Hello folks! it’s been awhile since our last Family Fun Event and honestly there has a good amount of personal struggle with the park and its future ever since (and even before). The men and women of ACORA as well as the Hellraisers, Solano’s, VIP and so many individuals, as well as our fantastic group of sponsors have been so supportive it has been so great to be a part of this effort. I always thought if I wasn’t cranking out victories, events, and leadership moments that I would be deserted behind the scenes and left to flounder after losing my footing; however that has not been the case at all. Everyone has had our backs and this has given us the energy to move forward. This is not to say that this last five months has not been a slippery slope with some pretty crazy twists and turns but all the same people stayed with us. As I try to bring you all up to speed I will reference events that were public so you can understand what happened in the gaps behind the scenes. Starting with the second annual Family Fun Event this year is a good place to move backward and forwards in time with. The event itself went real well; we had even expanded and had some great ULTRA 4 cars and drivers out to support us with the new Carnage Canyon Showdown, and in fact I don’t think Marty’s Zaritsy’s car has been out since that race, it was so intense. That’s the kind of support we had for the event, people coming out and laying it out to win on the rocks and on the new course! It was great! Behind the scenes is kind of where things have changed (over the past few years) and really stretched us thin in order to make a commitment for future events. The reoccurring theme has been insurance. In order to get the permit for the event, I called on Rich Klein who I had leaned on before for insight and support. He lead me to the insurance company he was using for his events and they said they would cover mine upon conditions being met. They laid out what I needed to do to get the policy. Long story short with all the requirements they wanted it would end up costing just short of $6,000.00 to get the coverage. The policy and medical staff they required alone would end up being $4500.00. In the end, as Debbie Pellegrino knows, we did not get the insurance binder until the Thursday before the Friday event set up day, so the ramp up to the event was a bit stressful. So many people have been mentors to me over the years and in regards to events they have said these things take time to build into successful event and hurdles are to be expected. I was really proud of Jeff Knoll this year- He worked his guts out on a great idea up north and had to make a last minute adjustment that was really trying for his team. He kept his head up and pulled off a great Rally Venture! So this is the mindset I had to take; however, things started to implode a month or two after our event. After watching others set the standard, my ACORA and CTUC teams knuckled up not wanting to report all these trying challenging twists each time one reached out and got us by the short hairs (there were just too many)… I was in the middle of all of it trying to get the park insured and back in business on a weekly basis when I found out abruptly that I no longer held the permit to run the course. Readers digest version… I was working with a production company in June 2014 to get them on the course for filming as we had done many times before, and when no one returned my emails to the district, I called in only to be told “Uh, you don’t have a permit for the course anymore. It expired in April”… Strange since I held a permit in my hand that we had paid for at the beginning of the 2014 year stating that I did. That was the big kick in the guts that really got me and my team back on our heels. This lead to a very trying set of phone calls and emails to Forest Service management, and a very intense meeting with the San Gabriel River Ranger District (SGRRD) management team where all the info was laid out and both sides had their time to state what they felt. In the end it was the insurance that had caught us out. I had figured in good faith I would sort out the insurance problem at some point and until then not operate the course, but the Forest Service didn’t see it that way. They held the keys and the requirement called for us to have insurance to have the permit, so there was nothing I could do in the end but walk away disillusioned and out of energy. I would have to let this settle before I could make another run. I reflected on the past three years of efforts trying to find that needle in the haystack that would make sense of this. Both parties walked away hurt, but the air was clear. You see it as simply as I do now, “no insurance= no permit”. However as I reflect back over the last two years working to find insurance to run the obstacle course it has become an impossible task (at least in California) . Insurance companies just will not take the risk. The reason you ask? Too many videos of crazy things on the internet! Even the fact that we manned it and there had not been any losses did not mean a thing. I could not get a quote, and when we would get a sniff of interest there would had to have been thousands of dollars of construction changes and no guarantee that they would write coverage for us. I just could not take the risk. However in the meeting I just referenced with the SGRRD, they offered to open the course under their federal self-insurance coverage (after sorting