Promoting - Hours, or What It Takes

I recently answered a question about promoting, and one of the follow up questions was about the kind of hours I claimed to have put into putting on the Bethel Spring Series. I made a step-by-step list of hours, starting with the "before there's officially a race" to "now we have permission" to "just before the race" to "okay it's race time!"

I expanded on some of the thoughts and also included some pictures.

Keep in mind that other than some help setting up and breaking down, marshals, and officials, I did virtually everything myself. Not really ideal but this way I could only blame myself.

Carpe Diem Racing.

That's the name of the promoting company.

It started out as the club/team name back in 1990, with the name decided at my house between four proposed names in 1989. I suggested CDR, taking inspiration for the name from a trinket catalog which had a sweatshirt with the saying on it. It became a bit more well known when an Olympic team member was interviewed wearing a similar/same sweatshirt.

October:
10-20 hours: My time would start in October when I started to piece together changes/improvements for the races the following year. Permission from the town (possibly attend meetings, talk on phone, etc). Lining up officials (my favorite officials lived close by, they were reliable, consistent, and helped create a good race environment so I'd book their time as early as possible). I'd rough out any registration spreadsheet changes, something that's evolved over about 10-12 years. It saves a ton of time/energy on race day but I keep breaking it when I try and improve it.
Running total: 10-20 hours

December:
10-20 hours: December I was getting into the groove. Renew various legal entities (LLC, liability, workman's comp, debate doing it another year, etc). Start ordering stuff like numbers, set up infrastructure, etc.
Running total: 20-40 hours

January:
20 hours: January would be mostly virtual work. BikeReg. Permits. Lining up volunteers, employees. For legal reasons I had to have employees because I was paying them and I was telling them what to do. With an accountant wife I had to play 100% by the rules, it's like a pro cyclist being married to a WADA person, no hint of anything possible. One year I had 9 or 10 employees, toward the end more like 6. I would spend time fixing stuff I broke on the spreadsheet. I have to finalize any changes with categories/classes, etc. There was always very vocal feedback on that stuff and I tried to accommodate the racing community (because I'm one of them).
Running total: 40-60 hours

The van was parked here over the winter of 2011-2012.

February:
50? hours: February I was in full race promotion swing. I almost never trained much in February, there were some years where I'd ride 2-3 times during the whole month. I'd go to the venue at least once or twice to check on things. Sometimes I'd sweep or break up ice or what not. For a number of years I'd clear snow off areas for start/finish and portapotties; one year I dragged my quite-ill mom along so she could get out of the house. I think she sat in the car (running, with the heat on) for about 3 hours while I cleared what I could.

A February trip to get rid of snow on the inside/sprint line.

I seeded the snow/ice with lots of salt, in preparation for clearing it another day.

For Bethel, for many years, it was a 3.5-4 hour round trip just to get to the course. With the trailer it was more like 4.5-5 hours round trip. I'd go pick up trophies at some point (35-45 minutes from Bethel). Every now and then I'd train new staff, where I'd drive to their house, set up the camera and laptop, train them in the basics, go over stuff, break down, and return home. I'd check/test the equipment. Organize bib numbers. Order stuff I forgot to order or that got used up or that disappeared. Make lots of lists.

Pretty much every employer has allowed me to work on the race during the day. Even in a retail store I was probably working as much as 4-6 hours a day checking/answering emails. When I did IT I just dedicated one screen to race stuff, leaving two other screens for work. I'd crank through the race stuff, alt-tabbing between work and race as work allowed. For my running time I'm not counting that. I spent all my free time after work doing race stuff. I'd ride when I could because I had to, for my mental health.
Running total: 90-110 hours

March-April
March/April are race weeks. Killer. Thing though was that it was less trying to figure out how to do things at a theoretical level and much more "do this now". For example in January I'd be honing registration processes, trying to think through how things would work. At the first race the registration line was real and whatever I had to do I had to do. Things become very clear when it's "right now!"

My one escape was that I usually raced one race. Earlier in the life of the Series I'd do two races, because I didn't have to do results and such. Back then the officials handled all of that, and we didn't have to upload results because no one expected results to be online for a week or, before the internet wasn't just AOL, ever.

My bike at a 2014 Bethel. I'd race once that day, winning the field sprint behind a break.

The bleak weather probably meant a not-so-great day in terms of dollars/numbers.

