Don't know if any of you followed the coverage over on Racer.com re the latest "who gets to run Laguna Seca" shenanigans:
https://racer.com/2019/11/19/monterey-county-votes-to-hire-ad-narigi-as-new-laguna-seca-manager/
https://racer.com/2019/11/19/insight-monterey-county-sham/
I guess the management company brings an, err, new perspective to the track.
The problem was the damn boomers and the vineyards. "Reginald, That car noise is disrupting my wine glass. See to it that something is done".
the last miata reunion was there. Sad. It's my favorite track of all time.
interesting and one of the first stories to add that the costs of many racetracks would be too much if you had to pay all the crew working on race day the going wage and benefits
Car Clubs volunteers are what makes it work ,
californiamilleghia said:interesting and one of the first stories to add that the costs of many racetracks would be too much if you had to pay all the crew working on race day the going wage and benefits
Car Clubs volunteers are what makes it work ,
No question. How do you make a million bucks running a race track? Start with twenty five million.
One big deal for us little guys wanting to run there is the noise limit (90-92 dB), especially for those of us who worry that we're iffy on the limit. Towing 9 hours, entrance fee, motel, only to get black-flagged for noise makes the trip less likely. This of course plays into the hands of those wanting to make the track go away.
Then there's is an aspect of the sound limit that I understand yet don't like at all. That is, when the $$$$$ events roll in, suddenly it's okay to spew 130 dB noise, far louder than our events. I realize it's all about money, but exposing the neighbors only to the loudest races seems like something that's not going to end well...
_ said:the last miata reunion was there. Sad. It's my favorite track of all time.
_, I'm not sure you read the links. It's not the usual "damn property owners complaining about noise", it's some serious shenanigans going on with regards to track management. And complaints about Laguna Seca noise have been going on since before "boomers" had serious property holdings in the area, I suspect.
About the Miata Reunion - it's sponsored by Mazda, and they used to donate the track time when it was Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. When it became Floormat Raceway Laguna Seca, Mazda lost that ability. The track did also become more difficult to deal with, more extra costs and requirements. So there were more reasons to leave and fewer reasons to stay. Boomers were not a factor.
If you've dealt with Laguna Seca, you learn that it's really just a podunk local track that happens to have a massive reputation. It's a bit weird.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Having been there I concur with the podunk feel. My comment was directed at the main reason why a lot of folks would rather travel south a bit and visit a different track instead LS. Off topic, I know.
Laguna's facilities are awful and the management short sighted. It's really a shame since it's such a nice location. If VIR can attract the mega-money crowd to the middle of nowhere in Virginia to keep their cars garaged and pay uber track club fees, surely an historic track spitting distance from Monterey should be able to manage the same.
Like most tracks , there are more problems with the spectators that are racing around the local area than the real racers at the track ,
I bet it was a madhouse when they had the Moto GP up there !
First for anyone not familiar with an RFP process and how they work for government agencies; the proposals are rated on what is submitted not what is public knowledge or known past experience, so contrary to the article, if a proposal didn't fully list all of the requested information the evaluators would likely and rightly score them lower, they are legally bound to rate it this way. This happens with our organization all the time; we have people who are currently doing the work and are in good standing but fail to provide all of the information requested and end up losing out.
Next, typically government organizations RFP awards are recommenced by staff. The board is simply voting for or against said recommendation.
Also standard public purchasing practice is a protest period; if the proposal was somehow railroaded through any of the respondents could protest the recommendation. The protest doesn't even have to be well founded.
California may work under a radically different set of rules for RFPs then my state but I doubt it. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fix because local politicians are stupid like that, here in Las Vegas we had local officials take 50K bribes from a developer and they all went to jail..........for 50K, idiots. The amount of money we're taking about is not in the millions so I'm skeptical
Equating a possibly juiced award to "the end of Laguna Seca" seems a bit sensationalist to me. I mean no disrespect to the folks at racer as they have a damn fine publication but noting a $250 contribution is over the top (do you really think a board member sold their soul for 250 bucks?) The 10K contributions are most definitely worth noting but not 250. On the surface there does appear to be a conflict but because I do this for a living there are a lot questions that weren't addressed in the article; who were the evaluators? Did county staff make the recommendation? Is the board operating under policy governance or another set of rules? Was the scoring of the RFP weighted? If so what weight was given to pricing? In addition to the cost to the county, what was the price difference in the rate schedules (rental rates to the public) between the proposals? Again lots of unanswered questions.
Again I'm not going to start predicting the end of Laguna based on this article because if the board only voted up or down on a purchasing department recommendation then that eliminates any conflict of interest (which is way most government procurement is set up this way).
Man, i am just filled with optimism after reading that. 
In reply to Tom1200 :
Did you read the article? They moved the management contact to the corrupt SPV set up by the guy who's kid died right by the track. It's dead.
Corrupt? They've been convicted? Has anyone even been indicted? You have to have document proof to eliminate a respondent.
Yes I read the article but like I said there are numerous unanswered questions. On the surface it does appear to be pretty hincky (sp) but one needs to look deeper than the surface when dealing with this.