some issues out). This is where we time warp back to mid-2013 early 2014. Going back to mid-2013-early 2014 I knew we had a problem in trying to operate on weekends because of the insurance, as we had lost the coverage we once had in June 2013. My thought was “Okay if we can’t get insurance then why can’t the Forest Service include us in their coverage - after all the course was in the OHV area?” They already ran the pit area as open dispersed (people driving around wheeling in an open area) so that seemed to be the only option I had. We worked hard to get a meeting in with the FS staff from before October 2013 to December 2013/January 2014. It was very frustrating, but we finally arranged it. In late February 2014 I pitched the idea of covering the park under the existing federal self-insurance the rest of the area had already been using. I even offered to continue volunteering at the site if needed (this was hard to offer as I had been up there every weekend for about a year and it was affecting my family). It was in this February 2014 meeting that we also pitched the May 3-4 2nd Annual Family Fun event. This gave me two months to prepare for the event, which meant finding event insurance which as I said was very difficult, but the event hung in the balance. The one thing I began to understand while working toward the event in those two months was that without a portion of the entrance fees to the OHV area we would probably not be able to break even on our costs. Unfortunately we did not get the authorization to raise the entrance fee a few dollars for the day of the event to bring quality entertainment to so many (we have never received any entrance fee monies). I knew we needed it to offset the costs of the astronomical insurance and the requirements we needed to put in place to get the coverage. For those of you that attended or remember the weeks prior to the event you will recall that I tried my best to explain that without donations we were going to be in bad shape due to the denial of a piece of the entrance fees. This is why we set the plan in place that included volunteers like Tanya Duderman, who gave up her time to stand there and ask for donations. So cool of her! With two more people that 4Wheel Parts brought out, she and of course Barry and Terry from CTUC, did all they could to elicit donations… It just was not to be, the event itself including the donations brought in around $4,000.00 (2,000.00 in donations). In retrospect during that weekend 730 vehicles came through the gate on Sunday alone setting a new record for single day entrance (we broke our own record from the year before). So if we were allowed to get a portion of the gate let’s say $5.00 a vehicle at 700 vehicles that would have been $3500.00. Without including donations we brought in around $2000.00 on event participation fees and the raffle, so that would have been $5500.00. Now if you remember the first portion of this update you will recall that we needed to cover just under $6,000.00 to break even. So now you see the dilemma. We came up $2000.00 short instead of a couple hundred short. I know this seems like hindsight but as I said I knew it before the event, and we did everything we could to get authorization for a part of that gate fee; it was just not meant to be. So where have I been? Well as many of you know the infamous “Nation Monument Designation Plan” or “NRA” or whatever you want to call it from Congressperson Chu’s office has kept me busy, trying to protect your right to have a Forest instead of a restrictive National Monument. You all know what happened there and that was just plain B.S. We had beaten this tactic two times over the last twelve years only to get backdoored by the President this time. So what’s to come of the Course? I am not sure but I have been asked to return to the fray and figure out new ideas to operate the Azusa Canyon Off Highway area by the Forest Service. After discussing it with ACORA we voted to give it one more shot. We hope to discuss the direction with the Forest Service, agree on it, and then work together to implement a way to enhance area operations. Get the course running and get a chance to keep the place open for years to come are the goals. The first efforts at this occurred in 2012 and yes, we lead them, so maybe things have come full circle? I do appreciate the Forest Service’s efforts but sometimes things just haven’t come out the way we both would have liked them too. My friends, you know me and if we can get a commitment on a sustainable management plan from the powers that be I will continue to work for you all to make cool stuff happen in the Canyon. In closing, one item that we need in order to have a 3rd annual event (or any) is the authorization to raise the entrance for the event so that the Park can see at minimum a break even, and that total (event plus entrance) be collected at the gate. That is the only way I can see that we can pull off an event that can sustain itself for years to come. Thank you all for your support and patience. It’s my family, the people and sponsors behind this effort that keep this thing going. You all are the ones that empower good things to happen. Mike Bishop, President Azusa Canyon Off Road Assn. Secretary/Treasurer California Trail Users Coalition, 2013 Off Road Person of the Year, Crew Chief, Waggoner Racing.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 00:58:20 +0000
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