Audiatur et altera pars.
Most of what has been said in this section seems reasonable. I'm sure not everyone agrees with all of it but we are entitled to our opinion. What tyres work? , is the surface too loose? etc are reasonable questions though I'm not quite sure how we've reached the fifth page of talk about tyres for a very low attendance club. It is disappointing to read the negative comments but they mostly came from people who had never been and the silly comments about horse sh1t etc are ridiculous and the views of those post makers can be Ignored but nevertheless they were unhelpful to a struggling club.
However, I do feel it is a little unsatisfactory when posts appear about the personal character of club runner(s). I think these comments are inconsistent with the truth and unjustified.
I worked hard to try to set up an evening club that I thought established racers would enjoy. I invested a lot of time and money into both Croston and LDA firstly because I have always wanted to host a club that built tracks I like and secondly because I wanted somewhere to race myself that offered the outdoor feel before you go to race on the Sunday somewhere else. I invested thousands of pounds into this venture plus a lot of lost earnings so to me it represented a large investment. I never expected to make any sort of profit but hoped it would be busy enough for me to at least get back even eventually and then perhaps invest any additional funds back in.
In it for the long haul? Does persistently hosting loss making meetings at two separate venues over nearly a year not count as a huge effort to make a club succeed in the long term? Nobody wanted to make a success of either venue more than I but to do that racers needed to attend! It was only after nearly a full season of trying that the practical issues of hiring a venue for a handful of racers became unsustainable. It finally became apparent that instead of a wealth of enthusiasm for a new club there was lethargy. It simply is the case that LDA was a club that, like many other clubs around the country, suffered for whatever reason from low turnouts and eventually went the same way as many have before.
My good spirited aspiration to host a regional was sincere as I hoped like many of you have agreed that it would be a spectacular event with a great track. I also hoped that with LDA being on the regional calendar it might inspire a rush of interested racers to trial the club and see for themselves if they agreed with me that it was indeed a great venue - It didn't.
In my view LDA was worth a try but ultimately just not sustainable. So - to quote Augustus, 'acta est fabula'.
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