COTA in Trouble?

I think the people of austin do like their F1. I pass through austin a couple times a year, it used to be that all people would talk about down there was music and the texas long horns. But now people actually talk about the events at the track, especially F1.

 

Duck, let's be honest, Austin is a loose confederation of nutty groups whose one uniting quality is that they are all countercultural and respect one another's right to be nutty. I'll take Dallas or Houston, even San Antonio, over Austin any day.

 

I like Austin, probably the only city in Texas that has clubs that play strictly EDM. I almost feel like Im back in CA when I visit Austin. I do love San Antonio too though.

 

I like Austin as well.

Problem is that a) they block reserve all downtown hotels for the GP and b) there is hardly a direct flight to the city. It is too provincial for that, everything goes through Dallas or Houston.

But as a town and its culture and people, it is phenomenal.

 

I think I had a direct flight to Austin, but then again I live close to LAX. I'm lucky to have friends I stay with in San Antonio, just have to get a rental at the airport for the weekend. Come to think of it, next time I'll just fly to SA. It was only like an hour drive, tops, IIRC.

 

I've worked most of the big events at COTA the last 1.5 years.
we just got a retroactive raise.
so.... they are willing to pay (and the checks clear!)

so there is one data point for your discussion....

yep!

 

The lack of direct flights to Austin was true about a dozen years ago

There's plenty of direct flights now ... Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, New York, London, etc. People don't realize that Austin is now the 11th largest city in the US.

 

Well there is a motto, "keep austin weird." The question is how much love will there be when it becomes "keep austin weird like san francisco?" The virtue and status of the dirty prius is coming soon.

 

....not Priuses...Teslas is even worst!

 

Anyone could have seen this coming from a mile away. Formula 1 like all modern public spectacles is all about looting the purses of the host cities. How do you think Bernie got so rich? F1 promises cities all sorts of economic benefits but tell me what benefits do you get from selling hotdogs and hamburgers to tourists? F1 was a bread and circus designed to rob municipal and state funds. Private "investors" always want the government to pickup the tab(risk) for their useless stadiums, tracks etc. If F1 was so great investors would be piling up with their own money instead of begging the government. Here we go again... Texas was reluctant to go ahead with this charade and it turns out they were right.

 

they haven't figured out how to utilize the track for the rest of the year. Most tracks are utlized in some fashion or form. CoTA had a pretty packed slate with a lot of enthusiast car and motorcycle rentals slated for the track, but for whatever reason they changed the terms of the rental/lease (essentially doubling the price) on short notice and broke a lot of contracts. It's remained a very difficult and expensive place to rent for say auto and bike clubs so it essentially sits empty. . Most other tracks rent the facility out to encourage use and to offset some operational costs, but CoTA has remained steadfastly outrageously high that it remains out of reach to be utilized for many. . My understanding is that it is more than double the cost to rent CoTA as say Laguna Seca which is/was the most expensive track to rent before CoTA came along. But Lagana makes a couple hundred grand a month renting the track, CoTA having that revenue would greatly offset some things during the non-F1 times (51 weeks of the year).

Granted, the F1 event is the big monster, but I do think if they can get greater use out of the track at other times of the year, they would have a bit more operational costs under control.

 

I'm not worried at all.
its extra work.
decent money.
great access.
if it goes away, I'll be sad.... only because of #3

I'd say if they are willing to pay the medical crew more... things can't be all that bad.

I will say this, however. They are horribly disorganized.
For F1, many of us did not get our credentials until the day of the event. I got my Friday pass on Saturday. Becomes a logistical problem for those of us that work there, with people coming in from all over the area, parking, etc.

 

Its pronounced "Pious".....

 

I just don't understand responses like this. It must be a slow news time in F1, and that's why the same rehashed stuff pops up again like it's new. Perhaps it's because there hasn't been any construction updates/photos, tickets for sale, or promotion going on for the Mexican GP... so we need something else to talk about.

Seen this coming a mile away? Now it turns out they were right? About what? What is new?

- Taxpayers upset about money to F1: Same as it's been since 2011. They have always said that paying taxpayer money for this stinks, and they will continue to say it. Is it going to change? Well, the funding mechanism is state law, and the legislature is convening this year, so we'll see. If they don't do anything with the METF, or make only superficial changes (more likely), then there is your news for the next 2 years. But right now, nothing.

- COTA in debt: Of course they are, they were from day one, it was built using debt. That's how it's going to continue to be, whether someone buys it down the road or not.