60 hours, give or take, for the first week alone. First week is the hardest. 2-4 hours after registration closes Thursday (each week) organizing the registration spreadsheet, figuring out numbers, etc. I print releases at Staples because it's cheaper by a lot. For me I use $35 of toner plus paper if I print myself, it's about $25 if I have Staples do it. Plus they use nice paper. Drawback is that the Staples thing adds 1 hour of driving time to pick up the print job. 5-8 hours on Friday getting stuff packed/etc, 18 hours Sat 6 AM final pack and head down to the course for Sweep Day, and finish up at maybe 1 AM answering emails etc. Then 5 AM - 5 PM for the race. Another 2.5 hours to get home, unpack the most valuable stuff (laptop, etc), then upload results, make registration fixes, etc. With travel before, emails continuously, fix whatever I broke on the spreadsheet, upload results to my website, to USAC, work until maybe 11 PM (if not much later), call it 18 hours.
Running total: 150-170 hours

The trailer at one of the Bethels in 2014.

30-32 hours x 5-6 weeks, i.e. each week after that. 2-4 hours after registration. 2 hours emails every day (that's a very kind number), say 10 hours a week. 2 hours to break stuff down in house and pack. Race day is always about 18 hours (5 AM - 11 PM).

Bare trailer when I picked it up.

Trailer before I finished the inside, end of 2014 Bethel Spring Series.

After finishing the inside, before the shelf/hook/etc.

Brighter, which was my goal.

Trailer during a quiet bit of registration at the club's cross race in 2015.

There are plexiglass shields for the windows for cold/wet weather, built in tables, storage stuff on walls, shelf up front, drawers, heaters, microwave, even a fridge.

Not counting any emergency sweep days although I've spent 8-16-24 hours a week clearing courses some years (3-5 hours per trip, plus drive time, multiple trips some years). Also emergency meetings with angry tenants, meeting with town, etc. Not counting any of that.

Birthing room, 2012. Round table under window has registration laptop for Bethel stuff.

Yes I worked on registration on and off during the whole process.

When my son was born it was the 2nd week of Bethel in 2012. Went to the hospital Thursday evening. Was answering questions about registration and Cat 5 stuff on the way to the hospital. Set up laptop, wireless modem, and cranked through emails and calls while wife was induced. Nothing happened (we went through this the prior week as well, before the first week of racing). Went home Friday evening. Fri night her water broke. Went to hospital. I tried to answer some emails/questions but I was exhausted because we were up from 11 PM until my son was born at 9:33 AM. Wonder and joy and all that. Then back to the laptop. 3 PM wife kicked me out, told me I had to leave to get ready for the races because everyone was depending on me. I was really tired the next day.
Running total: 300 - 360 hours

Conservatively speaking I'll say that I put in 300-350 hours annually for the Bethel Spring Series.

Addendum time

The thing is that my number is pretty conservative. A busy year I'm guessing another 100 hours minimum, if I counted all the various stuff that I don't count because it doesn't happen every year, like making proposals and attending meetings to secure a venue. For example I secured 3 venues in 2015, used only two, made 3? 4? site visits, all for a venue we never used.

When I was searching for new venues, between 2014 and 2015, I probably spent 20-30 hours on that alone, during the summer. 4-5 hours at a time, couple times a month. Some emails, calls, stuff like that, tracking down legal land owners, then asking about holding events there.

I do payroll in there somewhere. Well technically the Missus does that, but I write the checks and pay the people that work for the race. I have to buy misc stuff, heaters for example, or get propane tanks filled for said heaters. Then replacements for heaters that broke or don't work. Adapters to use big propane tanks on little heaters. Fans. Fabricate some stuff like lap card stuff or tables or platforms. I've bought two wheeled leaf blowers. 5 or 6 generators. I've had to go get extension cords, cones of various sizes, bins, binder clips, pends, drawers, chairs, tables, tents (and fix tents), etc etc. I'm not counting the time to buy any of that stuff.

Website stuff is nutty. I did it all by hand early on, before stuff like Wordpress existed. Now I use Wordpress with the help of one of the guys that does the races. I can get lost for 4-5 hours when I start doing site stuff. Getting the sites up and running took a bit of time and effort. Not counting any of that.

The last week of the Series there are more things for me to do but generally within the same time frame. In other words I do more stuff, like doing podium pictures, but since those are between races it's just part of the day. I usually put off unpacking stuff for a month or three, usually until I have to clear out the trailer (or the van before that). Unpacking is usually quick, just a few hours once I drive everything home. I once left my van at the venue for 3 months, returning in late July to drive it home. Admittedly I made a day of it, rode 5 hours there, did the Wed night crit, then drove the van away.

Unpacking the van in September (Labor Day) one year.

I was totally burnt out on race promotion stuff by the time mid-April showed up.

Each year it seems like I spend 3-5 full days working on stuff for the trailer. I'd disappear for an entire Saturday and/or Sunday, 8-10 hours each day, to fix things up.

I also spent considerable time figuring out camera stuff. I'm on our 5th or 6th camera, each one requiring some learning, set up, testing, etc.

Still from a 1080p@30fps camera test. Car was going 35 mph.

