[jim gillaspy]

The Web has grown to be a very handy source of info and Specialstage.Com has been the beginning of a consolidation of info for all the different divisions and clubs in Performance Rally. What a great benefit for us, Thank You.
But, as we all know when I go to look for points or standings, event updates and photo's I'm on line looking endlessly to gather tidbits here and there. To look for standings I might find info someplace else other than the main location. Photo's...How many photographers are there? How do I know how to find them? Was he there, what was his name? Am I touching on a note you all can relate to?

Would an all inclusive web site for event pages, scores and real real-time scores be the answer? Can somebody devise a site that an organizer can use to simply up load info and have that information go to the one right place?

There are too many pieces making there own puzzle. Let?s pool time and funds to have it all in one place. For the sake of the competitors and the great many fans trying to keep an eye on our sport.

Jim Gillaspy
Go Nut's Racing
RMD #401 RX-7

 

[Jason_Grahn]

>There are too many pieces making there own puzzle. Let?s
>pool time and funds to have it all in one place. For the
>sake of the competitors and the great many fans trying to
>keep an eye on our sport.

You sound like quite the eager volunteer Jim! I applaud your willingness to take action and bring about what has the potential for a VERY great site! Let me know if you need any help, I'll provide as much as I can.

-Jason

 

[jim gillaspy]

>You sound like quite the eager volunteer Jim! I applaud your
>willingness to take action and bring about what has the
>potential for a VERY great site! Let me know if you need any
>help, I'll provide as much as I can.
>-Jason

I might be one of many that has this idea, but defiantly not the knowledge. If talking about it helps than I'm willing to put time and effort into hashing it out until a working format is achieved.
I do think that this site is the common place for this to happen in.

Time and money, I'll donate.

Jim Gillaspy
Go Nut's Racing
RMD #401 RX-7

 

[Jim]

http://www.bensrallypage.com/

 

[Ben]

>http://www.bensrallypage.com/

Not this year. Between Oregon Trail and some other projects, I just have not been able to keep up. It's more than one person can handle. That and after 10 years I got a bit burned out this year.

Plus there is a lot more rally information on the web than there used to be, so one can get the information elsewhere.

Hopefully my page will be back up and running in '04, or some of the more useful bits of info will be here at specialstage.com. I haven't really made that determination yet.

Ben

 

[jeff burmeister]

I would have to say that the good folks at www.Rally-America.com have the lead on the services that are needed for the Organizers to centralize their websites and their respective Timing and Scoring. Thanks should go out to Doug Havir and his team of volunteer workers over there for doing a great job, and for using their own money!

But as for us here at SpecialStage.com, we have always been, and will likely always be, a "fringe? rally web site.

To centralize all information regarding rally in North America, you are looking at first centralizing all of the Sanctioning bodies. (SCCA, CARS, ARSG, USAC, CAF, NASA, FIA, etc, etc, etc) This will likely never happen in the real world.

I personally would love to see someone consolidate all rally in North America into one organization so that one website could serve the Competitors, the Organizers, the Fans, and the Administrative areas. But this task would be extremely difficult at best. Not that I don't think we could do it someday, but there are just too many personal feelings involved with our sport right now for people to even consider it.

So, until we are able to centralize our sanctioning bodies, SpecialStage.com will continue to take the stance of being neutral to all organizations in North America. If they have a news stories, we will publish it. If you race in their series and send us press releases, we will publish it. If you need a place to chat about those events, we will supply it. But that is about as far as we can go without working directly with one of the sanctioning groups and thus alienating the others.

So, until then, I hope that people will continue to visit us here at SpecialStage.com and if you think of something that would help the community, please post it in our feedback section of the forums. We are always looking for new ways to help out.

Jeff Burmeister
SpecialStage.com LLC
The North American Rally Resource
http://jeff.burmeister.com

 

[Morgan]

Don't forget Sandmans page, very good and up to date.

http://rally.sandmansoftware.com


Bob, that plug will cost you, ummm.... $1 million dollars, yeah!

 

[Matt]

>>http://www.bensrallypage.com/
>
>Not this year. Between Oregon Trail and some other
>projects, I just have not been able to keep up. It's more
>than one person can handle. That and after 10 years I got a
>bit burned out this year.
>
>Plus there is a lot more rally information on the web than
>there used to be, so one can get the information elsewhere.
>
>Hopefully my page will be back up and running in '04, or
>some of the more useful bits of info will be here at
>specialstage.com. I haven't really made that determination
>yet.
>
>Ben

I know it's got to take a lot of time and effort, but DON'T GIVE UP! When I first heard of some car thing that happened in the UP in October, I started to search the net. This was, maybe, in1995 or 1996. Your page was the first one I found, and the only helpful one. Whenever anybody asks me about rally, I send 'em to your page (and then here, also). Without your page, I doubt I ever would have discovered the sport! It's still one of the most informative pages around for US Rally. I know I'm not the only person on here who has looked through ever link...

 

[ricochet]

All fine pages.

However, whenever the topic comes up and involves "orgainizers would that post their own information" the truth is it doesn't usually get done.

I'll use my own site as an example. The Calendar, which is on the front of my site, is freely accessible to any registered user. However, 99% of all the events are entered by myself or two others. This is a calendar that is supported by a national magazine, and has traffic that is rated by Alexa as 45,000 most visited site on the Internet (SpecialStage by comparison is ranked as 80,000th.) so its not for lack of interest from my readership.

