Lack of info less exciting

[bam2002]

I am pointing out something that I have noticed between Chump and Lemons. I am not trying to start anything. I am just pointing out something that I have observed, please let me know if I am mis informed.

Its now 3 days later and the post and photos are minimal to none. A few team have shared their Blogs, but thats it. The FB site is empty. There is more discussion about this race over on the Lemons board than here.

If I were promoting this event I think I would have photos up within 48 hours and try to keep the hype and excitement going. Every one that drove is saying they had a great time, but there is nothing to get those of us that were not there updated and-or excited. Its a black hole, we had a good time see ya.

IMHO there seems to be alot more sharing and photos quicker with the "other" race. If you want to promote the Chump event then get some one to really cover the event and get the info out quickly. If not those of us with ADD will be doing something else by next weekend and file this to come back to when we are bored.

[Guest Methius]

I am pointing out something that I have noticed between Chump and Lemons. I am not trying to start anything. I am just pointing out something that I have observed, please let me know if I am mis informed.

Its now 3 days later and the post and photos are minimal to none. A few team have shared their Blogs, but thats it. The FB site is empty. There is more discussion about this race over on the Lemons board than here.

If I were promoting this event I think I would have photos up within 48 hours and try to keep the hype and excitement going. Every one that drove is saying they had a great time, but there is nothing to get those of us that were not there updated and-or excited. Its a black hole, we had a good time see ya.

IMHO there seems to be alot more sharing and photos quicker with the "other" race. If you want to promote the Chump event then get some one to really cover the event and get the info out quickly. If not those of us with ADD will be doing something else by next weekend and file this to come back to when we are bored.

1st point: There were only 25 teams at Infineon vs. 160 at the last Thunderhill Lemons event. Less teams = less pictures = Less coverage

2nd point: Jay has multiple paid employees that post on the forums and post pictures of the events. The VAST majority of ChumpCar staff is volunteer, so we don't have a ton of time outside of our normal jobs to do the kind of coverage we would like to.

3rd point: I thought for the small amount of teams that participated, the coverage was pretty good. Krider did MULTIPLE write ups in speedsportlife.com and at least 3 blogs that I can remember have posted their write-ups. We even have in-car video posted on our blog for others to watch.

4th point: Any idea how long it takes to process 28 hours of video into something worth watching?? (14 hour race, 2 computers recording 2 cameras each)

5th point: We (as a start-up) do not have the luxury of paying someone to cover our races. this was the SECOND race in ChumpCar history and with 24 paying customers.. we didn't exactly make a killing.

6th point: Were here to race... some of us have the ability to blog, share pictures, etc. etc. some of us don't. If you want to race, sign up for a ChumpCar event. People need to give us TIME to get big... Lemons has been around for 4 years... we've been running races for 3 months.

[Guest dogtired]

maybe it's just the Intra-web, but when you guys respond to certain posts, sometimes I think there is a flair of defensive angst in the message.

i get it, but maybe some of this needs to roll off your backs a little easier. i'm pretty sure bam didn't mean anything by his comments other than a suggestion that ya'll need to get your brand in front of more people.

things are seriously different on this coast i believe from what ya'll are accustomed to out there. for one i believe we are less jaded than the left coasters you have been racing with all these years.

ya'll have scheduled some awesome tracks on the east coast. i would like to see your series take hold here, as do many of my friends.

lighten up is all i'm saying.

[dogtired]

and now i'm official. looking forward to VIR.

[Guest Methius]

lighten up is all i'm saying.

yer right, I think some of us just get tired of answering the "how come you aren't like the other guys" questions.

[chisek]

I am just pointing out something that I have observed, please let me know if I am mis informed.

Its now 3 days later and the post and photos are minimal to none.

I hear what you're saying. I have to admit, I too wish that there were lots of video and stories to entertain me during the workday. I need something to hold me over until March!

On the other hand, Matt is correct. There aren't as many teams to source video and pictures from. Plus I know from experience that it takes a while to process and post video (it took me over a month for my last race) when life is there waiting for you on Monday morning.

This is definately something that I would consider a participant issue, and not so much ChumpCar. Yes, perhaps someday ChumpCar can pay a professional photographer at each race, but for right now that job belongs to us racers. And you're right, for some reason there just hasn't been a lot of pictures and videos. All I can do is make sure my team takes plenty for you West coasters to enjoy when it's my turn to race!

