We have a great pond in Saranac MI. (by Grand Rapids MI) it is private, big enough, good parking and a big flat pit area. Also electric on site airport in grand rapids Hobby shop in G.R. I thought we would offer it for 2017 NATS? kas
I was thinking about setting up a battle on the lake near my house, but it is a damned up canyon and I don't know what the depths are yet. Will need to do some research.
Talk it up on the IRCWCC Yahoo list and get some interest going. Nationals quality venues should be talked up and promoted as much as possible.
Would Saranac, MI be more viable for the TX battlers? Stills seems like a hike for them to me but I haven't calculated the mileage so I really don't know. What would be really helpful is a battle club within a few hundred miles of St. Louis to host battles and serve as a middle ground for events like NATS. Tom
Saranac is a 2 day drive (19 hrs) from South Houston. Not much worse than NC was last year (15.5hrs). Slightly shorter than the 22.5hrs to Bradford this year. A bit far to solo drive in 2 days for me. 8 hrs is about my max behind a wheel these days before I need a good long break.
I drive for a living, so a 10-14 hr drive is a normal day, lol, but I still wouldn't want to do it after working all week.
Thirty-three hours plus from here in Loomis California. I don't work, but I still don't want to plant my Fannie in a car seat for that long. Twice. On the positive side, this is much more doable than the East Coast locations. Actually the smart thing to do is determine what locations are available to host. Establish where they are and take a "serious" poll of the sites that members would attend and those that they would not. This way you could determine which site might generate the most attendance. You might be surprised; the most central location might not generate the most attendance.
Very good point Gary. I can say that if it were in Ca, it would be too far a drive for me, so it stands to reason that the same would apply for the west coast guys in cases like this year when it is close to the east coast.
I realize that Nationals would not happen on the West Coast, because we don't have enough members involved in Fast Gun. I was thinking that the "sweet spot" for attendance would be somewhere closer to the middle of the country or near Texas, Kansas or... Obviously the farther west you come, the more east coast members you loose and the reverse as you go east. Someday where the prize pot is $100k for each winning team member (Maybe Clippard, Hobby King and Tower Hobbies could be the major sponsors), we will always have trouble finding the perfect location for Nationals for any of the formats. ABC Sports would be interviewing Tugboat or Nick Meyers for their rundown of this years ships and competitors... Guess a little to much Super bowl hype; glad it's behind us for another year.
Not saying that you thought west coast was possible, lol. Just agreeing with you, it depends on how many people can/would attend.
Usually the guys doing the commentary on TV Sports were the average Joe, wanna-be or never really was. Just who was Howard Cosell? I've just been kidding here; I picket two names at random and Tug and Nick were targeted. So let me fix my mistake: Now back to our studios in Mongo for a few comments from our ABC Network R/C Combat Analyst; the who's who on the subject "Mr. Geek"... OK, now the sweet spot for Nationals needs to be somewhere in Colorado.
Been there, done that, even have the t-shirt (it is a nice one). Attendance from west of the Rockies didn't go up. Nobody has offered to host NATS even that far west since. (That was a 26hr drive each way for me, of course I flew, cause "....I'm smart! Not like everybody says... like dumb... I'm smart....", I did do the 25 hr each way drive to Houston once....much preferred the time I flew there..) IRCWCC determines NATS location by a membership vote so it goes where the members want it to be, if you want to have a say all you need to do is join and battle in a sanctioned event. (vote counts double if you actually go to NATS and battle, yes people that actually go and battle get more say than those that just talk and build, moral of the story is GO BATTLE! MORE BATTLE!!!!) I'm surprised that there haven't been any sanctioned events on the west coast since there seem to be a number of fast gun guys out there. I'd think they'd want to include themselves a little more.
I want to go to nats, but it's to far to go without someone to share the gas cost with. So I need a copilot. Sorry, XO, lol.
I'm new to the whole Fast Gun, Nationals thing, even though I've been involved with combat since 1985. My primary focus was previously Big Gun and then 1/72. While Big Gun is still alive, it's really dying a slow death because of excessive costs and unavailability of the guns. For this reason several of us recently decided to convert our old Big Gun ships to Fast Gun. Last year I had heard that the 2016 Nationals would possibly be in Texas; so there was serious effort being made to attend. A bit far, but a workable distance. When the actual location was determined, that changed all plans, with the distance being totally out of the question. As I said, there is not enough of us on the West Coast doing Fast Gun to make it feasible to have Nationals out here or even in Colorado (that was just a joke anyway). All I am saying is find the location that would maximize participation and attendance. That would hopefully be a location that was centrally located for all, but for some right in their own back yard. If that's in New York, then that's were the Nationals should be. If you live in Outer Mongolia, you're just plum out of luck unless your rich or have a transporter that can "beam" you and your ship into NY. I haven't sat down and analyzed the whole sanctioned event, attending, voting thing, but it appears to me that if you have the Nationals in your back yard, you have the power to keep it there... forever. As I said, I have not totally analyzed it. Guess I should ask, when was the location of Nationals last held away from the Eastern portion of the country?
if you have the Nationals in your back yard, you have the power to keep it there... forever. Not true, ask anyone that has hosted a nats, it sucks.. Only thing worse is CD at Nats. So, host one nats and pray that some other sucker hosts next year Membership votes on where it will be, so no conspiracy "maybe constipation after mexican night"
I am finding a lot of people near me have man made ponds on their land. If there's enough interest in having an event in N Alabama, not the nats although that would be cool, I will start asking around and see if I can secure the use of one of these ponds. Some of them are very nice looking, clean, no weeds growing all around them, ext.
