Chris, I must say I'm very sad about this :/ is there any way possible we could get them to reschedule another meeting and perhaps have all the council in attendance? Didn't three vote yes? That's 3/5 how did that not pass? I'm so lost and confused ???
I put in a vote for Atlanta (or surrounding areas). I don't look at this as a detriment, I look at it as just a change of location . . .exactly what it is. Nothing bad, just a slight set back for those who were getting some seat time, it's still amazing what U-Drift has done and wherever you guys move, it'll be amazing.
I will say, let's steer clear of the west coast:
1. It's too far of a drive. 2. They already have the party spots for drifters.
Lets keep it on this side and lets keep it drivable. The ATL drivers trucked it over to Moody, lets see how awesome it can be if we setup shop here in ATL. Hell, we might be able to get a larger lot.
J/K . . .I did, however, just get done with a little bit of sliding in our secret location . . .
Yeah . . .60MPH . . .that lot is so fucking huge . . .it's crazy. At times, my weak-sauce KA was having to use 3rd to compensate for the speed, LMAO! I love it!
You need to get out here, hop in the S14 and kill it a few times :)
J/K . . .I did, however, just get done with a little bit of sliding in our secret location . . .
Yeah . . .60MPH . . .that lot is so fucking huge . . .it's crazy. At times, my weak-sauce KA was having to use 3rd to compensate for the speed, LMAO! I love it!
You need to get out here, hop in the S14 and kill it a few times :)
Latah bro . . . I'm off to beer-land . . .
Hmmmm . . . where is this secret sliding location??? I might just truck over to ATL to check it out.
I say just move to another location here locally..It should not be too hard to find a parking lot somewhere that there is no residential stuff for people to complain about.
UPDATE 1: Well, the Moody U-Drift signs are down. The flags are down. The OPEN signs are down. The blue fence mesh is down (mostly).
And the vending machines (drinks and candy) have been picked up by Buffalo Rock.
I've talked to 3 commercial real-estate agents, and met with one agent in Atlanta today. I expect that Terry and I will be hitting Atlanta, Miami, Vegas...and maybe even Houston/Dallas hard in the next few weeks.
Now that the dust has settled, we've inspected the drift rentals. Man! Those tires are shot! Gotta get new shoes on all of them.
The 240sx is about to get wheel spacers and a larger MAF. The White Beast is about to get a street legal license plate.
The yellow 300zx and the 240sx are in our que for repaints. Bring your suggestions by U-Drift for the new paint jobs! Or post them here.
We're going to be experimenting with some new tire mods and with at least one new exhaust mod, too.
Those mods, plus the new paint jobs, are going to help us put on quite a show in our new location.
We're also going to be filming several how-to-drift videos.
I'm thinking that we'll probably go with a new theme in our new location that emphasizes "events" rather than hypes our 7 day-per-week goal of having a practice area open (which we're still shooting for, it just won't get hyped as much).
There seems to be a lot of vacant commercial real-estate, so we should be able to keep our prices low. The rental cars have held up better than we had planned, so that might even let us cut our rental prices down from our Moody rates.
It would be nice to achieve lower prices and better night hours. I'm working on that business case now.
-- Edited by Drifter on Wednesday 6th of January 2010 06:20:39 AM
How about that Mustang . . .I know a certain young drifter that wouldn't mind owning that . . .LOL!
I can't wait to see where U-Drift goes for the future, this should be very awesome to see!
The paint on the Mustang is still good, but we *may* add a small stripe if we stripe the other drift rentals.
Regardless, the Mustang needs new rear springs. We've got time before we open up the new location (wherever we decide to go), so all of the cars are going to be freshened up.
My thoughts right now are that the rentals can be used not only by the daily customers, but by U-Drift staff when we put on shows.
I'd also like to get an oil analysis on the rentals in between sites so that we've got some enhanced idea of the wear...I find it odd that we haven't had any motor failures and have only had one tranny failure (in the Mustang, that one).
