever at Chilitown but it was not NEAR as bad as I have seen at every race this year. But this is also the first time in 3 years that it did not rain during the race weekend.
Man it would be great to have about 15 races a year like that in Ohio.
 
BriarcliffMx said:
It will never happen, we cant even grow a 3 race series to 5. Which was the plan, but if the racers will not support, then I guess their stuck with 3 racers or less at this point. Local races are whats expected, then maybe we should cut back and give good and cheap local races. We will call it a throwback series, wood plaques that we can get for $4-5 by the semi load. No Friday entry, no signup on Saturday, cant afford the people or the extra big dumpster for the additional camping. The tracks will have massive weeds growing all over the place, break out the wood snow fence! Trash cans with garbage from the last race. And the icing on the cake, we will borrow run down junk equipment instead of maintaining decent stuff, so you can expect at least 1 hour equipment delay on Sunday. Why stop there, lets get a renta squad where it leaves and the races stop till it comes back. I have been racing awhile, I could come up with more to make the throwback series real authentic.....real authentic. I have the perfect series name: "The Cheap Bastard Series", sponsored by Spam and Dr. Thunder Soda........
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Call it the I'm much better at making my self sound like a overbearing ass than trying to work with my customers series! Your bullshit attitude is why people are traveling farther away. I made the 4 hour trip to your king of the cliff race. It was a good time but I've been to bigger and better locals in NY. Get over yourself and check out some other series.
 
I have never actually posted on Pitracer, however today is the day for my debut. I would like to first off thank everyone who came to our event. Our crew works long, hard hours to prepare for the race weekend. I would only like to address the issues at registration because that is where I spend my time during the weekend. We had several "minor" issues that added time to our normally fluent lines at registration. To begin with, when pre-registration opened online there was an issue with the AMA database not being up and running, so after several failed attempts of people pre-registering and actually talking to AMA directly, they had informed me that they did not have a projected time as to when the database would be back up and running. At this point I had to make a decision, shut pre-reg down or allow registration to happen without requiring the memberships input. I decided to keep pre-reg open because it helps tremendously with lines during the event weekend. So what actually happened that made that line go slower than normal? I will tell you 1) The AMA database link to my knowledge was out of commission and we were not able to quickly verify memberships as in the past. There have been "new" cards issued that are not formatted to be read by kiosk (you may want to contact the AMA if you want to about the issue), In addition to that, because of the AMA database link issue when we imported the entries into the event it deleted the memberships that we would have normally had stored in there already for you. This is why most of your memberships showed up as expired in our database and had to be fixed. 2) Because the pre-entries came in with no memberships attached, EVERY SINGLE person had to be double checked, looked up and verified, and manually re-entered into the computer before we could move on through the kiosks. It isn't a timely process but when you add it to the mix it has an impact. The AMA helped us by sending us a tablet that had current memberships on it, but only current as of like 2 weeks ago so anyone purchasing in that "grey" time frame had to actually show proof of purchase in another way, which was frustrating to all. 3) The pre-registration line allows you to check in to the ENTIRE event upon arrival, you also received $15 Rocky Mountain card for doing so that will be mailed to you directly just FYI. When you check in at registration you receive everything you need to get racing, Saturday open practice bands, Sunday race stickers and all waivers and such are signed at this time, etc. 4) There was a large group of people that showed up at once and for whatever reasons they had, none bad, but please realize that every person wants through as quickly as possible and I did my best to make that happen. I cannot simply hand out practice bands and allow riders to be on the track without signing the appropriate paperwork, it is a liability to myself, our track, etc. Now, why did the pre-reg line move slower than that those others lines you speak of on Sat morning? As I mentioned, at the pre-reg line you check in for the entire event, most times signing paperwork for both practice and racing, double checking bike numbers, verifying AMA/OMA memberships, tagging a transponder number, and if needed, minor releases as well. On Saturday morning I had 3 kiosks set up to register for PRACTICE ONLY. The only thing you would need to do in any of the three working lines, at that time would be to go through one of the kiosks, select practice group, go to window to sign, get band and pay and BAM your done, you come back at a later time and register to race if you like. It was simply a faster process because those lines were requiring less info at the time,and we were utilizing 3 workable stations. I assure you, I felt awful for those of you who had to stand in line, surely you really don't think that the goal was to upset anyone? Absolutely not. It is NEVER a goal at CTMX to have people leave any portion of the event disappointed or frustrated. I do assure you that I was doing everything I could to make the process quicker and less frustrating to those who were waiting. It was mentioned above that I had said "you should have been here at 7, there was no line". That I would like to address as well, again I apologize that you were frustrated with the whole process, but I assure that is not how I said that statement. I pride myself on trying to always keep a "professional style" communication with any person who enters the track, even when I am frustrated as well, and I have also coached my office staff to do the same. I repeatedly apologized and tried to help combat the situation giving more than a few people free practice session to use at their disposal at this race or in the future events, in return for their patience in the line. I also tried to explain about the AMA issue with pre-entries, and the work on the computer that had to be done, and how the process was happening. I also took several additional steps to try to combat the pre-reg issue. Not only was I giving the passes, I was explaining, I sent additional girls out with clip boards to help get paperwork filled out before you were at the window, I had a girl inside helping to prepare the bands and stickers as you came to the window, and I also ended up opening a second pre-reg line to help get riders through the process quicker.
I absolutely am not looking to start a discussion or upset anyone, I will not engage in any type of argument about this subject, I just simply wanted to try to explain all that was going on behind the scenes so that you may understand more. I will say again that I do apologize for the longer wait times in the Saturday morning line,and for anyone's frustrations, and I hope that situation didn't have a negative impact on your entire experience at the track this past weekend. As a promoter, I work on the office/registration/scoring side of the event, and I can tell you all that we are all ALWAYS reflecting on issues and trying to better ourselves and the overall experience for anyone who attends, I think if you look back and compare you would realize that we have really never had a wait time like that before in registration. I even changed the set up that day, seeing that the flow of the kiosks was creating chaos in front of the trailer, we made the decision to put them to the side to help the registration process smoother. As for the transponder issues, if you had any, I will only say that we hire escore to do the event but they are their own entity and handle all transponder issues at the track. Moving on, I hope that anyone who has been to chillitown can appreciate the amount of work and planning that goes into the event, and realizes just how much our staff cares about every detail. There are issues and road blocks at every event and we try to find the best solutions to keep things running smoothly. We work to better ourselves every single time. Thank you again for attending the event, and I hope to see you all back in October with some delicious chilli recipes, and some sweet halloween costumes/decorations........and bikes...bring your bikes too because the racing is great as well! Cya in October!
 
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