NOPI (FEEDBACK) LOS ANGELES DRIFT Event

[Tracy]

Perfect.

Let me design your cars.

Let me know, honestly. We have a sticker plotter and tons of vinyl...just no Corell Draw/photo shop skills.

If you are serious e-mail me tracy@batlground.com I was about to post this on our local forum...since some how I let this jerk hurt my feelings

[Hach1r0k1d03]

So I go to the event expecting to pay 25 without my discount (it said so on the site), So I brang 40 bucks in cash to the event... Pay 15 for parking (redonkules)... thinking I will have $5 left after i pay for my ticket seeing i have the flayer.... it was really 30 bucks. So I'm left with no cash for the rest of the day... no one takes ATM.

haha, i went to the event with $39 and so when the lady told me the parking was $15(i thought it was gonna be under $10) i was like "wait wait wait, what event is going on here? is it the drifting thing?" and she said yeah so i had to turn around and bust a ralphs cashback. haha!

Perfect.

Let me design your cars.

hey brian, is your car blue like the blue fumiaki komatsu car that slid up the hill?

[Brian]

hachikidguy - ummmm I kinda tried to make it similar. I have no idea what color that car was. I tried to find out, but nobody really knows anything about it. My color is based off Toyota color, but we added some ghost pearl stuff into it. So my paint is called SLUT SLUT SLUT


tracy - your sponsors will hate me....

[Tracy]

tracy - your sponsors will hate me....

I was going to say you can be our design agent and send them in directly and make changes with them and their requests Come on, it will be so fun!

[Brian]

perfect


sign me up





you didnt even say hi to me at the event....
i was helping stewart when he messed up his front.

I was the good looking guy

[olddrifter]

Over all LA was not bad... Must keep the Judging consistant, passing or no passing, show up late in or out??? hitting cone lose of points or not.... top 16 was a good show..

[Tracy]

perfect


sign me up





you didnt even say hi to me at the event....
i was helping stewart when he messed up his front.

I was the good looking guy

o0o0o0o dang it! Why didn't you say something?? Stewart in my homeboy...I don't know if I'm his but I like him anyways.

And you are cute Hired.

[Brian]

Done and done.


hit me up.


and I'm not gonna lie.... my car looks REALLY good.

[Johny5]

haha yeah brian's car DOES look really good

and tracys my homie for sure, looking really awesome this weekend! congrats on qualifying!!!!

[MonkeySlide]

Mine is merely an opinion..

Alrighty I said I'd throw in my comments as well so at the risk of flamage here I go.

parking: Why on earth was parking 15 bucks?? Also why even have a "preferred" parking price that was DOUBLE the price? I feel sorry for anyone who actually paid the 30 bucks because anyone who paid 15 was pretty much able to park right next to the entrance.

If that was the Home Depot Center's deal then try to work something out with them. If they wont budge then perhaps NOPI needs to re-think their ticket prices.

seating arrangements: The seating was pretty bad. I've never seen bleachers that small in my life. I find it hard to accept that NOPI of all companies couldn't afford to have larger seating than that. Especially with the ticket prices they were asking for. If everyone pays the same ticket price its unacceptable to force almost 50% of them to stand.

Also, keeping in mind that NOPI can't predict the weather, was it not possible for NOPI to make the seating arrangements more comfortable? Did the place where you rented the bleachers from not also offer canopy attachments? If not next year (assuming you guys aren't in the arena by then) go to a different place order bigger bleachers and make sure they have some sort of canopy attachment just incase.

Advertising: Over the weekend I heard from several industry individuals and even some of the drivers that they didn't know about this event until the last minute.

The only reason I knew about it is because of this site. I think sometimes we assume that Drifting.com is larger than what it really is. I realize how dangerous it is for me to say that here! Don't get me wrong, Drifting.com has a lot of members and a good reach but perhaps NOPI could have established more partnerships with other sites.

In other words: buy banner ads!!

Formula D buys ads on almost every sport compact site one could think of and they buy print ads with their whole schedule from the Primedia regime.

If NOPI wants their drift series to fly they need to give it a bigger budget.

