That aside, I enjoy doing the work, it would be nice to spread it out over about a week though, so I could do the social thing, I know everyone, but don't have time to chat with them. Over the weekend there were more than 50 participants, 23 in the Motel, a few in the caravan park, and some in the Chief Steward's front yard. About 30 had dinner on Friday and Saturday night, and 40 for the Presentation Dinner. 30 Officials and 27 competitors, and probably another 20 family members and day trippers turned out for the Supersprint on Sunday.
With a total budget of just under $11,000 a National Meet is a huge financial risk, and the figures have to be predicted without knowing how many people are going to turn up to the event, or how much sponsorship can be raised. It looks like we've broken about even this year, as usual. Just a few entries in the Sprint can make the difference between a profit and a loss. The Sprint alone costs about $4,000 to stage, so the major sponsors are critical to keeping the competitors costs down (there alone is $100 per person worth of costs).
Now some credits: Bob Lean and Phil McDonald were our CAMS Stewards for the weekend, luckily there was not a lot for them to do, but they gave up their time for us. Our Chief Scrutineer Denis Caplet from French Car Care at East Brisbane, did a good job for us. Michele Cottrell made the effort to stay at the Motel and be involved with the whole event, both competing and organising (and selling raffle tickets). Murray Cottrell (& co.) shot a video for us, we're compiling edited highlights for distribution.
At the Observation Run: John Tomelevage and Shirley got everyone away (with snacks) and then was kind enough to cop all the flack after the event.
At the Motorkhana: Paul Marwick, Roger Beckers & John Que marked out the courses, with some help from all the South Australians, Bert and Marie, Paul M. and Kevin Fleming did the timing and scoring. Bert and Marie made the new flags for us.
At the Supersprint: Paul Marwick and Kevin Fleming chased up paperwork and competitors for scrutineering, then handled all the timing (over 400 laps). Ken Bell was the gatekeeper all day at Lakeside. John Que did all the pit marshalling and grouped the cars for their runs. Bert and Marie Ollis kept everyone fed. The Qld Motor Racing Officials Association supplied all our flag marshals (about 15) for the day, The Qld Fire and Rescue Club supplied fire trucks and staff (about 12), and St Johns Ambulance supplied medical facilities. These organisations only decided to send large numbers of people because they had nothing else to do, without them, we did not have enough volunteers from our club to run the event, and would have had to use competitors to help.
Thanks also to those who helped, but didn't get a mention here.
The bottom line is, everything could have been done a bit better, but we averaged the mistakes, and we will do better next time. What we need is more of our own people to come to National Meets so we can get more of a feel for running them.
