Bloodhound should be enforced watever it takes LOL! I think the formation of a legit club should come first, Its been almost a year since we were invited to meet with the Offroad guys, Andy,Jay and I were there, planning to establish a common group for all surface RC, and evntually put up a track, I guess with the offroaders they managed to put up their track, I'm not sure if they still consider the on-road racers, if not then its about time for us to make a plan of coming up with our own.

Eric, the off-road guys have put up a track in Abu Dhabi, the Dubai one is underway, but they have not formalised anything yet with regards to a club.....

I think they wanted to forge ahead with the guys who were 'serious' about racing, not just the part timers like us...Our focus needs to be a little broader with regards to the final outcome. That outcome needs to be a formal club, that once we have left, will still continue to exist.

I agree Andy, A formal club should be formalised first with a broader/ wider focus, the track specifically for us on-road/ drifters could come in later, We all know at this point how easy or hard it is to put up a track, how easy or hard it is to stage a race weve been doing this for sometime now and everytime someone "Wishes" for a track to fall from the sky it boils down to one question; WHO WILL? A club with enough funds through membership fees that can sustain itself without considering support from LHS will be the ONE who can provide the track and the event everyone wishes for.

Yup i think it was May or June of last year when we had the meeting with the guys.. since then im not sure if they have materialized any of the plans. Even the website didnt go thru i think.

I agree and would like to be counted in on whatever plans we get to finalize. But as you've said Andy we are just part timers, not everyone is that active on racing/drifting every week. So i hope we get the right number of people to make this thing happen.

Another option weve talked about before was plans on talking to dubai municipality about closing up area2 by racing funds on how much parking fees they earn on the area. That i think is a good option too.

I spoke to my friend regarding how they set up the kite surfing club.
Turns out they were affiliated through the offshore sailing club.
From his experience he suggests it is much better, quicker etc to do it through an organisation that already is 'legit'. Working with government dept to get up and running by ourselves would be very difficult I think unless anyone already knows another club that has done it, but I would think it would be very drawn out process.

So I think Samaj suggestion of going through atcuae might be the best place to start......

Gerg, thanks for the input. ATCCUAE is going to be a target, as well as some other org's that we met last night.....
From April I will be following this aggressively.

OK........ Operation : BEaTaC

The Super Summer Series is running for mini's and we are getting probably about 10 racers each week........ not bad for the middle of summer.

Ramadan has started. Some of us are finishing early, others maybe are less busy at work and some like me have a wife leaving town for the month.

It's not such a good time to approach government dept or parks people, but maybe it's a good time for us to get our own plan in place and maybe speak to the ATCUAE people (Sam where are you?), or did someone already do this?

Anyway I've just re-read through this thread and there were a lot of good idea's and lot's of people willing to help out.

So how about we set a time and place where we can all sit down and work out how we are going to do this....... It could be before or after a Sat race meeting or some other time.

I think we had mostly agreed that we need to form a legit club, so that's where we probably need to focus our attention. It's been a few months since anyone's touched this thread and in danger of confirming the OP's statement that 'no-one does ANYTHING'.

So.........

i agree with you greg. We should have a decent track by now. I was thinking of proposing to rcmart to open up a business here and open up a track. I have started a feasibility study for an indoor (warehouse) track and club here in dubai.

Gents,

We have had some activity on this matter at the other Meydan thread, but I think we should consolidate the info here.

As of now, I have some plans afoot at the Autodrome and I will continue to follow them through. We also have a decent facility at Meydan and it would be nice to see this as an interim solution. I dont want to go to the authroities with anything to offer/suggest/request for the fear of them shutting it down. So for now, we will keep in under our hats until we have a solid alternative. Ideally I would prefer the Meydan option as it is in better proximity to most of the drivers, and with some people not having transport, it makes more sense.

With that said, I dont see any harm with making some additions to the facility, that we could take with us if we get hoofed out. And as discussed in the other thread, we should get some collective funding together and make some effort at making the track a better option.

To date I have had 8 people willing to pay a membership, and of those 8, 2 of them are willing to pay the subs up front.

This leaves us with the following:
Monthly Income: AED280
Capital Income: AED 1200

And this is a total of AED1480 per year. I think it is a start, and the initial funds could be used to upgrade the drivers stand, and the monthly income could be used to do things like get transponders, start/finish bridge, better track markers etc etc.

No one is forcing anyone to contribute, and no mention will be made at any point as to who contributed, and who did not. At some point though, it would be nice to have a membership list, regardless of how those members contributed, and how much.

So, if anyone still wants to be a part of it, let me know. Just email me at sirandy@eim.ae.

Thanks

Gents,

I know the Meydan Thread, Events Thread etc have seen some mention of the Autodrome, but I thought it would be a good idea to keep all relative info here and not clutter up the other topics.
In short, I have not been active in trying to register a club/entity, simply because with a membership of 8-10 people as clarified by the interest above, is simply not enough to justify a club registration. Certainly with almost 250 members of this board, I would have thought the interest more, but there are some factors to consider. Of those 250, if half are lame-bots, one-offs and perhaps non-UAE residents, we are left with 125, out of those, if half are regular visitors, then thats 75. If half of THOSE are in Dubai, we have 30-odd. If half of those are interested in membership club, well......15 people is what we are left with.
The math/stats might not be 100% statistically correct, but it seems a good guide. What is VERY clear is the number of people turning up on a Sat. That number is normally around 15....the interested members who would like to contribute is about .....15. See the pattern forming?

Anyway, this leads me to the conclusion that we make a final push to get the Autodrome interested....or we meet on Saturdays and just have some fun.
I was informed by the Autodrome that many people had been asked if they wanted to set up a stall/stand at some of the events, and the people asked if the Autodrome was going to pay them..!!!??? It seems our impression was always the other way around, so who really know's.
I sent a letter to them the other day, on request, that informed them of our intentions and one point I made clear is that we would be relatively self-sufficient and that all we needed was the ground to drive on. With that in mind, it will be up to US to expand our membership, and anything we need to run the course and activities, is up to US. I did NOT ask for anything, not even a drivers stand. The request was simply for the grounds, access to the grounds and some basic facilitiy access like ablutions etc.

I could NEVER justify them spending money on us. We would be a drawcard, a spectacle for their visitors and may help with some exposure for them, that is all. Based on the interest in paying membership, I believe this is the right attitude as I could never guarantee them that there would be daily use, or weekly use that would exceed 20 people. This, my fellow enthusiasts, is the ugly truth.

So, if they do offer us a 'home', it will be our job to maintain and improve it, and most of all, USE IT! Failure to do that will see it go the same way as the Creek Park track.

As mentioned in my first post on this thread, there will be no GIFT falling out of the sky, no rich sheikh will drop by and give us a track. This is all in YOUR hands....

Lets hope we can get some ground from them, and lets hope people are up to the task....if not, we will be at Meydan.....which in my eyes, ain't so bad...

Lets keep pushing on with the Autodrome, hopefully they can give us some kind of support.

Im sure if we get some regular events happening the membership should expand. I think we should also change the posters that are in the LHS. May be we should list out a race schedule on the posters once we are sorted. At the moment i dont think the posters are clear enough.

I think we can probably get away with out having any problems at Meydan for a while. Its well out the way