Posts
63
Joined
10/25/2011
Location
Tallassee, AL, USA
Edited Date/Time
10/10/2013 8:07am
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Sorry guys, don't mean to spam - but I did this for another project and just had to share for those that have never seen "the Monster."
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
What's the latest with getting you guys on the national schedule? It would be a huge event, lots of folks coming from Atlanta and surrounding cities.
Amenities are a down side. But, you can't expect a guy who's dropped his life so he can be involved in the sport he loves to mortgage his whole family's future in order to build facilities for a race that may never come there. If they had the commitment, I'm sure parking and the rest would work out fine. Heck, I've been to High Point. MM is way easier to get in and out of and the only thing they don't have that HP does is the media building.
Good job Tom. Keep up the good work man. The Monster Energy, Monster Mountain, Southeast National of 2015 sure does have a nice ring to it.
I didn't intend to start a discussion about our track as a viable option for a national. I'm just a motocrosser at heart and know that people who've not seen it would enjoy seeing some pics of Monster Mountain. I've been prepping that track every weekend for three and a half years and seven days a week for 3 months every winter since 2010 and I never get tired of looking at it.
With regard to parking if you'll look to the east on Google Earth (or Bing, etc.) you will see hundreds of acres of flat, grassed parking that immediately adjoins to our property. I have started cutting a road through to the east property line to connect directly to those fields, all of which have long-standing, stable, cement culvert entrances from Burt Mill Road, which, like all the roads around Monster is very nice.
Montgomery has a very nice, newly remodeled Regional airport which is 45 minutes from the track and ATL and Birmingham are right at 2 hours. Montgomery has come a long way with tons of restaurants and about 7,700 hotel rooms. Our bathrooms and showers are some of the nicest in all of motocross.
That said, I think we are a ways away from being ready to host a national. We are constantly expanding our parking, improving the facility, and have plans to build a huge pad next to our staging area that would serve as pro pits - if we were ever to need them. We also built a 1/5th mile clay flat track - that doubles as over-flow parking for big events. But getting a national is not really our focus - not at the moment.
Our main goal is to engage in continuous improvement and keep focusing on making our riders and their families and other guests happy. When people leave our track we want them smiling, but sad to be leaving and planning their next trip. The pictures I posted are a series of random shots I took from the bulldozer while prepping for regular weekend practices - they're not the product of a photo shoot. Our main track looks like that pretty much every weekend and most days in the winter - weather permitting.
Our priorities are (in this order): making our riders happy, bringing back AMA-sanctioned racing (motocross, hare scrambles and flat track), developing major signature events (like our Top Kid Showcase and Monster Vet Challenge), and improving the facility.
If the situation presented itself, we would embrace the opportunity to host an outdoor national - but again we'd have a lot to do to get ready, and it's not really our focus. Makin' riders' grin at us with a thumbs up when they come off the track is what we're about.
All the other stuff will work itself out eventually as long as we keep our priorities straight.
Gotta go adjust the clutch in the water truck and fix a fuel leak on the bulldozer.....peace out.
Tom
P.S., if you think the satellite images make the track look impressive, you should endeavor to come see it for yourself if the opportunity presents - the pictures, videos, and Google Earth images just don't do it justice.
Monster Mountain has a Youtube Channel with some video on it. Matt Wozney's "Tale of the Two Stroke" is one of the best MM videos I've seen.
Pit Row
This is a national "caliber" track but there is almost no way to hold a national here. NO where to park. Been going to Monster since 2004 and the track is very fun but without massive excavating to clear 30 or 40 acres of trees, no way to park 100 vehicles, let alone a few thousand.
I see that you are from Centralia, Illinois and have been going to Monster since 2004. We appreciate your business and are glad you enjoy yourself enough to keep coming back.
But you, and the many others who've commented on the parking issue are just wrong. As aforementioned, jump on Google Earth and look to the right (east). With the access we have to adjoining properties, the 40+ acres we've started clearing, and the replacement of the supercross track with the flat track and it's associated parking lot, we frankly have more, and better parking than several of the existing nationals.
There are other issues that would need to be addressed for us to hold a national, but PARKING IS NOT A MAJOR ISSUE. For us to hold a national, construction of pro pits, enhancing the roads inside the park, fencing, installing high-bandwidth, high-availability, high-speed internet capability are some of the issues that would need addressing. Having more and better parking than some of the current nationals is a "can-do-easy" item on the to-do list.
Motox85, thanks again for your business, and thanks for your input in this issue. You are not alone in the perspective that we lack parking for big events. But you, and others who believe that to be the case, simply have not researched the subject thoroughly and are operating from a woe-fully uninformed position. Next time you're at Monster, come see me and I'll be glad to show you the plan.
As I stated in my other post, we have a long list of things we want to do - with the first priority making our current and future customers happy while methodically improving the facility. Growing our AMA racing program and developing our own signature events are our other major priorities. Motox85 - making sure you have a great time when you come to Monster is always first-and-foremost on our minds - but trust me. But while you are going about your daily life the other 363 days of the year when you are not at Monster, we are constantly thinking about parking, traffic plans, and a myriad of other concerns that will prepare us for bigger and better things down the road.
Getting a national is not a priority for us at this time. As we continue doing what we''re doing, we're slowly and methodically building infrastructure and capabilities that will make us a strong candidate for an outdoor national and other major events down the road. We're not all that far from where we'd need to be - but we're not rushing it. We'd love to hold an outdoor national if the opportunity presented itself, but frankly, we have other priorities - the most important of which is you - the rider.
Warmest of Regards,
Tom (aka, the guy with plenty of parking)
DC
MX Sports
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