Apparent staff re-org underway. - Ward Merrill (all-around git it done guy) fired. - Jason Wade (Director of Track Ops) fired today. - Marty Hunt (Facilities Operations Director) left for the New Jersey race - Kevin Tao (sp?, Security Director) quit a few weeks back. - Others quitting. Hearing lots of bad stuff. Ex-Indy guy Harder on cost-cutting mission and bringing in his own guys...& much more. New post on our FB page:
Damn, I'd better get my resume in....I could fill two or three slots, that's cost effective.... What was the trigger event, I wonder??
OP - in the interest of full disclosure, what dog do you have in this fight? You say something about "our FB page"... what group do you represent? Seems like two groups of egos at play here and airing private feuds in a public forum seems inappropriate at best, politicking at worst.
Looks like there was another firing yesterday...an equipment operator. I'm one of two admins of the Facebook page Friends of Formula 1 Austin Texas. https://www.facebook.com/FoF1ATX We've been following developments at COTA since way back when the race was announced and we spent the next 2 years chronicling the progress with photo & news updates of the construction, and heading up grass-roots efforts (at COTA management's request) supporting COTA's efforts toward permitting, etc. Since then, we've provided photo updates of track activity and re-posts of news stories about events & issues at the track. This is a continuation of that. We don't really have a dog in the fight, though we're often variously accused of being shills of COTA or trying to "bring them down", as if we could actually do something like that.
cota is a great racetrack. The track is very poorly run. The SCCA majors race in march was the worst SCCA event I have ever raced. Lots of finger pointing claiming cota controlled the track and egress on and off the track and extracation of cars. They failed in all counts. Pit Nazis patrolled the paddock for jacks without plywood under or drips of gas and fluids. Pit Nazi tow truck was in force towing out cars for minor infractions. Races became parade laps as cota extracation had no clue how to get a car off track. Flaggers well were at times clueless. In on of our races they lost so much control a fleet of marshals was all over our group in impound for something like 8 passings under yellow. A cluster that what it is. Emergency crew was dispatched for on of the formula races. My thought after watching them...don't get hurt at cota. Hopefully this is all just growing pains. The track is a dream. The facilities are awesome if they open all the bathrooms.
That account matches everything we've heard from drivers who were out there for the SCCA event. Below is a post one of them made yesterday on another board. We're very sorry to hear about your negative experience at COTA. Re: the flaggers, I know many of the experienced flaggers who were planning to do the MotoGP race backed out in support of Kevin Schwantz in his battle with COTA management. COTA put out an appeal to volunteer track workers of any experience level (including NO experience) to work that race. I wonder if the same happened for the SCCA event. It was around the same time as the MotoGP track worker boycott. The SCCA has announced its Runoff venues for the next 3 years. Austin isn;t on the list. http://www.racer.com/scca-runoffs-expands-to-new-venues/article/302525/ Did this fiasco contribute to that decision? Is this you? I agree there are some great facilities out there and that the track is simply fantastic. The good thing out of all of this is that it isn't going anywhere.
I have been told that SCCA will not return next year, due to increased costs from COTA and COTA wanted to make it a spectator event and keep the gate. COTA is probably gavely concerned that they get F1, but F1 keeps everything but the gate, so charging big money for everything else, like rental of $50K with max of 25 cars, and as a result they have Bondurant 2-day events at nearly $10K, the $13,500 2-day fee with the Ferrari Driving Experience and no doubt other very high-priced events. I can sure understand the concern, as the revenue needed to recoup a several hundred million dollar investment and operating overhead is significant. For now, these prices may hold up, due to the novelty of the facility, but it's going to take national or perhaps even international clientele who really place a premium on COTA over all other venues. And that may happen. Once per customer. There are lots of venues out there that I'd put up with COTA. Road Atlanta. Laguna Seca. Sears Point. Road America. Watkins Glen. Sebring. Daytona. Spa-Francorchamps. And on and on and on. As a racer I can go to all of these for less and will. reminds me of one of my favorite sayings: "pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered" I hope COTA realizes that there just needs to be some tiered pricing for more grassroots organizations and that the members of those organizations help build goodwill
I would say I hope you're right, but I've seen enough to know that all the good points you made are completely wasted on these folks. They know better than we do. Just ask 'em.
Tim that was another's post not mine but I completely agree with it yours and Keith's. I have been to cota once and never need to go again. What ashame since the track truly fantastic. I fear for cota when the novelty wears off. We can only hope cota management gets a clue before it is too late.
Circuit of the Americas receives $29 million in state funds for Formula 1 Circuit of the Americas receives $29 million in state funds... | www.statesman.com Sorry, it's behind the Statesman's paywall, but you get the idea... FWIW, we heard some time back that the comptroller paid COTA these funds weeks ago, shortly after the USGP. Don't know why it's just now going public.