Meanwhile, the USGP chugs along to it's 4th year in Austin. Hopefully this year we won't have 2 teams missing, talk of boycott, and one of the top drivers sitting out Q1 because of a penalty. Perhaps people will be over the lame sound and there will still be a constructors championship in question (not likely). Maybe Mexican GP tickets will go on sale and attendance will be down. Maybe not.

 

What don't you understand? F1 has been about robbing the public's purse for a few to get rich off of. The spectacle itself is a sideshow.

 

I don't understand why people think this is new, or a recent development. It's known from the get-go, just like when an NFL team wants a new stadium.

 

... big red flag, denote the initial tactic, the most telling thing about COTA: it's name.

Spa-Fracorchamp, Silverstone, Monza, Indianapolis, Riverside, Daytona, Road Atlanta, Watkins Glen, the Nurburgring, denote historically how motor sport facilities generously enamored their name with a rich geographic sobriquet. Wholly devoid any inkling of geographic significance, strategically positioned for a Federal bailout at inception, the name COTA was politically inspired, whereupon later after it inevitably goes bankrupt, political officials opposed to funding a bailout of the... "Circuit of the Americas," could be subsequently leveraged, and labeled unpatriotic.

Of all places on God's green acre a Eurotrash jet-setter could expect to waltz in, with a timeworn song and dance about "economic impact," and swipe a cool 30 million, per annum, right out from under the nose of the American taxpayer? Texas would be the last place anybody would expect such a thing would be allowed to occur. Once upon a time, try pulling a stunt like that on the Texas policy community? You'd have Texas Rangers tracking you over hill and dale, lining you up in their cross-hairs. By sundown, every red cent you swiped, back in city, county and state coffers, you'd be swinging from a tree.

Sad truth of it, face facts, no two ways about it, it's best days well behind her now, Texas isn't what it used to be. Texas needs to change it's motto, from "don't mess with Texas," to "Bernie Ecclestone's 30 million dollar a year whore."

Fundamentally unamerican, earmarking public revenue to rent European cars for private entertainment, is an abomination. A sacred trust, never should taxation be misused, to finance entertainment -- asj.

 

CoTA needs to thank God that they have, thus far, avoided the gaze of the Austin Heritage Tree Foundation, of Friends of the Jackalope.

 

... there was a market advocate lurking behind the scenes, pulling strings on this COTA deal.

Happy coincidence, exactly the same time news articles broke on the announcement of a USGP in Texas, it just so happened the city of Austin had just landed its very first Ferrari dealership. In fact, at that time, this exotic car dealership was so new, "Ferrari of Austin" didn't yet have its web site content uploaded to the server, nor any of their employee's email accounts configured, in their website c-Panel.

Remarkable coincidence, a brand spanking new Ferrari dealership was freshly christened, in tandem announcements Austin would host the 2012 United States Grand Prix.

We won't need Einstein to draw up a not so far-fetched hypothesis that, behind the scenes, this Grand Prix of Texas idea was cooked-up as a publicity stunt, by Ferrari of Austin principals, to turn-out affluent conservative Texans to spend their money on conspicuous consumption while, simultaneously, positioning the COTA for a government subsidy, to host a Grand Prix, for which to reinforce marketing necessary to sustain Austin's newfangled Ferrari dealership.

A five year plan for government paid free advertising, that dealership needed, at rock bottom minimum, 125 local Ferrari households in the Austin Metropolitan Statistical Area to staff and sustain its parts and service departments. Only 21 Ferrari households in the Austin CDP at the time of the y2k decennial census, by 2010 the Austin CDP had added only 11 more. Not nearly enough to support a local Ferrari dealership, COTA was merely a cleverly conceived loss leader cooked up to bolster Ferrari of Austin, promote conspicuous consumption, and treble the population of Ferrari households in the Austin CDP, at the taxpayer's expense:

http://www.austin.ferraridealers.com/en_us/about-us/our-staff

F1 shoved down the Texas taxpayers' throats without a referendum, free government paid advertising thanks to COTA, Ferrari of Austin is living the high life, laughing all the way to the bank, no one ever the wiser - asj.

 

asj, when you figure out who really killed JFK, let us know.

 

is this guy a conspiracy theorist or what????????????

 

F of Austin is a sub shop of F of Houston.
Not really a new franchise
More exposure and service for an existing dealership

Lake Forest Ferrari also has McLaren (among others)
they opened a McLaren shop in the City of Chicago. Is it really "another" dealership. No, an extension of the existing shop. They did the same into the Milwaukee suburbs, but it was ill timed (opened 2008 IIRC), flagged Aston Martin (another of their brands). Folded quickly.

COTA is a fantastic facility.
I hope we continue to host GP's for decades to come.
Bernie will be dead soon. Hopefully the finances will become somewhat reasonable.