I spend time organizing stuff in our storage bay (we rent it to store stuff for the races) or my basement (we have to keep release forms for 10 years now, plus I have all sorts of delicate/weather sensitive promoting stuff down there) or the garage (most of the gas powered stuff like leaf blowers, generators, etc). Nowadays I have to keep track of the trailer which is not parked at home and the tow vehicle which is parked in the storage bay. I pull out the tow vehicle every now because the year I didn't drive it from April until sometime deep in the winter the battery was dead and it just wasn't happy. At first we put just 1000 miles annually on the tow vehicle. The van also - one year I think I put about 450 miles on it. For the entire year! I got rid of it because it started having random problems, probably due the fact that I almost never drove it and it was never indoors (doesn't fit in a garage).

So that's it.

I tell racers to go thank the promoters whenever they race. Thank the marshals, registration people, everyone involved. I don't think I'm unique in the kind of effort I put into a race. Every promoter ends up living the race for a while, way beyond anything they expected when they first got into it. I was lucky in that I could ease my way into it. In the "old days" promoting was a bit less formal, a bit less structured. Now it's pretty tough to start up a race, and for someone actually closing blocks of roads in a city or doing a rolling closure for a road race... yeah, I can't imagine doing that.

Equipment - Tow Vehicle Decided

Over the last year or so, and actually longer than that, I've been contemplating replacing the aging van I use to carry stuff to Bethel. It's a 1998 Dodge 15 passenger extended van with a one ton chassis - capable of carrying a lot of stuff, reasonably easy to drive, but not very stable if anything goes wrong. In fact if you Google phrases similar to "Dodge 15 passenger van" you'll get some hits that talk about the "death van" and such.

I knew this going in and had some ideas about doing a dually conversion for the rear axle (so it would have four wheels in back), maybe a rear axle stabilizer. The issue was that the rest of the van was starting to get a bit rusty. Although I could start replacing parts here and there it'd be a pain and ultimately I would end up with a van that needed some final developmental work (like the dually rear axle set up) and wasn't really optimal for how I used the van.

Right now I have two types of events where I use the van. The first is Bethel, the primary reason I got the van. I need to carry a lot of stuff to Bethel, and in fact I almost completely fill the van with equipment of various sorts. For Bethel I need a lot of carrying capacity.

In the future, if I can hold other races, I'll need similar carrying capacity. I may not need some of the stuff - leaf blowers and shovels seem to be more of a "Spring Series" kind of thing - but I may need equipment I don't have now. Overall, though, Bethel demands the most in terms of carrying capacity.

The other type of events are the smaller ones where I'm not the actual promoter. Instead I'm working one aspect of the event, either the finish line camera or registration or both. In these cases I don't need to bring anything for course prep and a lot of times I don't even need a tent. I've worked a couple races like this out of the Golf so that gives you an idea of the amount of equipment I bring to one of those races.

In the future I hope to have more of such events. I may need a lot more equipment for some events. Others will be relatively low equipment ones, suitable for the Golf.

The van is great but not very modular. It's all or nothing, a huge behemoth of a vehicle, not great in inclement weather, not really appropriate for carrying more than one passenger, and, critically, too tall to fit in our storage garage (by an inch!).

I wanted to get a modular system, a tow vehicle and an enclosed trailer. This would let me use the smaller tow vehicle for doing mid-size events and the trailer and tow vehicle for a Bethel or similar. If it's a smaller event (in terms of equipment) I can still use the Golf or Jetta. Importantly I could leave the trailer behind if I didn't need to bring a lot of stuff.

I also wanted a tow vehicle that would be able to carry the Missus and Junior if they wanted to come along in the same vehicle. This meant a back seat (Junior won't be a front seat passenger for many years) and some modicum of comfort. No working fans up front, no radio, in a bouncy van... that wasn't really ideal.

Like usual I tried to think outside the box. I briefly contemplated a Porsche Cayenne or a VW Touareg, sister vehicles which when equipped with a V-8 are rated at almost 8000 lbs towing capacity. Reviewing the dimensions I realized that both were taller versions of the Jetta Sportswagen (JSW), literally just a few inches longer. If the Missus and Junior were in the vehicle I wouldn't have any room for equipment.

I learned that pickup trucks command a significant premium, typically about 30% more than a comparable chassis SUV. Diesels also bumped the price up - I realized that we'd still have a gasoline powered vehicle in our stable because the big diesels were just too expensive.

I thought about non-garageable vehicles like the Dodge Sprinter or a school bus or another van. I knew that I'd rarely drive the vehicle so on principle alone I tried to avoid them. Driving the van 1000 miles or less a year on average meant that although the drivetrain worked super well the structure was corroding at a higher rate than normal.