Security: Security was a joke. I don't know how much money you guys lost from people who just walked in. The few security individuals who actually cared about their jobs had difficulty doing so because it seemed as if communication between them and the NOPI staff was non-existant. Almost none of them knew which wristbands meant what or which areas spectators were allowed to be and which ones were supposed to be closed off.

Not ONCE did I see ANYONE get checked at the door. I had a backpack with me all weekend and not once did any security ask to check the contents of my bag. Someone could have brought a gun onto the premisis and no one would ever know.

I saw one security guy stop his patrol get off his ATV so he could take a picture of a Model's A$$ while she was posing with one of the drivers.

If I had hard evidence of how bad it was I'd give it to NOPI so you guys could use it to get your money back for hiring them.

If you're forced to hire them again next time I would take up these issues with them first.

Track Safety/Officals: Another aspect that seemed disorganized and inconsistant. Track officials would be extremely over zealous in some areas and completely passive in others.

First off there was the Media day. I was in the "Media Pit" and I was kind of alarmed with how close the cars were getting to the water barriers that bordered the media pit. I looked inside several of the barriers and there was NO WATER in them! I know that during the media day they used the more experienced drivers but if something happend someone could have gotten seriously hurt.

I took this up with Jacob because hes a media guy and knows what it's like. He informed me of the reason why and assured me that the problem would be fixed. I never got a chance to see if they actually took his advice though because Saturday I avoided the Media pit and Sunday we had another photographer come out to shoot the drifting action shots.

Which brings me to the other part of this area. There was a very "vocal" lady on the track who didn't hesitate to kick people off the track for the slightest infraction.

And yet Hulk Hogan was able to walk onto the track sans wristband or any other credentials whenever he felt like it. Now dont get me wrong Im not hating on the Hogans or anything like that but that was obvious favortisim.

Hulk wasn't wrong in this either. If no one stops me when Im walking to an area then of course Im going to assume that its ok/safe to go onto the track.

Can you imagine the lawsuit if he got ran over??

What bothers me is that Hulk Hogan was able to go out on track..sometimes on a hot track when he needed to but my photographer was denied his press pass at the tent because he wore shorts on a 100 degree day?!

Why would someone need to wear long pants if they aren't driving and if they're going to be in the middle of a media pit with barriers that were supposed to be filled with water anyway?

NOPI was pretty liberal with the Media passes as well. I saw two kids who looked like they couldn't be any older than 15 with passes! They couldn't have been old enough to legally sign any release waivers. I also saw a lot of the people who worked for Pioneer in their dome sporting press passes as well.

Some people even got onto the track just because they had the Pioneer dome VIP wristband!

I understand vendors need to have certain levels of access..but dont give vendors press passes please! It will make things easier on security, the NOPI staff, and the legit Media.

Jacob, Im not sure how much power they gave you, but if you have it you need to start cracking the whip on this sort of thing instead of them making you push water barriers, well the ones that had water in them anyway.

The track layout: Let me start off with a disclaimer. You'll have to take what I say here with a grain of salt for obvious reasons. My following comments are just based on my observations and what a few drivers told me at the event.

The track layout seemed really unbalanced. I understand that every car has its advantages and disadvantages but the course seemed extremely biased towards the smaller mid to low power cars.

In order to get good runs, both the Vipers and Ryan H's Corvette had to leave themselves almost no breathing room and thus making it especially dangerous to them.

Even if you wanted to try and chalk up Nick's crash to inexperience, you still have Chris Cook's crash. If Ryan wasn't conservative with his driving over the weekend he possibly would have had a mishap as well.

I dont know who designed this track but this is something you might want to take up with that person if you do the parking lot thing again next year.

Conclusion: I have more but I think I everyone gets my point. It wasn't completely bad.

There were plenty of vendors and the food looked good. The Announcer was enthusiastic..when he actually talked. He needs to speak up more.

Having the pits being included as part of the overall venue and not completely closing it off was cool too.

Although overall I have to say: This is the first NOPI event I've ever been to. I've been involved in the scene for quite some time and for years I've heard all about the NOPI super shows down south and on the east coast and about how big the NDRA Series was. I've watched NOPI TV and seen all the action from their events and honestly I have to say that this event DID NOT live up to the NOPI hype or my expectations at all.