And "dogtired", you're right. Some of us do need to lighten up and just let the occasional negative comment roll off. I'm definately guilty of being defensive at times, but I'm getting better at not letting it bother me. I'm here to race and so are all of you!

[chisek]

and now i'm official. looking forward to VIR.

Sweet! More traffic for my Camaro to avoid!

Welcome to the forum (officially), and we'll see you at VIR!

[davidmarden]

4th point: Any idea how long it takes to process 28 hours of video into something worth watching?? (14 hour race, 2 computers recording 2 cameras each)

I still don't have my video from portland

[parid]

If someone at ChumpCar wanted to give me web hosting, I have video from Portland and Infineon but vimeo and youtube both have restrictive upload policies. I'm a terrible video editor but if I had some place to put raw stuff, its better than nothing.

bam2002 you make a great point. It would be helpful to maybe give the community a kick here.

I'd also encourage people to bring their stories back "home" to other forums. After portland I posted a good 3 or 4 threads on other boards just to get the word out.

[bam2002]

I am not saying One race is better than the other. I am really looking forward to the Chump race here in Fl. Each event has its own way of doing things, hence strong and weak points.

What was pointing out was that If you choose to self promote the events. Then get a time laps camera in the Tech area so we can see all the cars. Dont edit it just post it up to you tube over the weekend. This way we see the cars and themes. I dont feel that there is such thing as To much data. At CMP last year they broadcast the race live on the Web. I would think there are some Web based car geeks that would love to see a race for free in exchange for videotaping it.

I also know the other race has a little bit of a head start- re lessons learned. The Judges now put their own cameras on select team cars to get photos and video feed. So the organizers have their own images to use on web sites like Jalopnik etc.

I was at CMP to race. Yet with only 4 drivers . (Also there wasnt a captain that didnt race) we were able to take 500 photos and 2 videos. We even posted up to our facebook site the end of each day. I agree the volume of photos from 100 teams VS 40 will be less. But like I said it seemed lacking. Not that is is the teams responsibility to take photos, but a group effort would make it easier for all parties.

Last of all RE volunteers. I run the BMW CCA auto X events for Tampa, we are all volunteers so I know how difficult it can be to get all the bases covered. What I have done to make sure we get photos is to find a guy that is a photographer and likes to Auto X. I wave his entry fee and dont assign him to a run group. So he can go take some photos, drive a few runs and then take more picts. It seems to work very well. All I am suggesting is that maybe doing something creative like this would solve the issue.

Again . not flaming. Not saying any one is doing any thing wrong. I was pointing out my perception on the event. If its something everyone would like to work to fix then great. If not then I can forsee the Chump series taking a little longer to get off the ground due to lack of advertising- coverage.

[Guest AWiley1953]

Another disadvantage (for now) that Chumpcar has is that the other series has a tie in with a national motorsports magazine. Per the publisher, that magazine is taking a wait and see atitude. Hopefully they will see that we are here to stay and start publishing articles.

[chisek]

get a time laps camera in the Tech area so we can see all the cars. Dont edit it just post it up to you tube over the weekend. This way we see the cars and themes. I dont feel that there is such thing as To much data. At CMP last year they broadcast the race live on the Web. I would think there are some Web based car geeks that would love to see a race for free in exchange for videotaping it.

I've been meaning to get a hold of the guys who did the live webcast at CMP last Fall. I thought it was a great idea. I didn't realize that my wife was watching from home until she called me:

"Are you guys OK?!"

"Yeah, why?"

"I saw the accident! That looked pretty bad!"

"How'd you see the wreck???"

"I'm watching a live webcast."

Mind you this call comes in pretty much before I've even figured out what had happened on the track. So yeah, I'd love to get those guys out for the Rockingham and VIR races (they're NC boys)!

I figure I'll post some pictures and rough video to the forum throughout the weekend. Gotta let y'all know just how much much fun we're having. And how can we forget - there will be a "Jetta vs. Camaro" update to read about often!

[chisek]

Per the publisher, that magazine is taking a wait and see atitude.

I wonder what they're waiting to see? To see if people actually like to race cars or not?