To give people some idea of how little I drove the van, I bought the van in April 2004 it had 38,000 miles on it (37, 895 to be exact). On Sunday May 2013 it had 51, 456 miles. I drove the van 13,500 miles in just over 9 years.

I decided I wanted to stay with a garageable vehicle.

I realized that a larger enclosed trailer would weigh 5000-7000 lbs so I needed a vehicle with that kind of tow capacity. I quickly realized that I'd need a true body-on-chassis type vehicle (i.e. a truck). The big chassis would allow me to tow more than a 2000-3000 lbs. A normal chassis , even with a big engine, is limited by the fact that the chassis is a tub of thick sheet steel rather than a grid of steel beams.

This got me narrowed down to pickups or large SUVs. Pickups, by virtue of cost, would be unlikely. I'd want a second row of seats so a crew cab type set up, and I'd need a full size pick up to get the towing capacity.

There are some "mid-size" SUVs with 7000 lbs towing capacities, notably the aforementioned Cayenne/Touareg duo. The newer Pathfinder also came with a Class IV hitch from the factory so that would work as well. The problem with the mid-size SUVs was that they had limited space once I put a couple people in the second row of seats.

For larger SUVs it came down to the Ford Expedition or the Chevy Suburban. Both can tow enormous loads because their chassis are based on the heavy duty pickups from their respective lines. Both have third row seats and significant cargo room behind the second row. Both are large enough so that if they tow a large trailer the trailer won't end up controlling the vehicle.

The Ford Expedition had one significant drawback relative to the Suburban - it had less cargo room. There is almost no room behind the third row seats whereas in the Suburban there was a full width area as deep as a big wagon's cargo area. The Ford would require me to sacrifice the third row if I had to carry anything significant inside the vehicle.

(Although there is a longer version of the Expedition, the Expedition EL, it was out of my price range.)

The Ford had two advantages over a similar year/mileage Suburban. First, the Expeditions had an independent rear suspension (IRS). That may not mean much but the IRS is shorter in height than the live axle rear because the center of the axle doesn't move up and down. This allows the floor to be lower in the Expedition which in turn gives more room inside. In fact it allows the third row of seats to fold down into the floor. This is a common feature in minivans, none of which have live axle rears anymore, but in large SUVs the live axle is a less expensive way of getting a lot of power down to the ground. Interestingly enough the IRS used in the Expedition is stronger than the live axle used before it - the towing capacity actually increased when Ford went with the IRS.

The other advantage is cost - the Expedition is a few thousand dollars less than a comparable Suburban. It may be the shorter platform that gave it less cargo capacity, it may be the less sexy image of the Expedition (who ever heard of the Secret Service cruising around in black Expeditions?), but whatever, the Expeditions cost less.

The Suburban, then, has the advantage of more cargo space (and therefore a lower likelihood of needing a trailer), and the disadvantages of needing to store the third row seat in the garage and costing a bit more.

The Expedition it was.

I wanted to get a 2004 or later if possible. Based on some of the high miles I saw on vehicles for sale (some were over 200,000 miles) I realized the chassis/drivetrain would go a long way, far more than I'd ever drive it. However the 2004 and later came with some electronic stability control to help prevent roll overs - I figured that couldn't hurt. Plus such Expeditions wouldn't be as old.

I also understood that the Triton engines had some plug issues when performing the 100,000 mile plug change. I wanted an Expedition that was a bit below the 100k mark or substantially above it (125k or so) so that I knew that either the plugs would be reasonable or the plugs were already replaced.

I started looking for an Expedition circa 2003 or newer, bookmarking those that looked promising. However every one got sold quickly, often before I could even contact the seller.

I should point out that I couldn't really do anything before the Bethel Spring Series ended because I was too occupied with Bethel. Then my poison ivy really hampered everything in my life and things got put on hold by default.

Finally, towards the end of May (i.e. right now) I felt ready to make a move. For a week or two I didn't see any Expeditions in my price range. Almost all of the Expeditions I found had 110-125k miles, so high enough that the plugs might have been changed. There were a couple at 98k miles and such but they were simply too expensive for me.

Then, on a late Saturday, I saw a new Expedition ad. It was new enough that it had no pictures and not even a color. 89k miles. 2006. I ran AutoCheck and it came back looking good, really good.

I had to wait until Monday to call the place, ironically a Chevy dealership. I went on Tuesday and, after a test drive and some hemming and hawing I left a deposit. Before I left Tuesday I took pictures with my phone, especially of the underside of the Ford. I didn't want to get a bent frame or rusting chassis. I returned Saturday with a Ford friend in tow, a car enthusiast like me. I wasn't sure if he'd be the one to take because he's more about cars than trucks but when I first called him on Tuesday, from the dealership, he immediately asked me the year and engine.

