FCA Nationals 2013

If anybody knows the dates for next year's meet at RA, please post.

Right now the national meet is taking place in Palm Springs, that's where they normally announce the dates for the following year, so this cat should be out of the bag soon.

 

Wouldn't miss it for the world. Three full trackdays. Whenever it is I plan on being there!...... Can't confirm but I have heard middle of last week of July into 1st week of August.

 

Dates are Tuesday July 30 through Sunday August 4.

Osthoff Resort in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin

Road America

On Monday, when Palm Springs is over, I can start making some detailed announcements. The preliminary schedule is done. We already have some of our sponsors signed. We look to have some new interesting activities that will happen. Going to have something organized for spouses too.

Jeff

 

Thanks. I made my hotel reservation accordingly.

Looking forward to see the schedule.

 

At this point the entire hotel is supposed to be blocked out for the club.

Jeff

 

It is. Along with a lot of other hotels in the area.

 

Here is an overview of the event that is being used with sponsors.

Event Highlights
Organization: Ferrari Club of America (FCA)
Event: International Meet (held annually since 1964)
Dates: Tuesday July 30 to Sunday August 4, 2013 – 6 days
Location: Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
Hotel: Osthoff Resort
Track: Road America
Attendees: up to 750 expected
100 set aside for overseas visitors
Cars: up to 350 expected
Representing all eras
Formula, prototypes, GTs, special editions, production
Activities: 3 days of track time
Concours presented by Zymol
(same standards and judges as at Pebble Beach)
Local drives
Social events
Awards banquet
Spouse activities
Special Theme: 50th anniversary of the FCA, 1962 and 1963

 

This will be great!

 

Sounds like putting the concours on the infield of the Osthoff won't quite cut it. Expaning onto the golf course?

Hoping that you guys think about visitor parking. Might be good to set some field aside just for that.

 

The current idea on the Concours Presented by Zymol venue has the golf course the back up plan. You are correct that the Osthoff grounds are too small.

Jeff

 

I will now announce that already signed sponsors for the 2013 Ferrari Club of America International Meet are:

Pirelli, official parter of the Ferrari Club of America. They are a Platinum Level sponsor.

Zymol is a Gold Level sponsor as well as the presenter of the Concours. There will be more announcements on additional activities that Zymol will host throughout the 6 days.

Hopefully we can make more announcements of sponsorship commitments over the next week or two. We have a fine list of others lined up but have to get the "ink" before making it public.

Jeff

 

Tuesday July 30
3:00 pm – 9:00 pm Registration at Osthoff Resort
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm Tech Inspection for track participating cars at Osthoff Resort
6:00 pm – 9:00 pm Welcome Reception & Mercato at Osthoff Resort

Wednesday July 31
7:30 am – 9:30 am Registration at Osthoff Resort
9:00 am Rally starts from Road America (rally route is TBD)
Noon – 2:00 pm Rally lunch (location is TBD, part of rally route decision)
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm Seminar on Concours and Coppa judging at Osthoff Resort
8:00 pm Drive-in movie at Road America

Thursday August 1
7:00 am – 9:00 am Registration at Osthoff Resort
7:00 am – 9:00 am Placement of cars for Concours presented by Zymöl
(site is not finalized)
9:00 am Concours presented by Zymöl class judging commences
9:00 am Mercato opens at Concours site
11:30 am – 1:30 pm Lunch buffet at Concours presented by Zymöl
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm Concours presented by Zymöl class award presentations
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm Scrutiny of all Platinum cars
4:00 pm Coppa Bella Macchina judging commences
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm Sponsors, past FCA presidents, VIP Reception
7:00 pm – 10:00 pm Party at Osthoff Resort, 60’s theme

Friday August 2
8:00 am – 10:00 am Registration at Road America
7:00 am – 10:00 am Tech Inspection at Road America
8:00 am – 8:30 am Mandatory Drivers Meeting
8:30 am Drivers School start
9:00 am Mercato opens at Road America
8:30 am – 12:00 Morning track run groups
Noon – 1:00 pm Lunch and Touring groups
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Afternoon track run groups
7:00 pm – 10:00 pm Dinner at Road America

Saturday August 3
By appointment Tech Inspection at Road America
8:00 am – 8:30 am Mandatory Drivers Meeting at Road America
9:00 am Mercato opens at Road America
8:30 am – 12:00 Morning track run groups
Noon – 1:00 pm Catered lunch and Touring groups
1:00 pm – 1:30 pm Coppa GT evaluation
1:30 pm – 5:00 pm Afternoon track run groups
6:30 pm – 10:00 pm Awards Banquet at Osthoff Resort

Sunday August 4
8:00 am – 8:30 am Mandatory Drivers Meeting at Road America
8:30 am – 12:00 Morning track run groups
Noon – 1:00 pm Lunch and Touring groups
1:00 pm – 5:00 pm Afternoon track run groups

 

Cool program.

That drive-in movie is interesting. I always wanted to do such an event here in Chicago with Ferrari clips from various movies.

 

There are some discussion that are happening that might lead to being able to show something from a film that will not have been released yet. It could be really interesting.

Jeff

 

We are also announcing that WeatherTech is a Platinum Level sponsor.

Jeff

 

Here is my photos of nationals. Please Enjoy

https://picasaweb.google.com/100162899158255315862/FCA_2012_nationals03?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNzT45_5lcDZ2QE&feat=directlink


David

http://512bbi.com

 

Today I can announce Ferrari Market Letter as a Bronze Level sponsor with us.

