Sad news about NG17

[RyeH]

Guess we'll see who is is right.

Starion & z30 are already dead platforms.

You probably are. But this fanboy is going to hold on with hope lol

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

[DaveSlow]

I've been to every NG since 2004 and had no intentions of missing this one either but when the dates were announce they just didn't line up. I'm going to Hawaii for a wedding for almost 2 weeks right before NG and I took another week for NG it would make almost a month off work. I was hoping the road course would be on Saturday and I'd drive up Friday night

[Endersum]

I was hoping the road course would be on Saturday and I'd drive up Friday night

This. X2

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

[mannavr4]

Ok, here are some of my opinions and this is not a shot at Alan or Lori as they have asked for help and I don't believe anyone stepped up to the plate. And I thank them for still trying.

1) As an April announcement isn't terrible for an August event, it's still not early enough. Especially when the event is normally in June. With last year's numbers being so poor, by the time April came I believe most people including myself thought that there would not be an NG17 and made other vacation plans. This event needs to be promoted well in advance with dates and location. And then needs constant hype leading up to the day of the event.

2) Pricing is an issue as not all can afford it. But it is tuff to get the price down without a big turn out.

3) I agree with the paper awards be a terrible idea. With high entry fees and all the time and money spent on the cars and events to win a printed up award feels like a slap in the face especially for the big ones like people's choice and best of show.

As these are not my exact reasons for not going this year, they are definitely a problem.
I personally would love to have still gone as I absolutely love the NG event but just could not.

[Echo419]

Haven't been in like 7-ish years. I don't have the VR4 anymore and I'm just to busy with other things. it sucks I always had a blast. it seems the older I get the more crap I have to do everyday/week/month/year.

[Lori]

I would like to thank everyone for their input thus far, and encourage you to continue. There are two things I'd like to point out... First, UMG and NG can't and shouldn't ever be compared. UMG is a car show and gathering. NG has race events, which changes the playing field completely. We have A TON of overhead for the NG, the largest part being the insurance that we need to carry in case anything happens. While we've had people tell us that the insurance cost should be added to the cost of the race events, that's not really fair, either. People who are spectating need to be insured as well. And those of us working on the tracks have to be insured. That is the one, single largest factor in not comparing the two, and in why we have to be a "pay to play" event. There's no way around it, unless someone is suggesting that Alan and I absorb the cost ourselves.

As for the paper awards... I couldn't agree more that they weren't a great choice. But without the numbers we had expected, we had two choices: no awards, or paper awards. That was it. Alan and I had to put out a good deal of our personal money for that event, and we just couldn't spend well over $1000 on awards. They're not inexpensive. Frequently we spent over $100 on just one award. If that's what is killing the NG, then that's really sad and I'm very sorry.

For those who hadn't noticed, we'd done everything within our power to lower the fees beyond where they'd ever been before. We can't change the race fees when we're not the ones renting the tracks, but we did our best to work out deals for you. As the numbers got lower, we had to make those difficult decisions. We tried renting the track and sharing it, but we couldn't find other groups that were interested in doing that, so we had to do it this way. Unfortunately, that contributes to not being able to get a date sooner, too. I started in June of last year and thought we had something worked out with a group for Pitt. That group doesn't announce their dates until after the first of the year, so when the dates they had didn't work for us, we got stuck between a rock and a hard place. I'm not sure how we can get around this... it seems every group waits until the first, and several tracks do, too.

Road courses on weekends are going to be difficult to find unless it's with a very large group - the rental fee is about 25% higher. That, of course, is passed along to the racers...

One last thing... I did a little research and quickly found that our prices are WAY lower than the Ferrari groups.

[Alan92RTTT]

Just to agree with Lori. Paper awards were never our 1st choice. We normally buy the awards about a month before the event and any of you that have been to several NG's know that we have gotten come great ones. Unfortunately with the the participation levels of the last two events we did not have money left for anything but paper.

[familyMAN]

The FB excuse is that, an excuse. This forum has thousands of members in the FB group.

FB didn't kill the platform interest; FB only killed the interest in forums. I've seen as many badass builds as ever of my last 16 years of ownership. Single turbo builds. Widebody. Custom widebody. Stance. Drag. Engine swaps. New aero pieces. Full Restos, Etc. The years old 1/4 ET record will likely be broken yet this year with a 2.0, and then I think it will be broken again shortly after that by a different car with a 4.0l. There are more and more enthusiasts recognizing the value of the platform which you are seeing in both new unique performance builds and the rising prices on clean, 100% stock low mileage cars.

IMO, the platform is anything but dead. It's just takes a different approach to reach the owners.

Someone mentioned autocross on weekends as desirable. The DSM/EVO/GTR Shootout is Aug 18-20 and has autocross on Saturday. Any 3S can participate in autocross, drag test n tune and dyno. A 4Gswapped 3S can compete as a DSM in any event including Max Effort which takes your best autocross run (of 5), best drag run (of 3) and combines them. Lowest score wins. It's favors a powerful autocross car and is a blast. GTRs are EVOs and DSMs run during the same times and it's fun to compare autocross and drag times with the modern AWD imports.

NG seemed to hinge around road course which I believe is niched, especially with this platform. I understand the core group required it, but it doesn't seem to pull in the new owners and sounds like it really contributed to costs. Or maybe the enthusiasm and vision needed to be generated for road course with the new FB owners. (Post Erron videos going sideways! Love his in car vids. Lol. Or some old school supercar drifting vids).

I just don't subscribe to the dead platform talk. Dead forums which is sad. Best place for technical info and discussion.

[IPD]

But that's the problem ^. Dead forums = dead platforms. Maybe not immediately, but sooner or later. With the technical expertise gone, people will start modding cars like it's the dark ages again. That means more ending up at the crusher.

The only reason you've seen so many on FB is likely because those people would NEVER be active in the community/forums--but they're FB-tards & spam their shiz on social media. That's not a community. That's just trying to one-up others by showing how your shit is nicer/better than theirs.

p.s.
"Custom Widebody" was done 1x by a guy in UK, back when I still cared. Cianci's was always shit to me. I'd asked over and over for a better one--nothing was produced. "stance" needs to DIAF, and anyone that does it to a 3/s should commit seppuku. Engine swapping a 3/s w/o keeping it AWD is a sacriledge.

[familyMAN]

Tell that to Supras. Their forum is dead but somehow the platform keeps advancing. Same for many other platforms and the new platforms where enthusiasts go straight to FB for their online automotive social networking.

The forums are dying. Not not the platforms and that includes 3S based on what I've seen after joining FB reluctantly.

There are other custom widebody that have been done in the US. Plus quite a few adapting flares from other platforms.

Just because there aren't more people raising their cars to 4x4 status to follow your car's "stance" doesn't mean stuff isn't happening out there. I cannot believe how many single turbos are out there running around. They aren't posted on the forum. All on FB and instagram.

Our forum playground is basically dead. Sucks, because it's a great archive of technical knowledge, searchable and a much better forum for technical discussion.