Club Arnage

I would like your comments on an idea i have.
My Pa and i are thinking of starting a new business and as a side line extra i was thinking of doing a transport service for people who want to take extra belongings and equipment to foriegn motorsport events. Goods are collected or dropped off and then safely delivered in crates to their location. Picked up afterwards of course. Any one who doesn't take their sports car because of excess baggage would be able too, increasing the joy of the ride down. People who just take a van will no longer have to. This would be done very proffesionally (no white van and a load of cushions game). We will have the resources available.
Does any one think this would also be a good proposition? How much stuff would those of you who drive down in their cars, take extra, if it were available?

Chef.

Great idea, with potential for a lot of sidelines to it as well - getting in to bed with the main tour operators (JustTickets and that other one which i cant remember the name of) might be a good call for expansion.

The basic idea of being able to drive down luggage free is great, but you are going to have overheads such as paying for a pickup point location on site.

In my opinion your best hope is if the campsites are all designated pitches - that way you can deliver things to thier owners.

All in all a great idea that will appeal to drivers of Caterhams, Ferrari's etc etc which a) dont have a lot of room in them and b) cant be as much fun when theyre loaded full of luggage.

So is this a business challenge to Robbo's trailer?? :D

Chef,
I feel it's a go-er, provided you can deliver to the intended party, with security. This could be a problem on the campsites.
Maybe a distribution point from which people collect, located on the site. I have visions of one of those "UN food aid " crowds, full of rag tag, scruffy individuals. all grabbing at anything they can get - normal Le Mans behavoir then.
We did similar a couple of years ago. We actualy stay at a campsite off the circuit and sent down a pallet cage (like food stuffs/bakeries deliver in). The guy who runs the campsite recieved it in for us and then saw it back onto the lorry after we had left for Blighty. We were able to send up to 1 tonne in 1 pallet space 1000mm x 1200mm(freight is all worked out by load volume/weight combination.) This was more than ample space for all the tents, bags chairs etc etc. It cost £120 return from memory; cheap when you consider it sorted about a dozen peoples problems out - most of us went on bikes that year. We used a local international freight company. I guess the alternative is TNT/DHL type service.
Good idea though - best of luck.

Thinking about it, you could even expand your service to the extend that you build up the camp, fill the pool, fire the barby and make sure the fridge is loaded on arrival of your clients.

Sounds good to me.
It would definately be of use to my lot with our sports cars and small boot space  - and WARM beer.

Brad , i have a feeling its not intended to challenge the might of our trailer.

This is a proffesional operation.

The SPS Crew use Bodgit and Scarper Freight Forwarders !!

I think i may hear the story tommorow ?

If you extended it even further to include eating the food, drinking all the booze and watching the race you'd have the perfect business - someone else pays for you to go to LeMans  ;)

I would suspect the delivery at the other end is relatively easy. You need to consider how you are going to collect the stuff to start with and then return it at the end.

Take Le Mans expedition for example. We all travel from all over the country to start with so how would you collect the goods to begin with? Once collected I would have thought that the Le Mans end is quite easy. You just get down there on the Monday before (or earlier as needed) with a rough plan of when people are arriving. When people arrive they just call you and you take the stuff to the campsite. You would probably need some temporary campsite passes from the ACO but I am sure your case to them would stack up. Plan a rough collection time after the event as well. Although this will be busier it is still achievable. You leave after the last person has left and drive back. You then have the problem of delivering it at the other end though.

Good luck. It seems like a good idea in principle.

It's a nice idea Rich, but you'd need to do a pretty stringent cost analysis first. You could end up seriously out of pocket otherwise. You need to know what it's going to cost the punters with a decent profit margin for you.

Also factor in that it's going to be a major headache before and after the race. Will you really be in a fit state after the race??  ;)

Just a thought - you'd need to declare all the fireworks and pyrotechnics for ferry/customs - ie how do you know if someones given you something a bit too hot to handle?

Not a problem with fireworks...
... don't import it and buy locally !

I want to be one of the shareholders of this new company. You may benefit of a local logisitc plateforme.

Why people should really find their stuff on Campsites? if it's just out of the track, in a secured place?

But Gilles - we didn't see the fireworks you were going to get us last year! We had to get some from a garage in the end and they were tres crap compared to all the other CAers displays!!!

"did you pack these bags yourself sir?"

"what, all of them??"

:D

bike hire !!

Sounds a reasonable idea, so long as you can make all the pick ups (and returns) in UK at an acceptable cost.
LM is another matter, since that will involve delivery to all the campsites on dates and  times (and at exact locations) required by your customers. No good arranging a central pick-up point, since by definition your customers have no means of transporting the stuff in their own vehicles.
That leads to the ACO, who are not at all keen on granting concessions for vans or trucks to have access. A few years ago I tried to start up an ice delivery service round the campsites. I was told to approach the marketing department of the ACO, who told me in no uncertain terms to piss off as there was no call for the service. Now I speak French and told them that I thought it was up to me to measure the risk, and up to them to tell me how much the concession would cost. No joy, just "it's people like you who make our lives difficult" I told the old bat involved that no, it was people like me who were paying her salary and that she'd be better off working as a tax collector so that she could be rude to all and sundry with impunity. End of conversation.
Best of luck.

I mentioned few years ago, maybe on the old forum, that I could find bikes to rent for 60 euros a week.

KPY:

Your story doesn't remotely surprise me.  The ACO and organizations like that (especially in Europe) appear to be medieval in their mentality towards ideas like yours.  Obviously there is a massive need for ice at this event and I'm sure many of us have sat at the event from one year to another saying; "think how much dosh you could make if you had a truck you could drive around full of ice".  The sad reality is you have a couple of gyppos rumbling around in a nackered van selling frozen urine blocks to those poor souls who are sipping tepid dumpies.

The same ideas applies to grub.  If someone drove round in a golf cart full of hot pizzas (aside from possibly being mugged), they couldn't make enough to fuel demand.  This service exists in the States and clearly makes a killing at events like Sebring and Mid Ohio.

Dude - if you ever get the ice gig going, we'll be customers for life - sure beats the fart around we go through every year prepping all our coolers and collecting our ice supply pre-weekend.