I was thinking about it a little more, and that makes about $60 Million in subsidies that COTA has received from the METF for 2 USGPs, 1 Moto GP race, 1 V8SC, 1 ALMS race, & 1 WEC race. They applied for & got paid for WEC & ALMS separately even though the events were held concurrently on the same racing weekend. You can read the whole article here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&ved=0CF4QFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pressdisplay.com%2Fpressdisplay%2Fviewer.aspx%3Fissue%3D10162014020100000000001001%26page%3D15%26article%3D4e91bbe7-8919-40cf-8fe3-0eb08b2a855c%26key%3DTnB6xPo5iaB206a6AIdADg%3D%3D%26feed%3Drss&ei=zK3wUsynMMecyQH6nYD4BA&usg=AFQjCNH9bTYLHhwoUpyadJL2afUq89eODw&sig2=RDxw6omfhtzh7cgX-ko7Cw&bvm=bv.60444564,d.aWc
Sounds about right. Payout isn't based on estimated numbers from COTA ... it's based on actual numbers generated by the event(s). COTA asked for ~ $32 Million, based on expected attendance and expected "economic impact". The actual numbers turned out to be a bit lower, and so the amount from METF was adjusted downward to ~ $29 Million ... according to : "To qualify for the fund, organizers must prove that their event will generate at least the same amount of money in “extra” sales, alcohol, hotel and car rental taxes. Generally, economic impact studies arrive at that by counting the anticipated number of out-of-state attendees. Then, using past large event surveys as a guide, the studies estimate how much money each fan will spend on lodging, food and alcohol and then multiply that figure by the tax rate to arrive at the state’s take. The comptroller’s office then pays the money after the event and by law must produce a post-event analysis within 10 months that compares estimates with attendance figures. “If the actual attendance figures are significantly lower than the estimated attendance numbers, the comptroller may reduce the amount of a disbursement for an endorsing entity under the Major Events Trust Fund in proportion to the discrepancy,” the law states."
The amounts are determined and approved ahead of the events, based on projections from the events, and paid accordingly after the event. The amount would only be changed if the comptroller's post-event analysis deemed the impact "significantly" low. Theoretically, at least. We can't find an instance of the comptroller ever having done that. We heard within a week or two after the race that the subsidy had already been funded. There was just no public release of that info until this article. There wasn't enough time that soon after the race for a comptroller's analysis to have been completed. The analysis for the 2012 race wasn't completed until September of 2013, so I doubt this one's done by now. The 2 USGP funding amounts were approved before the races based on economic impact numbers provided by Hoyte (commissioned by COTA/CELOC). Also, the event doesn't really "ask for" an amount. They present their economic impact projection with their application and the Comptroller assigns an amount based on that, pre-event. If you download the pdf at the following link, you can see that there are 3 big 2014 events already showing approved amounts. 2 football games and the Final Four. This is how it's been done for at least the 4 years I've been looking at the METF. http://www.texasahead.org/tax_programs/event_fund/approvals/CPATrustFundApprovals10032013.xls It would seem that actual attendance figures have little or no effect at all. With the USGP, MotoGP, Red Fest, and the X Games scheduled for this year, COTA could top the $100M mark in subsidies in 2014.
What's interesting is that the intent of the METF is to attract out-of-state visitors and introduce new money into the Texas economy. So naturally the whole thing is driven by how many out-of-state visitors an event can attract. For the 2012 USGP though, COTA & Hoyte projected a race-day crowd of 120K people with about 95K of them coming from OOS. That number is what the first-year $29.3M funding amount was based on. Then sometime after the race COTA said that only 66K were from OOS. Still, the comptroller's analysis backed up the amount that was funded (quoting COTA spokeswoman Julie Loignon as their OOS attendee statistic source and never acknowledging the huge disparity between the projection and the post-event number). Then for 2013 she funded almost the same amount, but right now we don't know how many OOS attendees COTA projected for that race. They say there were 68K iirc. Hell, I even find both the 66K and 68K numbers very doubtful. Ernst & Young did a similar study to Hoyte's for Tourism Victoria and the Australian GP. They claimed only 35% OOS attendees, and Victoria is a tiny state with 1/5 the population of Texas. That 35% is in line with Indy's big 3 races as well.
OBTW, y'all probably know Sexton is gone. Back in early December iirc we heard and posted on our page that CFO Dan Allen was out. COTA kept his photo & bio up on the "Team" page of their site until just a week or two ago, but now it's gone, too.
I wonder how the lawsuit lodged by Kevin Schwantz will turn out? Isn't that coming up this month? I have a feeling it has no legs, but I thought COTA created a PR nightmare not finding a way to settle. I can almost guarantee that they lost more money in ticket sales than it would have taken to settle with Kevin. I organized a huge party and rented a villa overlooking Austin for the MotoGP and over 15 people that had planned to attend didn't travel to Austin in protest of COTA's handling of KS.
Could someone give me the Cooks version of what went down there? I recall many pissed people, but I don't follow MotoGP, so not the reasons why. Thanks & hopefully nobody minds the slight hijack. Cheers, Ian
I was with Kevin, in an East Side bar after the MotoGP race. I posted pictures somewhere...a great guy!! He was with Tavo early on, and helped 'rough out' the design the track, before Tilke took over. Like Tavo, he did years of personal effort because he anticipated hosting the MotoGP as promoter. Like Tavo, he was thrown off and under the bus once the track was up and running. Maybe they DON'T need an independent, experienced promotor. But, maybe they do.... Facilities Operations Manager (or at least the electrical/mechanical systems) is what my hat is in the ring for.. I hope Kevin gets his money, I might not say that on site though....
COTA's lawyers delayed til I think April. I'll have to look it up. I think Schwantz & his lawyers seem to think they have a pretty solid case or they would have settled long ago. It seems he wants this to go to trial and COTA doesn't. Good for you and your friends. That's cool. Hope y'all had a great time. I'd say it on site. I just don't care anymore. I'd tell Bobby. Hell, many of the folks working out there would, too. BTW, I was there at the bar during the race. KS tried not to let it show, but he looked really bummed during the race...and why not? Sucks. I don't think it would be a derail, as this is just a purposefully broad COTA thread. I have to go pick up dinner for the fam, or I could get into that a bit more, but I'm one of these guys could fill you in as well or better than I can.
Yeah I used to want to work out there. Really badly. Now I realize how much of a bullet I dodged. I'd still love to work out there, but no freaking way under this management. Next management (just a matter of time) may be a different story. There are only two COTA employees left working out at the track now anyway. Most of what's done out there is outsourced and most of the rest of the folks have been let go.