Same thing goes for event photos. I have a nifty online application that automatically thumbnails and uploads. Individual users can create their own folders, or use the event categories I create. If someone asked, I could even give out rights to create public sub-directories in the rally event category. It's all there, and free to use, but mostly people just access my site to read the content, not to participate in the tools I've already provided.

In fact, the only "feature" my site is lacking is a way to easily enter a results grid. The closest I have right now is to post in the specific motorsport forum. With enough interest, I may add that as well, but what's there currently isn't used enough to justify my efforts in that direction.

*edited for clarity.

Ryan Douthit, Publisher
Driving Sports Magazine
http://www.drivingsports.com

 

[Anders Green]

>The Calendar, which is
>on the front of my site, is freely accessible to any
>registered user. However, 99% of all the events are entered
>by myself or two others.

Bingo. I put up USRally.com years ago, and it was the
same thing. The idea that "the people out there" will
create _useful_ content is not a workable solution. Let's
take another look: there are 500 or so people listed
with speed factors, but only tiny fraction of those are
listed under the SCCA's "whos who" section. Competitors
won't even update info on THEMSELF!

So, I feel that this will take either

a) a super enthusiastic individual. Who will burn out
after a number of years, with that number being low,
perhaps one.

b) a paid individual / body. Perhaps rally-america will
fill that slot. We'll see.

It's such a huge job. Look at how much work it is to find
the data. And the to build a system to show it? And all
that work, and so few viewers? Phew!!! Difficult to
rationalize. (I think that I can say that safely, having
attempted it myself.

Cheers
Anders

 

[Jim]

I'm glad we are not too ranked high in Alexa. Alexa is spyware.

http://www.imilly.com/alexa.htm

 

[ricochet]

Alexa still ranks sites and is used by major media buyers as a third party source of traffic information, regardless of personal opinions on the matter.



R

 

[Jim]

Now you all can see how difficult it has been for us, and why we have evolved from "magazine" to "resource". Getting people to write stories is next to impossible if you can't pay them. Going to the forum is a large part of why we still exist. It is the only way we could get the readers to create content for us.

Burn out is a reality. Ben's rally page was the spark for SpecialStage and my own central resource for rally stuff (www.rallysport.net). I burned out on that one too. It's a strange business. Lots of people looking for the info, not so many willing to make it available. I guess we'd all rather be racing, and that is not such a bad thing.

 

[jim gillaspy]

I have to say that I think the efforts by a few are very appreciated and deserve a special thanks for all they do! To think of the time and effort it takes...WOW

The list of affiliated organizations is long. SCCA, CARS, ARSG, USAC, CAF, NASA, FIA,
>etc. If the effort of this site comes from the participants of the sport and the support of the organizers it could evolve. SCCA has little to do with the publicity of scores. Organizers can put up anything they want in support of a sponsor. Such as (Blabityscores .com on a banner) A lot can be done to bring public awareness to this with out the help or cooperation from those mentioned above.
The key is a unified effort into this. Tell Joe Somebody to visit Specialstage.com only and have SS.Com link noticeably to Blabityscores.com. Combine the efforts of Ben, and other notables into one. Banners, Ad?s and word of mouth can make this happen. Create some financial source of income to pay web developers. Maybe a motor sports news company would be savvy to the idea. Something to give monetary reward to efforts put in.

I definitely would like to see the sport blossom into a way of life for Americans. I would love to see us enter into the World Rally scene. I would love to sit down at my computer along with many others and not get frustrated.
Thanks again to all that alone put great time and money into giving us as much as you do!!!
I really will help with this.

Jim Gillaspy
Speedy G Racing
RMD #401 RX-7 (it rips) }>

 

[allank]

>
>So, I feel that this will take either
>
>a) a super enthusiastic individual. Who will burn out
> after a number of years, with that number being low,
> perhaps one.
>
>b) a paid individual / body. Perhaps rally-america will
> fill that slot. We'll see.
>
>It's such a huge job. Look at how much work it is to find
>the data. And the to build a system to show it? And all
>that work, and so few viewers? Phew!!! Difficult to
>rationalize. (I think that I can say that safely, having
>attempted it myself.
>
>Cheers
>Anders

It is a huge job. Not only finding the data, massaging it to fit into your web scheme then posting it
takes a lot of time and energy. Also trying to get permissions to post the information can take a lot of
work too.
We are trying at Rally America to do some of it and will do more as
we get time, energy, people, and funds.

Everyone please feel free to send us feedback on what you would like
to see and what you don't want to see.
Check out the 'What we are doing' in the 'About us' section to see what is already on our plate.

 

[Ray Hocker]

Specialstage really does an excellent job bringing it all together. They been great about covering the diverse world of North American Rally and providing fair coverage and a voice for all different groups and organizaions. This is the first place I visit everyday when I turn on my computer and the last site on my browser when I put it to sleep for the night.

It takes a tread like this to remind us of the wonderful service they've been providing the rally community.

Thanks guys!!

 

[Widget Codriver]

Animals

>> when I put it to sleep ...

You animal!

Boy, if I put Donna's cat to sleep I'd be in MAJOR trouble!

But I sure am glad the Special Stage folks give us a place like this, even when the jokes aren't real.... thanks, guys.

John

 

[Jim]

RE: Animals

The reality of it is, you guys are SpecialStage. We just do a little work in the background. Without you all, we would not be here. So, the thanks goes to you!!!