The Mustang was the only drift rental *not* running Redline's Lightweight Shockproof.
We were good about warming all of the cars up prior to drifting, except that the Mustang got used by some of our temporary help at least twice cold. Sigh...live and learn.
buy this place, I think it last sold for like $150,000. this was the "first drift in the u.s" park 3.5 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyoZnxYh0YI
pros: cheap, close to atlanta but not too close (between atl and macon), close to your current customers, good sized lot for expansion, grandfathered in, already used for motorsports.
cons: track was built for karts and is too small. widening and extended would be a must for cars.
-- Edited by down_shift on Thursday 7th of January 2010 04:28:55 AM
buy this place, I think it last sold for like $150,000. this was the "first drift in the u.s" park 3.5 years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyoZnxYh0YI
pros: cheap, close to atlanta but not too close (between atl and macon), close to your current customers, good sized lot for expansion, grandfathered in, already used for motorsports.
cons: track was built for karts and is too small. widening and extended would be a must for cars.
-- Edited by down_shift on Thursday 7th of January 2010 04:28:55 AM
Those are good pros and liveable cons. Thanks! Please keep such suggestions coming.
Terry and I will be in Atlanta looking at 99 cross docks on Friday. Drinks are on me for anyone who wants to join us after we site-check the lot.
FYI: Atlanta drifters I'm looking at 8 paved acres on 125 Milton Ave SE near Turner Field this afternoon at 2 PM Eastern. I'll be in the black Porsche if anyone wants to meet up for drinks.
FYI: Atlanta drifters I'm looking at 8 paved acres on 125 Milton Ave SE near Turner Field this afternoon at 2 PM Eastern. I'll be in the black Porsche if anyone wants to meet up for drinks.
Well, the 125 Milton property won't really work. It's got 8 paved acres, but 3 of those acres are a raised loading dock platform that sticks up 3 feet above the rest of the pavement, right in the middle of the parking lot.
Drifters would have fun there for the first event, then grow bored of looping around a tiny little road around the building to get to the two parking areas. I'd never hear the end of y'all kvetching, or worse, I would hear the end of it in the form of permanent silence as everyone would attend the Opening and then never come back.
But...
Feast your eyes on these photos!
The commercial real-estate agent was prepared for me to dislike the 125 Milton property. He blind-folded me and took me to a closed industrial facility that has 18 paved acres of...concrete!
Mmmm...not asphalt. Concrete. OK, one of the concrete lots was considerably rough, but with 18 paved acres, a rough area here and there can be worked through!
Oh, and it also has...
...get ready...
TUNNELS! Paved tunnels traverse the property. Ever revved your engine when driving through a highway tunnel?! Heaven.
Now imagine drifting through such tunnels!
I'll be back out there soon, and may be able to secure permission for other drifters to join me IN THEIR CARS.
So, if you want a vote on the future of U-Drift, keep an opening on your calendar.
-- Edited by Drifter on Tuesday 12th of January 2010 12:04:38 AM
Course 1 at Moody is 4 acres. The 4x4 lot is almost another acre there. There are some unused acres in the back of the Moody hay, and the building+front/side lot areas make up the other 5 acres there.
With 18 paved acres we can have a gymkhana course, autocross route, barrel racing + donut & figure 8 area, go-cart area, and at least two full sized drift courses...maybe even 3 (perhaps we keep 1 wet), simultaneously.
The building on that 18 acres is 40,000 sq feet, so we'd have plenty of room for our maintenance shop and video games.
Oh, and I'm also looking at larger venues in Atlanta, plus areas in Vegas and Miami.
With 18 paved acres we can have a gymkhana course, autocross route, barrel racing + donut & figure 8 area, go-cart area, and at least two full sized drift courses...maybe even 3 (perhaps we keep 1 wet), simultaneously.
The building on that 18 acres is 40,000 sq feet, so we'd have plenty of room for our maintenance shop and video games.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This would be frickin awesome!!!