In a message dated 8/19/00 12:22:07 PM EDT, rgk@flash.net writes:
> I will email off a note to the CO club and copy Andy...
I've already contacted Kevin St. James of RMTC via e-mail; hopefully he will
be able to explain the situation. It might(?) have something to do with
availability and favorable rates due to the Convention being held at a true
resort location, but I do not know for sure. I will let him explain the
situation.
> Someone, mentioned the FT. Worth regional. I loved it because it was close,
> but it was hot and attendance was definitely down just because of the TX
> weather. As I understand it, the Houston club had petitioned to do the 2001
> VTR National (using a NASA-space odyssey theme) but was turned down
> because of the heat.
Sorry, but that is not the case. The "heat factor" was never more than
casually mentioned by anyone. It was Texas Triumph Register that withdrew the
bid to host the 2001 meet, without explanation. We in VTR never seriously
considered turning down the proposal because of heat or any other reason.
As for the National in Fort Worth in hot July 1997, it was hot. But it was
summer. And once I learned to greatly increase my intake of water, I stopped
nearly passing out each time I waited to take an autocross run in Avie
Kalker's Herald! :-)
> What people don't realize is that Houston is near the coast,
> near Galveston, and the weather, while hot and sticky is no different than
> say Savannah. A very successful national was held there. Proper planning
and
> scheduling would keep folks out of the heat some of the time...
That and luck. Weather is THE factor that is beyond even VTR's control. We
didn't plan for the Hurricane Bertha-effect torrential rains on Concours day
of the 1996 Albany meet, although someone did actually ask one of the members
of Adirondack Triumph Association why we scheduled that Convention the
weekend of a hurricane! (I could NOT make that up; honest!) Had the National
Convention been held in Albany, NY, this year, folks would likely have found
unusually cool and rainy weather here in the Northeast, and I'm sure British
visitors would've felt quite at home with it all. :-) Other years here in the
Northeast, it's been hot and sticky enough to have felt like, say, Fort Worth!
Portland was wonderfully hot and sunny two weeks ago. I got more of a sunburn
there than I did in Texas, but not as much as I did in Hudson, Wisconsin!
And as for exact date scheduling, VTR itself has no direct control over that,
although we do advise to some degree. I was not previously aware of the early
school start in Texas, but we will incorporate such information into our
Events Manual. In fact, if folks could provide, DIRECTLY TO ME, authoritative
information on school year schedules in all states, it would be very easy to
incorporate that sort of information into that manual.
--Andy
Andrew Mace, President, The Vintage Triumph Register
p.s. We in New York start school after Labor Day, except for most colleges.
|