I went so far as to actually look at the contract and there is a termination clause which if the contract is totally BS gets the county out of the contract.
Again did the board pick the supplier or did they simply vote on a recommendation? If a procurement officer was found to be corrupt, state law would instantly make the contract null and void so either way not an issue.
The larger question is how do we know the awarded supplier can't do the job? While we may be skeptical who's to say they won't end up doing a good job?
kb58 said:Then there's is an aspect of the sound limit that I understand yet don't like at all. That is, when the $$$$$ events roll in, suddenly it's okay to spew 130 dB noise, far louder than our events. I realize it's all about money, but exposing the neighbors only to the loudest races seems like something that's not going to end well...
The noise regs are a compromise between the county (who owns the track and is thus interested in maximizing revenue from it) and the whiny neighbors. The county isn't going to hamstring MotoGP or IndyCar with 90 db limits -- that would basically result in the cancellation of those events. Essentially the way it works is that there are a certain number of unlimited days, a certain number of 103, a certain number of 92, and the rest are 90. The higher the sound limit of the day you rent, the more it costs. Most cheap track days are 90 but there are typically a handful every year that are 103.
For the most part, it's not actually all that hard to make a car pass 90db. Yes, you need mufflers, yes they're heavy, yes you lose power, and yes they're annoying to package on a Porsche. But I've gone to something like 40 track days there over the last 20 years and have yet to get popped for sound.
As for the management contract, it looks very odd. If what racer magazine is reporting is correct, then the board is either willfully ignorant of what it takes to run a successful race track or there's something fishy going on.
I will agree that corrupt is a bit of a stretch at this point, but there are valid suspicions.
Narigi does have what could be considered a conflict of interest and/or an ax to grind (kids death / lawsuit). SCRAMP, a not-for-profit 501(c) corp, has been doing the job for decades and has an experienced crew. Narigi has neither. Then, why is the county apparently cutting SCRAMP out?
While the facility may not be up to some peoples standards SCRAMP has gotten INDYCAR to return and IMSA has running been there for quite a while now. The fact that it is part of a public facility/park probably plays a part in what SCRAMP can and cannot do there.
I would be interested in knowing what Mr. Penske thinks of this. New owner of INDYCAR, race team owner, past owner of several race tracks, etc. Not a guy to mess with and I don’t think he (or other INDYCAR sponsors) would want to lose the NorCal demographic (wine country) race. I would also be interested in knowing what the “floor mat” company thinks. If I had to guess, if it goes to Narigi there could well be the following docket entry;
SCRAMP, INDYCAR Inc, “floor mat” Inc, etc v Monterey County et al
Here is something I actually found somewhat disingenuous about the article or perhaps it's just contradictory; they note that the guy is being paid 229K per year yet they then go on to note that A&D is 109K less per year then LMS on a 3 year contract. What would you say to your county government if they award a contract to a company that cost $327,000 more than one of the other finalists.
Local governments are compelled to award to the lowest responsible responsive bidder by law.
Also looking at the article on the investigation into campaign finance violations there seems to be some evidence that it's politically motivated. There was a preliminary and illegal investigation that turned up no evidence of wrong doing.
Right or wrong the county is unhappy with SCRAMP so under past performance they may have been scored lower.
When I skimmed through the contract I saw a couple of things that if I were the awarded supplier I would balk at. It appears the county has the ability to meddle in the day to day business. I was also surprised that the county was indemnifying the supplier given the nature of the business. I also noticed the 25 million dollar insurance requirement.......yikes.
To me the the predictions of Laguna's demise seems premature.
Tom1200 said:Here is something I actually found somewhat disingenuous about the article or perhaps it's just contradictory; they note that the guy is being paid 229K per year yet they then go on to note that A&D is 109K less per year then LMS on a 3 year contract. What would you say to your county government if they award a contract to a company that cost $327,000 more than one of the other finalists.
Right or wrong the county is unhappy with SCRAMP so under past performance they may have been scored lower.
I would hope my county government would hire someone who actually has the knowledge and resources to run the track. From what the article says, Mr Nagiri doesn't -- he's a former hotel manager with no other current staff of any kind, and he's expecting to be up and running in less than 60 days (Jan 1). That seems... ambitious.
SCRAMP was not the only option, there was a third bid by an organization with a long history of successfully managing races and race tracks. If the county is tired of a sloppy, inefficient, poorly-run organization running the track (which is what I have been told was the case with SCRAMP a few years ago, and kicked this whole thing off), then you'd think they would have been inclined to go with someone with a proven history of succeeding in this kind of operation, rather than a complete neophyte.
Not that I get a good vibe from the current proceedings, but I will say that a hospitality manager and a racetrack manager have a whole lot of overlap in my estimation.
In reply to Tom1200 :
I'm not really sure why you're interested in carrying water for the joker that won the contact, but it's pretty clear to me that this is bad, bad news for the track. Why else would someone bribe their way into running the place where their kid died?