"2006? 5.4 liter? I think they went to the aluminum coolant crossover in the manifold by then. The plastic ones weren't good. The plugs are a pain to replace. It's an F250 chassis underneath so it's a proven chassis. I can't remember any electronic problems with it."

I decided he'd be totally appropriate to drag along to the dealership on Saturday.

We arrived during a bone chilling cold rain fall. The detailed running boards were slippery with silicone. The Expedition felt better than it did before - the salesman said that they replaced the tie rods. (My Ford friend confirmed that one tie rod was replaced, outer, and no inners).

I felt good about the Expedition. My friend felt good about it. I went ahead and handed over the bank check. I signed my first ever car loan. I declined the powertrain warranty.

The new battlewagon, as someone called the van.

A bit more presentable than the van (in the background in this shot)

Overall in pretty good shape.

The other side.

The third row seats, left side folded down into the floor.

The front suspension with the drive axle visible.

Tie rods on this side weren't replaced.

The rear suspension. The silver arms extending out are aluminum.

The center silver piece is stationary on an IRS, it moves up and down a good 8-12" on a live axle.

That's the extent of the tow vehicle stuff, just the tow vehicle. The trailer is a different story, a whole puzzle unto itself. My goal is to have registration inside the trailer (well the staff inside, not necessarily the racers). Such a trailer would use every bit of the Expedition's tow capacity, if not in actual weight then in the size/length of the trailer. I don't want to get into the situation where the tail wags the dog, so to speak, and a long tail, even if it's not quite 7000-8000 lbs, can exert a lot of leverage on the 5400 lbs "dog".

The "small" option would be to have a small trailer just for the finish line camera, similar to the one we've been using at Bethel. This would mean setting up a tent for registration in locales that didn't have a registration area.

The van, just before it left.

On a side note I listed the van in Craigslist on Thursday evening, sort of on a lark. I had no recent pictures of it so I figured I'd add pictures over the weekend. My experience with Craigslist car ads is that you get a few bites and that's it, so when I got 4 or 5 emails in the next 12-24 hours I was a bit surprised. One guy drove a couple hours to see the van on Saturday.

He bought it.

I got home and the Missus looked pleasantly surprised.

"I can't believe you bought the Ford and sold the Dodge in 24 hours."

"I should go into car sales."

The Missus shot me one of those glares.

"Or not."

Promoting - Tow Vehicle Revisted

On the way home on Sunday I watched some tractor trailers as well as a couple pickups towing small trailers. I thought about my trailer and tow vehicle problem. It's something really occupying my mind when there's room in there next to the 2013 Series.

You probably know this but the current Bethel van, an older 15 passenger Dodge van, is nearing the end of its serviceable life. I started looking for a replacement but then thought that if I was buying a new vehicle I should think long term, not just next year.

This made me think of trailers. 

After some thought, a bunch of feedback, and some more research, I'm pretty set on the trailer idea. I figure it would be 2500 lbs or so, 14-18' long, 6'-7' wide, hopefully close to 6' high inside, maybe 4000 lbs fully loaded with race promotion stuff. I realized I wouldn't need as much gear as I have in the van because some of it would be replaced by the trailer itself. So, for example, I shouldn't need to bring two tents, nor a number of tables, etc. A lot of that stuff could sit in whatever future trailer and the one-off things, like maybe a snow blower, could sit in the tow vehicle.

For the tow vehicle it'll be either a cheap(er) pick up, like a Ford F250 type, or I'll trade in the Golf and get a used Touareg. If I got a pickup it'd sit outside and therefore be somewhat disposable like the van. Those are my two options at this point.

I decided against a big SUV, like an Expedition or Suburban, because it would be a pain to own it based on our house/driveway/garage situation. We wouldn't be able to park it in our garage so it would have to sit outside year round. As it is such a vehicle would be hard to keep in our driveway. If we did decide to garage it our storage bay is not close enough for regular access, and it would force us to keep the trailer outside.

The lack of easy access to the SUV means that we'd need to keep two smaller cars as we do now. The big SUV would replace the van as the "third vehicle", becoming the third vehicle in our array, not a replacement for the Golf or the Jetta Sportswagen.

On the other hand the Touareg, being just 8 inches longer than the Jetta Sportswagen (aka JSW), should fit in our very compact bay, and it should be able to tow 4000 lbs (it's rated at 7000+ lbs). Other than its sister SUV the Porsche Cayenne there are no vehicles I can find that are rated to tow 5000-7000 lbs and is in the same size range as the JSW. A few folks have questioned the size of our garage spot in the sense of "Are you sure it won't fit?"

It's small.

The bay is awfully short - there's about a foot behind the back of the car.

The intrusion from the right is the dining/office room.

I took the picture from the right side bay also, a longer bay but more narrow. On the right side we pull in the Golf, turn the wheel to the right so the tire hits the wall, and the only way to squeeze past the car to get to the stairs is to fold in the side view mirror. Another foot of width and we'd have to NASCAR our way in and out of the vehicle, climbing out of the window onto the hood to get to the steps.

