Goodguys Columbus is this weekend. Anyone headed out to the show?  

Nope, and I live in Cow Town about three miles from the front gate.

Why? (I call it as I see it and hold nothing back)

- I'm not at all impressed with how the event is run (I was asked to work a gate one year, that's all it took for me to decide "never again" do I want to be connected with the event or the group putting on the event).

- Advertisements state "7000 entries" which is a drop in the bucket compared to the events held on the same grounds by the NSRA (of which I am a lifetime member and therefore biased).

- Street rods are not drag cars.

- Who in the **** is Gary Meadows anyway????  

It's Meadors, Gary Meadors, a pretty nice guy overall and willing to talk to anyone,even me. I'm not biased, I belong to NSRA and Goodguys seeing that I have a couple pre '49 vehicles and a few from the early 60's. I like to attend as many events as I can to keep up on trends and get ideas, but seeing that I'm in Anchorage Alaska today, not much going on but there are a few cool cars roaming the streets.  

Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I'll try to explain. The following is in regards to a Good Guys event held here a few years back but I'm seeing this more and more...

Good Guys is a corporate name, it's the one you see in the ads. But the event is layered by "corporations", one handles this, another "that". It's done for "legal reasons".

Someone at some corporate level contacted a local promoter and asked for help as they lacked the people at "ground level" need to put on the event; ticket booth, T-shirt sells, etc.

I was one of several asked by the promoter to help out the revial group in the name of "Street Rodding". What I found was even though this was not the first time they had been to Cow Town it appeared that no one knew the grounds or where to stage the workers.

Long story behind that observation.

#1 We were issued NO forms of identiification that justified or demands that people hand over their just purchased tickets at the gate to the parking lot north of the actual event. Someone in the organization higher up had decided they didn't want lines at the gate to the actual grounds of the event and told us to collect tickets at the edge of the parking lot that required no tickets to enter. They won't provide event T-shirts (but would sell us one) and I was standing there in Columbus Ohgio preforming an "official duty" wearing a t-shirt bearing the words "New Zealand Street Rod Association".

As typical at ANY event there were medical emergencies. But no communications at the gate by the ticket booth to those who could dispatch medics to the scene.

Here in Cow Town the courts are backed up with nonesense law suits where people are going to extremes to get "someone else" to cover the loss/medical bills.

First an older person went down in the parking lot because of the heat. Being stationed outside the ticket booth I was the only gate/ticket booth worker to be aware of the problem. But no radio, it was in the booth. Person managing the booth didn't know how to summons help. Another long story.

Later the fairgrounds ground crew came round, locals walked behind their vehilce while it backed and a small girl went down. First words from her mother's mouth was, "I'm suing the fair, the Goodguys, the driver, that guy over there, this guy over here..."

That's when I got to wondering who covered any charges leveled at me. NO ONE!

Sunday afternoon I happened to be looking in the right direction. The fairgrounds tram was in use and a woman boarded, changed her mind and started to exit as the tractor lurched forward and made a sharp turn. She flew 8-10 feet and landed on her face. There was no movement.

What would you have done?

The police that were supposed to monitor the gate were out looking at rods. There had been no screams or loud noises, only a few people on thtram saw the incident and they were yelling for the driver to stop. People were walking by like nothing happened.

Laws in this country state if you don't provide help you are a criminal, but other laws state you can be sued by the injured party if you provide the wrong help.

I yelled over my shoulder to the people satnding in line for tickets to tell the ticket booth to summons medics as there had been a personel injury. They responded with looks of "Who do you think you are in your New Zealand shirt telling us what to ***

I asked passers by to call 911 figuring if help couldn't be obtained from on grounds they could come in from outside. But this is America and when people saw the blood they fled in fear of a legal action.

Finally talked someone into getting a police officer (he had been seen at the other end of the lot) to come over. His reaction was "we need to put water on a cloth and hold it to her head and I don't know who to call for water".

By that time I waas totally discussed, looked him straight in the eye and pointed to the water fountain on the side of the rest room 15 yards away.

I do know the small girl went to the hospital for x-rays, nothing about the woman. I could have been called to court in either case.

