Laguna Seca volunteers terminate contract negotiations

Image courtesy WeatherTech Raceway
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emailBy Marshall Pruett | 14 hours ago

WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca’s new management team has hit a snag with its all-important base of volunteer workers.

Without a timely resolution, A&D Narigi, LLC, could struggle to operate the Monterey County-owned road course once large gatherings and major sporting events are allowed to resume following the statewide COVID-19 shutdown.

Named as the replacement for SCRAMP — the non-profit Sports Car Racing Association of the Monterey Peninsula — late in 2019, A&D Narigi expressed interest in retaining a significant portion of the hundreds who comprised SCRAMP’s volunteer base to continue in their various roles.

The former SCRAMP volunteers, united as the new Laguna Seca Volunteer Association group (LSVA) led by Dennis Farber, entered into negotiations with A&D Narigi in April.

“We are organizing a new volunteer association for 2020 and beyond,” Farber told the Monterey Herald on April 10. “Our returning experienced volunteers coupled with the many enthusiastic incoming volunteers will give us the right team of people to make the premiere events at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca the best they can be.”

In a letter sent by Farber Thursday morning to Monterey County assistant county administrative officer DeWayne Woods, who orchestrated the change from SCRAMP to A&D Narigi and directs the property on behalf of the county, the LSVA announced it has broken off talks with the county, and its chosen race track manager, after two months of unsuccessful negotiations:

To: Mr. Dwayne Woods

Subj: Termination of Contract Negotiations

Since January of this year the Laguna Seca Volunteer Association has attempted to negotiate a contract with the County of Monterey to provide volunteers to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

At the beginning of March A&D Narigi Consulting provided a proposed contract. There were many parts of the contract that were acceptable, however, there were others that were unacceptable. Many of the problem clauses were changed but others were not.

The wording of the County’s insurance requirement has made it impossible for us to obtain the required liability insurance. We have tried for the past two months to have this remedied with no success. In other areas we presented four or five alternatives, just to have them rejected. We have tried to come to a fair compromise but unfortunately these negotiations have reached an impasse.

It became apparent during these negotiations that there is a lack of understanding of volunteers and a lack of respect for the volunteers.

Because of these and other problems, the Directors of the Laguna Seca Volunteer Association have voted to end all negotiations for now to provide experienced volunteers to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The Association would be open to fruitful discussions in the future if a true partnership could be agreed upon.

We wish the track success in the future.

Respectfully,

Laguna Seca Volunteer Association Directors

John Narigi, president and general manager of WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, expressed surprise at the LSVA’s action, and indicated he still hoped an agreement could be reached.

“The letter from the Laguna Seca Volunteer Association came as a surprise to us, as I believed we were very close to completing the agreement,” Narigi said. “We were working through the insurance matters to everyone’s satisfaction and with final minor points still under discussion.

“Since then, I have been actively involved in writing the safety and health protocols so we can begin reopening the facility to private track rentals, which was allowed June 1. The final draft of the Volunteer Association agreement was to go out by mid-month. I am still hopeful that an agreement can be reached. As you can imagine the COVID-19 situation has caused additional work that has affected many aspects of this business.”

The circuit lists the August 8-9 Rolex Monterey Pre-Reunion as its first post-shutdown event where a sizable body of volunteers would be required to facilitate the gathering.

 

MEDLAND: Why F1 is watching NASCAR more closely than ever

Image by Etherington/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Chris Medland | 14 hours ago

NASCAR got the jump on other racing series by restarting first, and while there will have been financial reasons for that, it also by default became a sort of moral compass within motorsport.

It had to deliver entertainment, but it had to get safety right. And more recently, it had to use its platform to acknowledge wider issues in the world.

The progress being made by the series – the issues it faces, but also the changes it makes – are going to be closely watched by Formula 1. And those issues and changes extend far beyond the ongoing evolution of pandemic control since racing restarted.

NASCAR’s strong stance following the growing movement to address racial injustice has looked immensely impressive to someone watching from the outside. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of some of the decisions – my colleague Kelly Crandall expertly covered much of it – but I can tell you I’m not alone in viewing matters from an F1 perspective and being pleasantly surprised by how proactive NASCAR has appeared.

Multiple races have provided a platform for NASCAR to broadcast from, and it would be a little unfair to directly compare it to IndyCar’s approach at Texas given that was the first race back, but strong comments, direct actions, collective voices… these are all things that Formula 1 needs to demonstrate.

F1 doesn’t have that same opportunity right now while it waits for the Austrian Grand Prix to roll around, but the advantage is that it does have the time to work out what it wants to say and do. No longer is it acceptable to sit back quietly and let time act as a healer. The sport cannot hope to escape scrutiny because it won’t be back on our televisions for another three weeks. A plan needs to be put in place that extends beyond simply trying to find the next Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton has been speaking out as the only black driver in F1’s history and said he felt like he stood alone 10 days ago. But he is very much in the minority outside of the car, too.

I can’t reach double figures when I think of the number of black people who regularly attend races in the paddock, and in the area where I personally most regularly work – the media center – I can count them on one hand.

I did a podcast recently with one of those journalists — Sam Collins — who has worked in multiple paddocks, and said that in his experience, the NASCAR press room is a much more diverse place.
Hamilton said he felt isolated as a black F1 driver, but the paddock isn’t very diverse either. Image by Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images

Whether anything that has been happening in stock car racing will turn into long-term change remains to be seen, but the spotlight that has been placed on the topic needs to register and have an impact on this side of the pond.

And Formula 1 can also learn from NASCAR from a sporting event point of view, too.

Despite announcing the first part of its 2020 calendar, and having teams back at work preparing for the return to racing, F1 is in an increasingly difficult position.