However I know NOPI can through huge awesome events and the potential is there. So I guess the bottom line is that NOPI needs to put more of its massive weight behind their drift series if they want it to be on par with Formula D.

[Piner]

ok...

So I go to the event expecting to pay 25 without my discount (it said so on the site), So I brang 40 bucks in cash to the event... Pay 15 for parking (redonkules)... thinking I will have $5 left after i pay for my ticket seeing i have the flayer.... it was really 30 bucks. So I'm left with no cash for the rest of the day... no one takes ATM.

At the end of the top 32 I went looking for food since my boy hooked me up with some cash. All the concession places were closed except for "VIP"...they didnt let me in VIP just for a snack. I even offered the guy to escort me, I just wanted a bit to eat and maybe a drink. I wasn't going to harass the "VIPs".

After the cook crash the local staff were ridiculous, not letting anyone chill under the planters where there was shade. Closing the "vip" shaded area and not even offering those with no seats chairs ( and there was about 25 under the VIP tent). And its about 100 degrees outside, could have passed out some free waters at the least. Seeing everyone paid over 25 bucks to get in, they could have at least passed out some lukewarm water to keep us hydrated in the sun.

Judging: I thought it was so so, I dont really like the idea of averaging the scores in but thats me. I didnt like how they had called Dan into the top 16 knowing good and well he spun in all his runs... how did that happened?

I also thought the chris cooke situation could have been handled better. There should have been a second emt on sight, and does it really take a hour and a half to get a car off the track and too fix some water barriers. They seemed like they needed a little more help on hand. The track was decent considering the amount of room that was given.

The top 16 action was good, thats just about the only pro from a spectators point of view I can really give. I've been going to drift events for 4 years, and this was the first time I felt I didnt get my moneys worth.

Oh yea, I did feel that the event was more....homie then the other events I went too though. Chilling and talking to all the drivers during and after the event was cool, it was nice hanging with some of the more known pros that were around.

This sounds exactly like the Miami event. I mean I have been to grassroots events that were organized better. Out of the 30 or so events I have been to grassroots and professional the Nopi events I have been to have been the most poorly run and organized of all. The huge delays after a crash is a prime example. You guys need more staff if thats the problem. Because we have had major crashes at our local oval and have the track cleaned up and ready to run on in about 20 mins, not 1 1/2 hrs.

I am also concerned that the ticket counter doesnt take plastic. I seriously didnt know that and I had to barrow the money from a friend of mine because I never carry cash.

[Tracy]

Done and done.


hit me up.


and I'm not gonna lie.... my car looks REALLY good.

UHHHHHHH. No stickers

MonkeySlide,

Good post. Way to give constructive criticism with out being immature about it. This is a good example of how to get your point across and action taken.

[D1 DRIFTER]

My main problem with nopi is that most of the cars have no style whatsoever, especially the ones with maxxis logos on them.

Drifting should be an action packed car show but when cars look like that, it makes me throw up a little on the inside.

If you are wondering what cool cars look like, just take a look at Justin and Forrest's cars. Both have good taste despite having plenty of stickers on them.

Or take a lesson from Chris Forsberg, maxxis tire sponsored driver, and design your car around the sticker scheme. His car looks awesome.

lets not get to nut swinging already.. who the hell cares. drifting is about car control.. pretty cars are a bonus. BFD get over the whole it doesnt look clean with stickers bs okay. JDM isnt the shiet. niether is drifting. simply put it was a Pro-am event that was getting coverage.

[Brian]

^^^^^
Nope, Flybert is right.

Nobody (ahem, people who are in-the-know) don't want to see garbage style cars. Ugh. It just isn't pleasing to the eye whatsoever.

[carcass]

I'm curious as to who from NOPI is watching this forum and if the comments (with the exception of the looks of the cars) is singing in and will be cause for a change?

My next article in LA Auto Guide magazine will also mention some of the negative aspects of this event, but none the less, it was alot of fun. The overall reaction from myself as well as people I've spoken to was definately positive. I just hope NOPI wont be scared away because of the low spectator turnout and blame it on the west coast fans not being interested. NOPI has the power to improve their attendance levels if they truely listen to the feedback that we have given them.

Q.
http://www.laautoguide.us
http://www.SpeedSyndicate.net