Golf in the right side bay. The right front tire is hitting the wall.

I framed the picture so the left side of the frame is the dining/office wall.

Of course there's the whole idea of being more efficient when we drive around for day to day stuff. Although a full size SUV would be great for towing it wouldn't be great for day to day driving. On bad days we get 35-37 mpg in our two TDis, on the good days they're in the mid-40s, and on great days it's over 50 mpg. We wouldn't use the full size SUV to do long trips because even with a few bikes on the roof of a loaded down JSW we're in the low-mid 30 mpg range, much higher than the 12-15 mpg that we could expect from a large SUV.

To be honest the Touareg wouldn't be much better than a larger SUV. Even at the 25 mpg the diesel version would get with no rack on the roof we'd be getting worse mileage than the JSW with a couple bikes up top. Worse still we wouldn't be getting any benefit from the Touareg versus the JSW in terms of space - it's only inches larger inside, slightly wider, but wouldn't fit an exponential amount more stuff like a full size SUV.

So after all my debating internally I've decided that I should go with a semi-disposable pickup truck, one capable of pulling at least 4000 lbs of trailer. A full size F250-F350 type is rated at some insane 10,000+ lbs towing capacity so that would be fine. Although a crew cab would allow me to carry Junior in the back I think realistically saving money and getting the standard cab will work fine. If I have to run "bulky item errands" I'll have to do it when Junior is under someone else's watch.

Of course what happened on my next ride? This rig passed me.

Pretty much what I've been thinking about - 12-14' trailer, pickup pulling it.

Now to figure out a budget and see if I can do it sooner than later. Although the tow vehicle comes first  the trailer should follow shortly thereafter. I could probably get by without the trailer for a bit but for future race promotion plans the trailer is key.

Promoting - Looking For A Van Replacement

I have a Dodge 15 passenger van, 2002 or so, bought really so that I could get stuff to/from Bethel. I rarely drive it, sometimes just 400-500 miles a year. The main thing is driving it from home to Bethel and then from Bethel to home. When I get scolded by the mechanic that looks after it (he says I should drive it regularly) I drive it to run an errand or two, like to go grocery shopping or pick up something at the hardware store. It has 51k miles on it now. I think I bought it 7 years ago with 45 or 46k miles on it. There have been at least a couple years where I used less than one tank of gas for the whole year. This year, as an example, I am just finishing off the tank of gas that went in early last year.

The van would be fine except it's starting to rust. There's a lot of surface rust on the chassis, the bottom of doors are getting bad, the step area to the back (from the side doors) is getting crunchy, and overall I know there's a limited amount of time left in the thing.

This means I need to get a replacement.

I figure the street value of the van is close to zero, maybe $1000-2000. It runs fine, meaning the engine and transmission. There are minor electrical issues (dash lights don't work for example, and blower up front isn't working), and at some point I'll need to do the brakes and get new tires.

As far as the benefits of having the van - I definitely need the space the van offers and in fact I could use more. Based on what I know I have a few choices.

First, I could fix the van. This is time consuming but would allow the van to serve more of its design life before going to the scrap heap.

I have a contact that can weld chassis/frames as I think this is going to be necessary eventually. He's also done body-off restorations of his own trucks and those of the company he works for, so he could do that stuff. As I said before the van is functionally good - it has good size, seems reliable, and it fits what I need. The work involved would mean lifting the body off the chassis (I think it's a ladder/body vehicle), redoing all the stuff on the chassis (brake lines, fixing rust, rust resistance stuff, suspension bushings, brakes), and then putting the body back on. I'd need to fix a few of the electrical things too, like the dash light thing, the front blower, but that would be it.

A deluxe thing would be to convert the rear to a duallie set up, with 4 wheels on the rear axle. With 2 wheels the van is inherently unstable and apparently dangerous if a tire blows. A duallie set up fixes that.

I imagine that this could take a long, long time, and these kind of projects tend to grow problems and extra work like a lawn grows weeds in June. The good thing is that I'd know what I was dealing with after finishing the project. The bad thing would be finishing the project.

Cost-wise I'm guessing it would be in the $7k range without the duallie conversion, another $2k for the duallie conversion.

Second option -  I could get a similar van that isn't as rusty. This would be the cheapest and quickest option. I prefer diesel just because we already have two diesel cars. Gas works too as all the little engines are gasoline powered (leafblowers, generators, etc) so either would work. Poking around a bit it seems like street price for a diesel van is $6k-10k for a similar size van. If gas it's on the lower end of the scale. Since I wouldn't drive it much fuel type is less critical. It would be nice if it were a passenger van because then we could use it to go to races and such, giving it a chance to actually drive a bit.

