Auto Barrel Racing: Unprofessional

[chohdog]

Congradulations to Quock Ly (socal drifter) for winning the big prize. Alex Pfeiffer made it all the way to the top 4, and several other drifters made it into the finals. No suprise there!

What I wanted to mention was the complete lack of experience and unprofessionalism that the Auto Barrel Racing staff exhibited. To make a long, long story short, there are at least 5 (if not more) who qualified for the final event, one of which is also a zilvia member), but because of the lack of organization, communication and overall experience of the staff, we were unable to run. Baisically, the team said that the top 16 times would advance, when what their staff actually did was take only the winners of the individual heats, regardless of the times they ran. This was confirmed in front of their entire staff. My case was even worse, because somebody wasn't paying attention and completely forgot to write down my time alltogether, completely omitting me from the finals. When I simply asked to see what my time was, the girl noticed that the card was completely blank, and tried to blame it on me (saying I either hit one of the barrels or jumped the start). Then I asked about 10 of the spectators if I got black flagged (which they do if you hit a barrel, which I didn't) they said no. I also asked if I might have jumped the lights, but it was confirmed that had I done so, the timing system would not datalog my time. when i crossed the traps after my run, i saw my time, again disproving her accusation.

While this usually isn't such a big deal during a practice event or a friendly competition, the final prize was still $5,000. More importantly, we were unable to compete with many of our friends who moved on.

Only after being pushed aside for about an hour, I finally got through to them and they admitted that they messed up. Royally. So bad, that in reality more than likely that 10 of the 16 people who moved on, shouldn't have actually moved on. When confronted with all of the mistakes, the president of Auto Barrel Racing concluded his thoughts with "It was a free event. What do you want me to do?"

So if you're preparing to work on your car ahead of time, get it ready and make your way out to the event, be prepared to be pretty dissappointed.

[soreballz]

Wow... Thats really shitty.

[HyperTek]

u sound pretty upset about it,.. after all it was a free event, but yeah if money was involved as a prize and you never even got a shot at it because of some dumb bitches mistake, you have every right i think. Was it worth coming out for? Id hate to hear someone bust their car up for this


They just want something to include in the list of events going on for marketing purposes and probably dont care much overall on the quality of the show anymore. Overall was HIN fun though? i usually enjoy em esp if i go with people who are open minded about em, i know people here typically dislike anything related to car shows.

[dori_sil8t]

shitty deal i get why ur mad though. u paid for gas,food etc...
and to have a bunch of kindergarden kids running the show

[lflkajfj12123]

BH!

nKOeySsffDc

[ronmcdon]

Unprofessional is definitely an understatement.
You did the right thing by posting this.
I also suggest you get the full names of the ppl you were dealing with & post it.

[Otto347]

Looks like fun, sucks about the bullshit.

[ZX88]

LOOK OUT ITS THE T1000!!! with a muscle car/

[chohdog]

Formula D and D1 have a prize purse that's about the same, which in a sense makes it pretty serious business. The event itself was actually really fun, and the majority if the staff was really helpful and friendly.

In the end, poor organiztion and a few inept staff members really make the end result crappy in my and a few other people's experience. Oddly enough, it seemed like only the people working the timing/recording (who happened to be all wifes, girlfriends, or daughters of the other staff members) were the people who really messed up.

Car shows really aren't my thing, but I can say that with the drift demo, ABR, and a few other things made the event fun.

Nobody met the T1000. That part is all BS.

[GSXRJJordan]

Haha that video is awesome, go BH (and the other dude is on here too, don't remember his name, but I know I've got pics of him from ASB2 I think).

Sounds like a decently fun event, sucks about the bullshit - thanks for posting though.

[dirtdiggler666]

i thought the video was fake,but the bh part was super funny i have no clue but parts and the host kinda remind me of parts of this dont ask me why YouTube - If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iXP9yoc4VY)

[hunter8411]

Sucks about what happened.

LOL Is this like what they do in rodeo's with the horses but for your car instead? Funny stuff, looks interesting.

[JeremyR]

its like, american gymkhana?

[lost240soul]

that suck .. yea i watched most of this event most fr cars did pretty well.. as for ff thats a different story.. lol by anychance was the winner in that newer miatia

[SochBAT]

Ditto.

Looked like gymkhana to me. but not as rad.

[Brian]

That sucks, Steve.


At least you didn't have to PAY to drive it though. That would be SUPER shitty.



Haha, that old video. So cool.

That was a fun day. Free food, Free driving, getting PAID to do it. So cool.

ABS is actually pretty fun in my opinion.



Congrats Quoc!

[ijumpstuff]

I had a completely different experience with ABR. I have raced in two of their events and it was awesome!! I was paying $100 dollars an event to race (figured it was cheaper than the tickets I would get doing the same thing). I even payed the $300 membership fee last year, then out of the blue I get a refund check for the whole $300 with a letter thanking me for being a part of the racing and I was being refunded because there was not going to be a final that season...I didn't even win an event and I didn't expect a refund. From what I could tell about the management of the other events The guy would have refunded your entry fee if he had one to refund. I race a lot and had more fun at the barrel races than any other event I've entered.. just my two cents..

[chohdog]

For the record, I signed up BECAUSE of Brian :) you just looked too cool in that video, and I had to try to replicate the awsomeness that was present.

Its unfortunate, because the event was fun. All the staff was friendly (including, for the most part the people that majorly dropped the ball). However when they first found that my time card was blank, I think the proper way to handle it would have been something along the lines of "hmm, that's kind of strange. Give me a second to find out what's going on and why your time isn't on here". Instead, I got a "well, you must have hit a barrel or something".

They resisted fessing up to their mistake until I showed them that they were no other logical alternatives short of the T1000 morphing into jesus and magically erasing my time, and writing in the times of others.

I know its human nature to try to believe you did no wrong, and I can surely forgive mistakes, but with a minimum of 6 of the 16 drivers being incorrectly placed, that's pretty big.