The question that I have is: Isn't there a requirement for the bidder to be qualified? I don't know how you justify awarding the bid to someone with no apparent organization to be operating in 60 days, not to mention no race venue experience.
In reply to Tom1200 :
Everything I have read that was written by Tom1200 I agree with. I only got through the articles not the public record of the actual contract dealings though. Government purchasing has very strict rules to protect the taxpayers funds. Sometimes those rules result in a backfire of obvious failed acquisition. BUT here is the key point. IF the government program office and acquisitons followed the strict rules then they can explain to politician and taxpayer alike how it failed.
My organization went through this as someone in the program office was lazy and didn't provide well written requirements. As such it left a very open window for anyone without any experience or product that we were wanting to bid and win the bid despite not having or knowing what we needed and at higher costs. Two year later after paying twice as much as we wanted, we finally have a new contract starting with well written specifications that allow us to get the service and product we want. Still that first winning bidder was able to provide all the services and product to meet our mission needs or they would have been terminated. So despite the increased cost we completed our mission.
In another situation, we had someone we always wished would bid on our jobs finally submit a bid. But they forgot two required documents. Thus they were immediately thrown out of the competition. There are very rigid ways to stop the acquisiton and restart but sometimes we can do that to allow some bidder(s) that made a simple mistake to submit a complete package. But then we are into the world of potential bias.
That last situation may just be where SCRAMP failed in their bid. They apparently didn't provide the required details about their staff, awesome as they were. They assumed since they were buddies with the county and state and that they were just going to be handed the contract. So, basically if a group of local public school facilities managers submitted a complete bid they would have beat out SCRAMP. Or if GRM put in a complete bid they might just be winners of a contract to manage Laguna Seca.
On the other hand, the political contributions and ties should suggest that someone else that works within the county and state should make the award decision.
This is not the article I needed to read. LS is on my bucket list. Just one hot lap. It can be in an Aveo for all I care.
DaveM I'm not interested in carrying water for the guy, I'm just telling you that the Racer article totally overlooks how the process works.
As for bribery, there is no proof of that, I did say that on the surface it looks hincky but that doesn't mean it is.
I find Racer dedicating a paragraph to a $250 contribution a red flag as far as how serious to take the article. (A local Hotelier is going to be donating to many campaigns at this dollar level). No disrespect to them, that's just how I think.
As for the 5-10K donations; if you dig deeper you'll see that some cops were reprimanded for illegally obtaining documents from one of the PACs mentioned in the Racer article, guess what, there was no evidence of wrongdoing found in those documents. Journalists get stories really wrong all the time. Racer is right to bring up most of the details they did, but because I'm familiar with the process I'm not declaring the death of Laguna Seca based on those details.
My thoughts were the same as Vigo; the skill set in running a resort and a race track are not dissimilar. If you really want to predict how this might play out look at the guys results at the resort. If he's done a good job there, he'll likely do a good job at Laguna.
As for the lack of staff; the volunteers for SCRAMP will very likely continue, these people are passionate about the place and they are not likely to abandon it because management has changed. If I were the awardee I'd be reaching out to them. Many a savvy businessman has taken a business to the next level by using existing employees knowledge.
Think about what is Roger Penske's major skill? Hard work? Negotiator? Visionary? It's none of those. His greatest skill is the ability to recognize good people, hire them and then let them do they're job. You don't have to have all those people in place, good people have reputations and are known in any given business. Many of those people may well relish the challenge of a new project.
Laguna may well tank but again look at the guys record in his current job, that will likely be the best predictor of how this is going to go.
OK because I had a little bit of free time I dug deeper on the guy and the process.
One of the articles I found noted according to SCRAMP the county bypassed the normal RFP process. for me that would be a red flag. It appears the county just doesn't want to work with SCRAMP and they county just can't get past SCRAMPs previous troubles. My attitude is even when your current supplier is not getting the job done you still need to do an RFP. The two week notice, while not the norm for the county, is also not unusual in the procurement world.
Naragi has 37 years in the hospitality business is on the board of several charitable organizations as well as local business associations. He did turn around the property he managed for the last 25 years. Read he has a solid business background and is deeply involved in the community.
I did find something rather telling, by happenstance his name came up in a TripAdvisor review. A customer had a bad experience and he actually gave them his personnel email and looks to have gone out of his way to make it right.
Additionally the guy has said he intends to rehire the staff at Laguna with benefits.
As for the investigation of the PACs the guy is involved in, they do seem to be politically motivated.
Long and the short of it to me is it appears the county had there mind made up and they picked and experienced local who they think will fix it. The local and state regs may well allow them to do this, if I were involved I would have pushed for the RFP process but just because they chose different doesn't make it nefarious.
The reason why I'm an advocate fo the RFP process is because when you go outside the process you can almost guarantee a journalist will equate you're going outside the process as something nefarious is going on.................
From what I read it's a racket.
Qualified bidders are a requirement in any proposal process, and a hotel management and race track management is wholly different.
If the county is the owner of the track and has been, they know that the management group isn't qualified.
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