Issues include not knowing what I'm getting with a used vehicle, higher miles on the drivetrain, and less space. I rarely see a 15 passenger size van for sale and I have yet to see a diesel 15 passenger van out there.

I suppose I could get a sister van and then use the current van for parts. The rear axle, for example, is really pricey. The welder guy could help with any swaps and such. Of course we're dealing with project creep again so...

Third option - getting a panel type van. These would be huge relative to the current Dodge. They're usually diesel. And they seem to be about the same price as a regular van. I could modify it so that I could do race registration straight out of the van. In fact, if things were okay with it, I could probably rig it so that the start finish stuff is on one side, registration on the other, and the finish line camera on the roof. It would be a "pull up, park, open the sides, and hold a race" kind of vehicle. I'd need to ask the help of my welder friend but this idea really appeals to me.

Disadvantages include where to park it, the inherent lack of passenger space, and the fact that I've never driven one before. I don't know if I need a different license for example. It's definitely not a family friendly vehicle so I can't use it too much for anything else so it would sit a lot. This isn't good from a rust/use point of view - my mechanic would be scolding me regularly.

Fourth option - a Sprinter type van, i.e. a newer type van that is more efficient. They're diesel so that's good. Street price $12k-17k for one that's 5-7 years old and has 90-120k miles, with new ones it the $30k range. This is getting up there for me as I would have to take out a loan and pay it off through the race promotion business. I may even have to trade in the (2011) Golf to get enough equity for one of these things.

The benefits include a much more efficient machine overall, a lot of room, possible passenger seats (there are two seater cargo versions, five seater "crew" cargo versions, and then passenger type set ups).

In the long distant future a larger Sprinter type van could be converted to resemble that panel van described above.

The drawback is that I'd rarely drive a Sprinter type van "just because". I'd feel pretty ridiculous driving one to go grocery shopping, for example. It's possible that I'd be using it more during the summer to go to races but... yeah, no, I don't think it'd get much use.

Fifth option - well it's sort of the "catch-all" option. I'm not sure what else would work. Pick up truck (crew cab) plus a trailer? Minivan + trailer? Mid-size SUV + trailer? These would need trailers and I'm not sure if I want to do that - with a trailer there's additional registration stuff, taxes, and maintenance. Plus I'd have to buy the actual trailer and make sure the tow vehicle was strong enough for the trailer. Right now a friend lends use of his trailer for the finish line camera but if his situation changes and he decides not to have a trailer any more then I need to get something to replace it.

I admit a trailer would be useful for photo finish stuff because I could separate the two - leave the trailer at the start finish area and go to registration with the tow vehicle (pick up, minivan, or SUV). If it were a self contained unit then set up would be quick and simple.

The trailer would have to be big enough to carry stuff for Bethel - 2 leaf blowers, 2 Echo weed wacker type gizmos, at least 1-2 hand held leaf blowers, gas cans, generators, etc. I'd use it to store all the street cleaning stuff as well as house the camera review stuff (small table, monitor). We'd use our storage bay to for the trailer and the stuff that's inside of it.

My estimate is that the trailer needs to carry about 2000-2500 pounds of stuff, max.

With a considerable size SUV that might work well. For example I saw a locally listed under 100k mile Suburban for about $10k. That's big enough to pull a decent sized trailer but the Suburban is also a nice stand-alone vehicle - we can use it if necessary by itself.

The one drawback is that it would be hard to create a "pull up and race" vehicle out of a Suburban or similar (pick up, minivan). It might be possible with pull out awnings and such but it wouldn't be quite the same as dropping some side panels and leaning out to take the first release form. Still, though, to have a "E-Z Up Registration Vehicle" would be nice.

Of course at the end of the day I have to remember that my main thing would be to do Bethel. I don't need to go crazy, I just need to be able to hold Bethel.

Promoting - Prepping The Bethel Van

I don't know what else to call The Van - I really only use it for Bethel. I think last year, in 2011, I drove it to and from Bethel, and that would have been it except a mechanic scolded me for letting it sit 363 days a year so I drove it a few days here and there. Whatever, it's telling that the van still had a bunch of gas in the tank when I drove it to Bethel in March of 2012.

It sat there until Labor Day weekend.

The Missus and I visited my dad et al in the area and, on the way back, took a detour to pick up the van. Luckily it started up right away - I don't know the last time anyone drove it but it was sitting in about the same spot I put it in back on April 15th.

As we got going I realized the van wasn't all that, at least not this trip. The windshield wipers were unusable and, more importantly, there was some short or loose connection for the dash. The interior lights wouldn't turn off when I closed the door (they should turn off).

The headlight knob allows you to turn on the interior lights by dimming the dash lights all the way but instead of turning on the interior lights turned off. When the dash lights got juice the interior lights turned on.