So I went back to the ticket booth and told the person "in chare" I quit and to put someone else on the gate. But they were still taking in money and there was no way they were going to close one of seven windows to put people outside.

More insult, after the meet the person who had go me into the mess asked if I had seen this car, that car, etc. Told him I had been on the gate every minute (no one came out to releive us, there were cold drinks inside and we were asked once if we wanted one, they were provided two hours later!)

Asked him how he had the time to see the sights, turns out all he did was show up Saturday to make a head count of his people and then spend the rest of the weekend looking at cars.

Told him to never ask for another favor. A few weeks later I was asked if I would go to St. Paul and help out with a Good Guys meet there...

Yep, these are nasty words and I know Good Guys will be informed. Google monitors this site and several of my posts have turned up in Google searches.

BUT, this is a board for the very community that attends and presents these meets. We need to open our eyes if we want to keep street rodding alive. If not there will come a point that no one will work at the events out of fear they will be sued and are not covered by the people "putting on the meet".

And that's why I never went back and made no effort to go round to see who was in town during the event.  

Sorry to hear all that, been a staff member at a few of these events and never experienced anything like that at any Good Guys, NSRA or local small shows. But then again I may have missed it, I've been accused of being a happy person that just enjoys life too much. At 60 I'm about 1/2 way to the end and still have a shed full of projects to finish.  

Got 1/2  year on ya and also have too many projects set aside for "retirement" (if only I was employed!). My show/event background is related to Celtic and re-enactment festivals and I've had access to far too many situations where the organizers have cut corners/expenses by not having medic people on site or on call, no security in spite of the amount of $$$ at the ticket booth/vendors and their goods, no third party insurance.

The last is common at small cruise-ins in this area. The person behind the event finds it cheaper to print release forms that are a contract telling the entries that they can not sue the organizer in the event of injury/property damage. There was one so-called national group operating out of this area that made people (general public) attending their meets sign a simuilar contract.

But Ohio has also seen several cases that illustrates why the insurance is needed. Under state law if you advertise to the genearl public that you are holding an event you automatically are held accountable for loss by injury/property damage!

A car club in eastern Ohio held an event and someone whom they didn't know hit another vehicle enroute. That party lacke insurance and the injured parties sued the club claiming if they hadn't advertised the event the other party would not have been on the road without insurance. (The court agreed)

The club was sued and since they were not incorporated the court went down the membership list collecting money; the preseident lost his house, vice-president and treasurer lost *** It would have cost about $500 at the time to incorporate.

I've run across the "LLC" (Limited Loss Corporation" laws that most state now have. Yes, it helps the people running the events (or bands)but insults the  injured parties.

For a band (and the Columbus car event I mentioned) that means they become a holding company and for each division there is a seperate company worth only its assets. Non-LLC bands can be sued if they hand over advertisements to someone for posting and that person causes an accident (or is sued for plastering the advertisements without permission on city property such as utility poles, etc.)

Under LLC only the advertising company assents can be touched. The vehicle hualing the band's equipment becomes a transportation company, etc.

And that is basically how the car event was operated here in Cow Town. Those at the top SHOULD have checked to see if the "outsource" companies had insurance but maybe "it's not our problem" came into play?

I do remember after the event that I was handed an un-marked envelop containing $124 (or was it $142?) and was required to sign a statement which indicated I was a "vendor" and the money was to pay for a "bill I had presented covering MISC."

In otherwords I was covered by insurance while working the event as I was a seperate company and should have been self insured.

That dampened my sprits to the point that when that group comes to town I head the other way.

Don't know who Hot Rod Magazine had at the grunt level of their event when they came to Columbus (went north the next year to the Cleveland area) but I do know the NSRA had a valid contract with the state street rod consul to provide the people who made the show happen at the lowest levels. Everyone was covered by insurance.

But all this is typical of how corporations work in America, the rod associations are simply following everyonther business example. Sigh!  

I've never worked at a show, so I'm not sure how all of it works, but I have met several of the people who run the Goodguys shows at the higher levels and I have to say they have all been as nice as can be. Also seems like many of the problems talked about above are more problems of our very suit happy country then anything else.  

That says it all!