While the situation in the United Kingdom is still a very delicate one, with plenty of lockdown restrictions still in place and social distancing measures sticking to two-meter guidelines that are particularly challenging for many businesses, it is a very different story in certain parts of Europe. And it is a landscape that is changing quickly.

In exactly three weeks, the teams will all be at the Red Bull Ring in Austria preparing for the first race. And things are likely to look very different by that point.

From a UK perspective, three weeks ago restrictions were so severe that you could only meet up with one other person from outside your household, as long as you were both outside and maintained social distance. A week later, six people could meet up, and now individuals are allowed to enter households, don’t need to maintain distance and can stay the night.

Businesses have been reopening rapidly during that same period, with car showrooms, outdoor markets, zoos and drive-in cinemas all turning the lights back on. Retailers have continued to expand the number of open stores, the Premier League has agreed to resume its season and will do so in less than a week’s time.. it has all been changing, fast.

But F1’s restart plans had to appear convincing and watertight to multiple governments and stakeholders at the time of their announcement a little over a week ago. Restrictions on the numbers of personnel, access at the venue and a ban on fans were all outlined because it fit the situation at that time. But as NASCAR is showing, that situation will evolve.
As F1 prepares to return to racing, it is taking cues from how NASCAR handled its own reopening. Image by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

There will be some fans and guests at NASCAR races some two weeks before F1 even gets going again. And while it’s true that different territories have different restrictions, F1 is actually heading to venues that are in very good shape.

Austria has just 400 active cases of COVID-19 in a population of nine million. Hungary has 1,000 active cases in a very similar number. One local journalist in the latter country told me that the situation is now “back to absolutely normal — we even have fans at the football games.”

Combined, the two countries have a COVID-19 death toll of just over 1200 – or, between 50 and 75 per million of their respective populations. The UK currently registers over 41,000 deaths, or more than 600 per million.

F1’s protocols need to be spot-on in order to facilitate travel between different countries at this time, but they also need to be sympathetic to the individual situations in each territory and not tar them all with the UK’s brush. If Austrian officials say greater numbers and even fans can attend, then they should be allowed to. The same applies to Hungary. Just because Silverstone has to be behind closed doors, doesn’t mean every event has to be.

But much like F1 was able to see how NASCAR, the Bundesliga and other sporting organizations went about their business of restarting their events, the sport is now closely watching how those that are far more advanced with their returns to action are evolving and adapting as the global situation changes.

There’s a feeling of the calm before the storm when it comes to F1’s season, with teams now back in their factories and carrying out familiar work – admittedly in unfamiliar ways – as they prepare to put their cars back on track. But the sport is never truly calm even in the midst of a normal season, and there will be massive amounts of work still going on in the background.

I’ve written before about how the opening races will be used as a blueprint to show other promoters (and other European racing series) how the events can be executed safely. In this climate, a step-by-step approach is required, so the further up the steps you can start from, the quicker you can reach something resembling a more normal grand prix. That’s crucial for F1, because a more normal grand prix is where it is going to make its money.

I thought NASCAR was simply going to be a welcome distraction from lockdown, and something that would satisfy my appetite for racing. Instead, it has become a significant example for F1 to look to.

COVID-19, Formula 1, Insights & Analysis, NASCAR

 

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• Walt Stannard • 2 days ago Why the Monterey County Board of Supervisors contracted with John Narigi to manage Laguna Seca Raceway and appointed Darius Sadeghi to oversee the Monterey Motorsports Reunion, still a mystery. Maybe it was their mutual inexperience, like total lack of experience with any major sporting event and with motorsports. Maybe it was they made supervisors feel good. Maybe Dewayne Woods believed he could gain advantage from Narigi and Sadeghi knowing virtually zip about what they were to do and he could de facto manage the track, as he seems to have wanted to do for some time.
  
  Why Woods is fixated by LSR, another mystery. The couple of hundred grand the county pays him a year isn’t chump change, so I can't imagine there's a financial incentive. Maybe he wants to use success with LSR as a steppingstone to go from assistant to administrator; good luck with that. Insightful about Woods’ LSR thinking are his reported remarks at a Carmel Valley Rotary Club event, "Long terms goals by the county is to make Laguna Seca a premier facility with a center track focus on concessionaires and business centers."
  
  What I doubt county supervisors and those who influence them comprehend, the racing series that have brought big bucks to Monterey County don't need LSR. There are more venues that want to host races than there are races. Motorsports decision-makers have made possible events at LSR because LSR is Laguna Seca Raceway not because events there are incredibly profitable. How they have felt about racing at Laguna Seca Raceway and doing business with the people who, until now, they did business were the reasons for racing at Laguna Seca Raceway.
  
  Without events featuring major series races, LSR will be just one of the country's iconic racetracks. Without them, Monterey County would lose the big bucks that seem all so important to county supervisors, unless Narigi believes big bucks will be generated by events like his replacement for the reunion, “a private track rental where you will be able to enjoy driving in a low-key club-like affair.”
  
  Best for Laguna Seca Raceway and those who love the track would be for it to be protected as a historic landmark so it won’t go the way of the other iconic California race track, Riverside International Raceway, into history
  

 

Andy Flinn • a day ago Portland International Raceway, owned and operated by the city, is funded primarily by the money generated by local car clubs, drag racers, sports car racers, and other events - not by visits from big bucks-generating national race series.

Riverside International Raceway was a privately-owned circuit that was sold to a developer and bulldozed to build a Lowe's industrial complex because the land was too valuable to remain a racetrack - despite visits from big bucks-generating race series.

Fortunately, Laguna is more like PIR than RIR.