[Guest Methius]

I would think there are some Web based car geeks that would love to see a race for free in exchange for videotaping it.

I do networking for a living... I'm working on a way to stream video from our car via 900mhz wireless. Work in progress

[parid]

I do networking for a living... I'm working on a way to stream video from our car via 900mhz wireless. Work in progress

Pfft 900mhz is for chumps. Ohh wai...

We could easily put up an axis cam somewhere as long as we got a nice fat internet pipe to work with. We could try to host it from some other site with more bandwith too.

Depending on the cell coverage, we could try the same thing with sprint/verizon cell modems.

[parid]

I know verizon has a new "4G" security camera solution they are showing around that works off their wireless network. Maybe they would be interested in trading services for marketing opertunities? It would be an impresive demo for their service if we were out at some track in the boonies and they were feeding live video to the internet and other compedators phone's weren't even able to make phone calls. The product isn't totaly ready for prime time yet but it might be soon.

Either way, I'm shipping John down a bunch of wireless gear for Streets of Willows. That should hopefully get living timing out to everyone at that event.

Another idea was brought up yesterday. What about some kind of blog arrigator? A lot of the teams on here have build blogs or team blogs with rss feeds. Could we create a master RSS feed for people to plug into? Maybe link it into a kind of "stock ticket" at the bottem of the page?

If you can't create the content right now, maybe you can help people create it on their own and connect people do it. That would provide a lot of encouragement for people to create their own content as well.

I know at the last race I was uploading images with captions on the fly to facebook. Friends and family were "tuning in" via that stream. Maybe some kind of similar twitter like service could be built and centeralised for the whole event?

The announcing at the last race was great too. I wonder how hard it would be to simulcast that out live? Seems pretty straight forward.

[chisek]

Another idea was brought up yesterday. What about some kind of blog arrigator? A lot of the teams on here have build blogs or team blogs with rss feeds. Could we create a master RSS feed for people to plug into? Maybe link it into a kind of "stock ticket" at the bottem of the page?

+1

You volunteering?

[parid]

+1

You volunteering?

I'm more of a systems/networking guy. If there was a mature product already I could impliment it but I couldn't code a new one. I'd be into picking up the skills to do so but being a Team Captain is a crazy ammount of work as it is.

Someone on here has to be a coder (I think they said the base on the this site is PHP right now). Come on speak up software guys. Your crap can series needs you.

[bam2002]

Photos here. There are drivers that run both races.

There were some persons from the other board that were there as spectators. Yep there are those of us that will be doing both races.

/>http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=2956&p=2

[raceydiva]

The photos are flowing! Be sure to check out the Infineon Sonoma gallery, click here! Fellow Chumps, be sure to upload your photos here as well.

[Guest Methius]

Photos here. There are drivers that run both races.

There were some persons from the other board that were there as spectators. Yep there are those of us that will be doing both races.

/>http://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=2956&p=2

FreeRange is me on the other forum. Yes I work for Chumpcar. Yes I run both series. Yes I am a track whore

[bam2002]

FreeRange I am also running both Chump and Lemons next year. 2 of each.

I am even building a 2nd car so that IF we blow one up we dont need to rush and fix it in a month.

We can just use the other car. Im running Lemmons Tx in Feb and then Chump one in Homestead in May.

Then taking the summer off and finishing the year with the 2 event in FL.

Its great to have both series and be able to get the track time.

BTW.. I just saw the photos of the trophies. The Chump ones are way better. Very nice..

[Guest Methius]

I am even building a 2nd car so that IF we blow one up we dont need to rush and fix it in a month.

That's why i'm building the Anglia's

Shut your mouth Erik.. those baby's will be built this year!

[davidmarden]

FreeRange is me on the other forum. Yes I work for Chumpcar. Yes I run both series. Yes I am a track whore

Admitting you have a problem is the frist step

[parid]

FreeRange is me on the other forum. Yes I work for Chumpcar. Yes I run both series. Yes I am a track whore

Methius

you don't have to put on the red light

those days are over

you don't have to race your junker in the night

Methius

you don't have to wear that nomex tonight

destroy a nice mr2 just for kicks

you don't care if it's wrong or if it's right

Methius

You don't have to put on the red light