Building Steam…

With the Spring Thaw only just announced this week, the response has been amazing to say the least!  Dave and I will be at the start of the Ladner-Bellingham run this weekend to chat with people and check out the cars, and I'm going to pop into Wilkinson's Automobilia tomorrow to check out their 20th Anniversary sale and drop off a poster. Next weekend we will be doing a pre-run of our proposed (top secret!) route to firm up details. We look forward to announcing entry fees in the near future. In the meantime, we are adding more information into the menu on the right, including a little bit about who we are, and links back to your car clubs.  Thanks again to all those car clubs who have spread the word to their members already!  Rally on!

Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure – May 1-3, 2009

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You’ve spent all winter in the garage tracing wiring faults and tuning fussy carburetors, just biding your time until you can get back behind the wheel and hit the open road. This May, break your beauty out of hibernation, and join us for the Spring Thaw Classic Car Adventure!

The Spring Thaw is a budget-minded 3-day driving adventure through British Columbia for pre-1979 touring and sportscars. This is for those who enjoy spirited driving on some of the most challenging and beautiful roads in the world. Concours cars are more than welcome, but we also encourage those less-than-mint, hard-driven, budget classics to take part. Enthusiasm for driving old, unreliable cars counts more than anything!

When is the Spring Thaw Adventure?
Friday, May 1 to Sunday, May 3, 2009

What cars can enter the Spring Thaw Adventure?
The event is open to sport, touring and classic cars from 1979 and
earlier. Sorry, no trucks or motorcycles. Think you’ve got a car that
fits, but doesn’t meet the age category? Feel free to email us.
Seriously, we’re not likely to turn away your Delorean DMC-12 or original GTI if you can convince us.

Where does the Spring Thaw Adventure go?
In 2009, the Spring Thaw will begin in Squamish, B.C. and the route will take us on some of the best roads in southern British Columbia.

Is this a competitive event?
There are no competitive elements to the Spring Thaw. We’ll provide the suggested route, some times to meet for lunch and dinner, and we go from there. The emphasis is on fun and adventurous driving, but you can be sure there will lots of great prizes to hand out at the finish!

How much is the entry fee, and what does it include?
Keeping a classic car roadworthy is expensive enough, so the Spring Thaw is intended to be a budget-minded event. If you’re looking for a high-end resort and winery tour, then you might be disappointed.  If the art of driving is more your thing, then you’ll find the budget motels and restaurants more than acceptable. Your entry fee will include a hotel room for Friday and Saturday night,
entry fee for the driver and co-driver, car decals, dash
plaques, route book and a few other surprises we’re working on. We’re looking at the $300 range for all the above.

We’ll have full details on pricing and how to enter the event in December 2008. Please sign up to our mailing list using the form on the right if you’d like us to keep you up to date, or join us on Facebook. If you have any questions, feel free to email us. Spread the word!

Whoops!

Whoops, looks like you’ve either followed an old link, or we’ve tuned the main jet when we should have adjusted the idles…either way, we’ve gotten you lost! You could try using one of the pull down menus at the top of the page to find what you’re looking for, or shoot us an email and we’ll get you set up. Sorry about that!

ST2017 Entry List Notes

“Hey, why is my entry not posted on the entry list page?!”

There are a few possible reasons why your entry is not yet posted on the entry list, or why you might believe it’s posted in the wrong order:

Today I have posted the first 45 entries that were available for “drop off entries”.
If you read through to the bottom, you’ll understand why. But for now, just the first 45 spots have been posted. The additional spots for the event will be posted, and our “Master Spreadsheet” has maintained the order that all the entries have been received in.

If you did not read the supp-regs, the postman ‘slipped’ and your entry has been shuffled further back.
From an organizer perspective, it’s so important that each of you have read the supp-regs before entering. If I became aware, either through conversations at the house or answers on your entry form, that you have not read the document, your entry has been shuffled back. Details on how that was done are in the long-form information below.