Driving with the interior lights on at night isn't good so I turned them off, dimming the dash lights until they were dark too.

The radio turned on and told time but the speakers had no power. And the fan didn't work either.

(Later I checked the wiring diagram of the van - a 1998 Dodge Ram Van - but to no avail. I'm thinking ignition switch or a wire/connection to it because the stuff that's always on - clock, lights, etc - all work and the stuff that's gets juice when you turn the key - dash lights, speakers, etc - don't work.)

Anyway the drive home became a bit more interesting. I didn't want to turn anything on or off because I wasn't sure what would happen. Therefore no high beams, no toggling the radio on and off (hoping for sound), etc. I even started avoiding turning on the interior lights to see my speed - instead I put my DroidX on the dash with the LED light on.

The Missus followed me, blissfully unaware of the various issues with the van, and we got home okay.

Today, on Labor Day, I set out to clean out the van. I haven't done this in a while so it's a bit dirty - full of sand, twigs, little debris like that, and, to my surprise, a couple large chunks of pavement, the largest being the size of maybe a baseball.

I also found this - cold weather Rudy. Since the headlock thing was broken I tossed it.

I emptied out the front, middle, and rear, and vacuumed up all the debris with a shop vac. While I was moving stuff around I decided I should paint the podiums a nice base layer of Zinsser white so, after making sure it wouldn't rain any time soon, I did just that.

I also started up the leaf blower (unused since about March, but stored improperly with fuel in it), threw out almost a garbage can full of stuff, and basically cleaned and organized.

 The "Middle", after vacuuming.

The Front would be the front seats and the area between them.

You can see rust peeking out from under the floor thing. It's getting rusty. The jack stands should stay in our garage, but we use them for the trailer at Bethel. The heater in the back is one of two we have, crucial for cold weather tent stuff. There are tent sides on the single bench seat I leave in the van (the white fabric type things to the left of the picture).

The single bench is kind of important to me - it prevents radical load shifts under braking. I put heavy stuff in the Middle and lighter, bulkier stuff in the Back.

While I was doing all this I did some miscellaneous stuff. I put a vent back into the ceiling - it fell out a long time ago and I couldn't figure out how to get it back in place. You have to push two sides together but one side is inside the ceiling. I used an L shaped hook to pull the backing towards me and voila, hole in ceiling is now a vent.

I also polished up the headlights - they're plastic and yellowing due to sun.

I replaced one windshield wiper (I had one extra in the garage). I also Rain-Xed the windshield, driver and passenger door windows, and the side view mirrors. The stuff helps a lot when it rains.

I checked, briefly, for loose electrical connections but couldn't find any. I'll have to explore further at some later point.

I also did a rust health check, kind of like a doctor tapping on your chest while listening to you breath. The rust is getting worse, that's all I'll say. Eventually I'll want to replace this with a garageable vehicle, probably a minivan.

 The Back, before the vacuum. Note USCF sticker (not USAC).

The pallets are there for muddy races so that we can put a "floor" down on the ground. You can see where the "second floor" (described below) sits, on the left side. There are wood stakes to the right. These were meant to be used to direct traffic from parking lots and such but I haven't utilized them yet.

The Van, with stuff from the Back unpacked.

It's huge. I figure I could live in that thing.

The gleaming white podiums should jump out at you. You can see, if you look carefully, a can of Zinsser primer near the middle podium.

Leaf blower sits next to a pile of shovels and brooms. The blue microwave box has a microwave in it. For cold weather races nothing beats being able to heat up food. It's small enough that the 2000w generator can handle it. White buckets are for tent weights. The big wood thing leaned up against the door is a second floor for the van - easier to slide things on that because the floor of the van has little bumps and such all over it.

Then, with the van about as good as it gets, I put stuff back in.

I had two goals at the beginning of the day.
1. Get the cold weather stuff into storage for Bethel 2013.
2. Get the rest of the promoting stuff ready to go in the van for the White Plains Crit on September 16th of this year.

Towards the end of my long day I put the cold weather stuff in storage. This meant stuff like shovels, shovels, and more shovels. The heaters I didn't move, the propane tanks for the heaters sit on our open deck.

The rest of it - tents, grate covers, stakes, rope, tie downs, radios, printer, cones, brooms, leaf blower, Echo pavement sweepers, drawer for pre-reg, and the newly painted podiums stayed either at the house or in the van.

The final bit - the actual registration stuff, the computers, and the finish line camera stuff - will find its way into the van September 14th so that I can drive down on the 15th (to my dad's) and then to the race on the 16th. I keep that stuff indoors because of the electronics and the value.

A final bit of trouble shooting with the van, some freshening up of some of the stuff we already have, and we should be good to go for White Plains.

Phew.