Saturday, May 19, 2012

Automotion 2012

This was my 7th year attending Automotion. Every year I leave my house at 7:30-7:40 and roll into Automotion at about 9AM with not much of a line … not so much this year …

I made it to about 3 blocks before the turn down the final road at about 8:35AM … I could see cops at the intersection and I could see normal cars (Honda’s … Toyota’s ….)turning down the same road to automotion (WHY?!?) … after about 10 minutes I moved about 100 feet and my car died … gulp … I turned the key and nothing … I was in drive so I put it in neutral and try again … nothing … not a peep from the starter … on go the hazards …


15 seconds later there are 3 guys jumping out of their classic cars to help push me (gotta love car guys!) … 3 minutes later the line has moved 30 feet … I try to start it again … and it fires right up … I wave to the folks in the left lane to watch out because I’m coming over! I drove a block up and parked at a gift shop … I decided I was going to walk into automotion and check things out and let the line die down a bit. As I walk up to the intersection I can see cars lined up for a half mile in either direction! This is going to be an awesome show!


By 9AM I walked to the far back lot (plenty of antifreeze on the ground around a lot of the cars) … there was about 100 spots left and about 100 spots left in the upper lot as you drive in … so by 9AM there were +800 cars parked … at that point I knew there was no way I was going to make it into the show with my car … So I thought I would walk back to my car and grab my camera and enjoy the show … I get back to my car and see the shop is opening and there is a sign that says “30 minute parking” … Super … so at that point I had no interest of parking my car in the spectator lot … so I jumped in my car … fired it up and drove to the show at Stark in Stoughton (with my AC on) …

Year after year Automotion has issues getting cars parked … and year after year they make no changes. Why?

Each year we offer ideas to help speed things up and they make no changes … Here are some of the ideas from the past and some new ones:

1. Circletrack brought this up last year … why not make the street that turns into automotion 1 way from 6AM to 10AM so cars can be side by side in the same direction.

2. Why do they let normal family cars turn down the street into automotion? The cops should wave them by and tell them show cars only.

3. Why do they park cars one … at … a … time? There was a 1 mile long line to park one … at … a …time. They should park cars in 3-4 locations at the same time.

4. Why make every car make a Y-turn and back into a spot? Everyone, pulls forward (I know that this is not normal car show etiquette), if you have ever attended a brewer game that is how they get cars in and parked fast!


5. There are 3 entrances into Noah’s Ark, but they only use one of them.

6. Allow owners to park their cars overnight from 4-8PM Friday for a fee (say 50 bucks) and then hire a couple of rent-a-cops to watch the cars. This is what they do at other large shows around the nation.

7. What happens when you pre-register? Do they mail you a hot pink card that says, “you’re in!” that you pass off as you drive in? Or do they have to look up your name?

So will I go back next year? Probably only as a spectator, if they don’t indicate that they are going to make some changes … It is exciting that the first couple of shows of 2012 have had record attendance …


I’m interested in what others experiences were today …

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