Yesterday, I finally attended Purdue Grand Prix. After five years at Purdue and other experiences trying to interact with the Grand Prix Foundation in years past, I must say, it is the most poorly run organization I have ever seen, and it is a miracle the event happens at all each year.
My first three years, I was a member of Purdue Motorsports Association, one of many organizations that merged into MAP (Motorsports at Purdue). Unfortunately, I no longer had the time to participate once I became an RA. Anyway, they always talked about how poorly run Grand Prix was. I always thought it was in jest, but this year taught me first-hand.
As an RA, I was trying to put together an event for the hall to pay for tickets to go to the race. There was no information about ticket sales until a mere TEN DAYS before the race. Keep in mind that track activity had begun a few weeks before that. As soon as tickets went on sale, I emailed the director of sales to see if we could be invoiced for twenty tickets, as we need to transfer money to an account if it's through a Purdue club. I never heard back. Tuesday of last week, I emailed their president, and never heard back. Finally, on my way out of town to go see 30 Seconds, I stopped by their ticket sales booth.
The girl running the table at Stewart west foyer told me to go down to their office in the basement to get things taken care of. Fair enough. I head downstairs, and there are two officers in there talking to the Jimmy John's guy. One of them noticed me and asked what I needed. I had to wait until they were done with the Jimmy John's guy. They were done talking business after five minutes. I sat there another 15 until they finally filled out a VERY unofficial invoice (not the actual real Purdue one used for transactions, but basically a piece of paper that said "you owe us $140").
Saturday, the original race day finally comes around. It was raining and crappy and there was a very good chance that the race would be postponed. According to the hall's team, that decision came around 1:15-1:30 pm. There was no news posted anywhere on the internet until about 1:40, and we almost had everyone signed up to go out the door until someone from the hall's team came back from the track and said that the race had been postponed until Sunday.
So Sunday rolls around, and only a few people actually came; 18 had signed up, but only 6 showed up, two of which weren't actually signed up. So we walk to Wiley dining court where a shuttle is supposed to pick people up and take them to the race. And we wait. And wait. And wait. About 20 minutes. Finally, about fifteen minutes before the race was supposed to start, we decide to take the half-hour trek to the track. When we got there, the shuttle did as well.
We finally get to the track, and there is no one to collect tickets. This may be because it was a rain date, but still, the fact that the hall spent $140 for tickets was futile at that point. At this point, I was thoroughly convinced that Grand Prix Foundation was the most poorly run organization I had ever seen. As an RA, if I had months to plan an event (quite literally, it's the ONLY thing they do) and it turned out as poorly as Grand Prix, I would not get any credit for it.
Grand Prix has sponsorship from many restaurants in West Lafayette. They even have a corporate sponsor in Lockheed Martin, and this year marked the first in a new partnership with the IZOD IndyCar Series. Ed Carpenter and Sarah Fisher served as Grand Marshals for the race, and I'm truly embarrassed for the farce of a race they witnessed. I'm sure most freshmen don't even realize that there IS a race, and there's probably still some seniors who don't realize there actually is a race. This could be a great event with just a little bit of advertising to actually return the sponsors' investment and get people to the race.
They could probably also boost revenue by lowering prices. $7 advance/$10 at the gate seems a bit steep to me. The only people there seemed to be alumni or frat brothers whose house had a car in the race. Get the broke college student demographic in there!
Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. This university is a great institution, and Grand Prix is one of its biggest events. I know that it could be easily better run with better leadership. Someone needs to step up and get the Grand Prix Foundation pointed back in the right direction, or sponsors may leave and we could lose one of our greatest traditions.
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