I considered, and approved, some requested car numbers.
Because it became necessary to shuffle some entries this year, car numbers wouldn’t have been chronological as they were in previous years. If you requested a number, and your entry was in the same “block”, I gave you your number. For example, if you requested car number 10 and after the supp-regs shuffle you were still in the first 45 cars, you were assigned car number 10. If, however, you requested car number 10 and got shuffled beyond the first 45 cars, you were not assigned your requested number.

Car number 1 was awarded as per tradition, to the first person to submit an entry.
Congratulations to Scott Trinder, who fortunately answered the first two questions correctly, and didn’t get bumped!

 

The full explanation for this year’s entry list procedures is below:

Hi! 2017 has been a surprising year for Hagerty Spring Thaw entries. I was reading the entry forms and began to realize that a number of guests clearly hadn’t read the Supp-Regs document. The emails, the event information page and even the entry form all say you MUST read the supp-regs document before entering. Was it fair that those who didn’t read got a spot on the event, but someone who did take the time to read it might not?

The supp-regs document outlines what you should expect as an entrant, and attempts to make sure you understand what the event provides in terms of hotel levels, meals, and additional services/assistance you might need. From a guest-expectation, and delivery of event level…it’s very important! Now, in traditional CCA style, I’ve tried to hint at it through the emails, on the website, etc. I even mentioned that “karma could be bad” if you haven’t read them.

So, with the number of entries received on day-one, I knew that by the time Wednesday rolled around we were going to have some disappointed friends who aren’t going to get in this year. If they followed the directions, and other people didn’t, was that fair? I flipped back and forth on it the whole way home. No, it’s not fair. At the same token, I didn’t lay out in black and white that I’m not going to accept your entry if you don’t read the supp-regs, so it’s not fair I toss your entry completely. And how about those who copied their answers from others, got them right, but still haven’t read the supp-regs?

To say I was sitting on a potential disaster is an understatement.

Well, I have a solution which I think is fair and equitable to all, organizer and entrant alike. Entries which have slipped back in the pile have only slipped back within the day they were received. For example, if you were car 10 through the door on Monday and were heard asking for the answers to the questions because “I never read those things”, your entry was slid back to the end of Monday’s drop-offs. It is probable this would have bumped you out of the first 45, but unlikely that you’ll end up so far back that you don’t get into the event.

I have slipped entries back (where needed) in the Tuesday set, and will continue through each day. I believe this is the fairest way to handle it, as I’ve addressed those who haven’t read the supp-regs, while at the same time it’s not completely deadly. Another way to look at it, is your entry hasn’t moved any further than if the Fed-Ex guy put yours in the back of my mailbox vs the front.

After reading a number of sheets I came to realize question number three could be considered misleading. At the very least, I used a word with a definitive term you can find in a dictionary, and asked you to understand that we mean “yeah, it is mandatory unless you choose not to make it mandatory…in which case you’re on your own if you have a problem.”  So, in the interest of fairness, I ignored the question three for the purpose of shuffling entries. You may still receive a “you need to read the supp-regs” email based on your question three answers.

If you do not understand why I’m only posting 45 entries, here is the relevent text from our Entry Email that went out to the BC Mailing:

What happens if I drop off my entry, but you’ve already received the maximum 45?
Entries which are dropped off, after we hit the allotted 45 spots, are simply considered as “mail-in” entries on the first day that mailed entries start arriving. We shuffle them into the stack in what we think is the fairest way possible.

So after the forty-five entries listed on the entry list, each subsequent received entry was considered as though it were mailed in, received on Tuesday when the first mail started arriving. As per the above, I have shuffled them into the Tuesday mail in what I think is the fairest way possible.

Conclusion
While I realize the potential to upset people, I’ve done what I think is the fairest to everyone and within “the spirit” of how we do things at Classic Car Adventures. Before making any decisions a group of us discussed the options and agreed that what we were doing is fair and reasonable. At the very least, it’s going to make discussions about the entry list exciting for the next few days!

-Dave