Jeff

 

Jeff,

How do i get a press pass to be able to shoot by the track? I have worked with a few websites in the past that can feature my coverage.

Thanks

Andrew

 

Andrew,

Talk with Mike Epifanio. We are offering Press Passes for the accredited; does not include any of the meals.

Jeff

 

We are pleased to announce The Finish Line and Catalyst Exhibits as Bronze Level sponsors for the 2013 Ferrari club of America International Meet. They join our already announced sponsors:

Platinum Level
Pirelli, Official Partner of the Ferrari Club of America
WeatherTech

Gold Level
Zymöl, presenting sponsor of the Concours

Bronze Level
Ferrari Market Letter

We will have additional announcements in the near future.

 

Hi Jeff,

We will be taking part of the event with one or two cars. I will be emailing Mike to get press pass.

Thanks

Andrew

 

Can't wait to go and see some beauties! Hope I don't get in an accident the day after like last time it was at Road America

 

More updates:

Ricambi America is a Bronze sponsor. They join the following:

Platinum Level
Pirelli, Official Partner of the Ferrari Club of America
WeatherTech

Gold Level
Zymöl, presenting sponsor of the Concours

Bronze Level
Ferrari Market Letter
Catalyst Exhibits
The Finish Line

We are also announcing that the Challenge Club Racing group will be participating and holding races uring our track days of Friday, Saturday and Sunday

More announcements soon.

Jeff

 

With all due respect Jeff, why the sponsor announcements?

I'm glad to see that sponsors are supporting this event. I never doubted they wouldn't. But what's in it for us? More goodies in the gift bag? That's nice, but it really doesn't knock me off my shoes whether I get another free bottle of wax.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, I just don't see the point. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

Andreas,

The club president and chairman have just been at the annual meeting of the world council of Ferrari Clubs. There are 36 clubs that are recognized by SpA and each one is supposed to have their president in attendance. I have not taked with Al yet about what transpired but they were going to be making a strong pitch to all the clubs that their members should think about attending. From the rior year's gathering they already had promises that there would be people from the UK, France, Italy and South African clubs; some are supposed to be shipping cars in for their attendance. Also on the topic list was to hold discussions with FNA and SpA on what they might be willing to do to improve the event. We are asking about the possibility of getting some of the exhibit materials and videos that already exist. We are also asking about people from FNA that could do seminars an/or forum discussions. Maybe by the end of this week I will know how these topics were received and the possibility of any of this happening.

We are trying to arrange an assortment of seminars and forum discussions throughout the meet. Nothing is set yet but the idea is to have lots of different topics so that there will be something that will appeal to diferent elements of the attendees. It does look like we will be able to have a presentation on the Ferrari Design Competition from a year or so ago. This was a competition that was initiated by SpA betwen the colleges around the world that have car design programs. One of the finalist schools was College for Creative Studies in Detroit. The lead instructor is a member here on F-chat, a multile time Ferari owner, ex-GM designer.

Other possible topics are:
Trials, tribulations and war stories from restorations
Operating and trying to kep a Ferrari functional in the 50's and early 60's
Racing a Ferrari in the 50s and early 60s
Maintenance of recent/current Ferraris
Understanding how a concours judge looks at a car

The Challenge Club Racing will be havng their races during our event. This should be interesting for everyone to watch. It also meas somewhere around 30 Challenge cars will be attending. Coming out of this may also be a forum discussing the Challenge cars, their evolution fom 355 to 430 and comparison to the regular street models.

The ALMS/GrandAm race is the weekend after us. We wuld like to have at least on of the 458 teams come to town a few days early. If they do they could talk about what it takes to campaign one of these.

Zymol is going to make a large presence during the event. They are going to hold demonstrations, provide wash stations for each day and host other fun events.

We are continung to work for more items that should be interesting for the attendees. A lot of efforts have been and will continue to be made to get the more special and rarely seen cars to join us.

We are also continuing to work on getting more sponsors. Some of these would add activities that should be interesting for the attendees. For 2013 there will be an organized Spouse Program of available activities; something not offered in 2009.

Now lets get to the whole idea of sponsors. The cost to run one of these events is significant. If the registration fee had to pay for everything then it would be a whole lot more to the extent that it would be unaffordable to attend for a lot of people. If we can continue to raise the sponsorship amount then there are some more extras that will be done for the event. It is not easy to get these sponsors to commit in with us. In the big scheme of things we are a small group with about 5,200 total members (up from 4,900 less than 6 months ago) and with what we hope to be 500 - 700 attendees at Elkhart. Since this is the 50th annual gathering of the club and the concluding event of the year long 50th anniversary of the club's founding we are loking to be up from the more typical 350 attendees.

We need to keep the sponsors happy. They cannot be allowed to believe that we made a bunch of pomises, grabbed their money and then quickly forgot about them and the promises made. This hurts us for this event and then has bad consequences for the future International Meets and some national level partnership programs that the club is working on. We are working to increase the pool of sponsors. To achieve this they must believe that their participation is justifyable as a good business decision. Part of this is that they receive recognition of the investment that they have made. As I am the one that has made most of these promises it is a personal task to ensure that they are fulfilled.

If you are interested go to ww.fca2013.org to see more. There is a link for "sponsorship" that will show more on what these companies are commiting to and what promises we are making.

Jeff