Rallying the Community
Recently, we’ve been getting a large influx of inquiries from both current and future clients asking about assisting them in kicking off automotive tours and rallies around the country. Most are in great locations, many are at least reasonably well funded and all are well-meaning with good intentions, but in nearly every circumstance, we have been advising these clients against trying to do this.
A few weeks back, I had the honor of again acting as host and Emcee for the Copperstate 1000 kickoff event at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Arizona (my second time doing this) and as a result, I got a really good first-hand look at exactly what it takes to do events like this correctly.
As one of the three most important, longest running and most prestigious rally events in the United States (the others being the Colorado Grand and California Mille) there has to be a secret sauce here and a reason that they have made it 34 years, while so many others come in and try and then fail virtually overnight.
Sure, it’s for a good cause (Men’s Arts Council of Arizona) and the roads are great and the event is well organized, but it goes deeper than that. I spent a lot of time both this year and last year talking to event participants and finding out why they come back year in and year out. The answer is simple: it’s all about the community that the organizers of the Copperstate 1000 have created. Sure, there are amazing cars involved in this event, but at the end of the day it breaks down to the most important component of the collector car industry overall: The people that you share your experiences with.
This is the piece that’s missing from nearly every other collector car rally/tour proposal that we’ve seen over the last year or so. People focus on everything except for the community building component and it’s almost universally where they all fall down.
I think this goes above and beyond just tours and rallies. Community is at the heart and remains the soul of everything surrounding collector cars and with just about every business in this space, it’s the first thing that should be considered.
Looking to start something new or to enhance what you already have? Think about community first.
That’s it for this week……
Darin Roberge
Motorwerks President