Backcountry Drives?

[Wellardmac]

The success of the Spring Fling and pent up demand for backcountry drives has brought me to the question of how frequently demand will allow us to put together drives.

I originally planned 2 drives for the year, the Spring Fling in April and the Final Fling in November before the cars come off the road. I will definetely add a Summer Backcountry drive onto the calendar.

Bearing in mind that Ken runs his caravans in May and June, I do not want to run too often, for fear of letting supply exceed demand, but it appears that there is a pent up demand there that we can service. (One of the reasons I joined PCA was to do events like this!)

How often should we run these? What sort of event would you like to see?

Today's event was a PCA/Rennlist combo (most of the Rennlisters are PCA members anyway) and the different crowd brought a nice buzz to the event - new faces, cars, etc. It was pretty cool.

I'd appreciate any input on this subject. One piece of feedback I got was that some participants would like to have run for another hour... that would make the 70 mile drive closer to 100 - how do people feel about that?

Anyway, let rip with ideas and we'll take it from there.

[Phokaioglaukos]

New thread, but I hope everyone sees it here. Wayne, the drive yesterday was very well organized and a lot of fun. It was a truly excellent event!

Your drive was relatively short and was able to accommodate 25 cars easily. With a few changes such as sub-group leaders and the like, I think it could could accommodate even more. The shorter time period and greater number of cars seems to me to make it largely non-competitive with Ken's caravan (which takes most of two days, an hotel stay and meals and can accommodate only about 10 cars or so). Ken's caravan is a great deal of fun and I hope to do it again, but your half-day drive could be repeated monthly in the summer, it seems to me, without conflict.

I was pleased to see the drive also was a PCA event, drawing from Rennlist to be sure, but also many PCA people whom I had not previously met, from our region and others. Please consider branding the next one (I hope there is a next one) as more of a Riesentöter PCA event. There were several people there who commented that Riesentöter was dominated by "track guys" and that this was the first event they had done. I'd love for your drives to showcase our region to a broader group.

Again, a big thank you from here. It was fun. (Looking out at the pouring rain today just underscores the wisdom of moving the date to yesterday, even at the last minute.) Well done!

[Wellardmac]

Chris, thanks for your kind words. This kind of event absolutely will happen again. I was also surprised to see that we had a large number of RTR members showing up for the event that typically do not participate - that was exactly what I was hoping for.... really nice people and some fantastic cars. You could see how much they loved their cars.

I've heard the "there's no demand for rallies and tours" line so many times, but the evidence I've seen contradicts that sentiment.

The stories I've heard about the turnout that Bodo and Francine used to get for their drives tells me that we have a demand from members that do not participate in other activities. Yesterday was a litmus test and thankfully we passed and I think we can do this on a regular basis - we just need to put together some routes. I have some ideas, but it will take work.

I think that we're all set for July. I'm already getting calls for an event before then... don't know if I can do that, but we can try. We might even re-run hte same route for those that want to do it again, or couldn't make it yesterday.

...you're right, we got the right day. Driving today would not have been fun.