On Wednesday it was announced that local car meet Ertefa was -at least temporarily- no longer welcome at the venue it had been occupying.
If I am not mistaken this is the second time they have had to leave a location but unlike the first time size wasn’t the issue.
Apparently at some point within the last few weeks a street racing accident occurred on the near by highway and the blame has fallen on the Ertefa crowd, and as such they have been told to stop showing up.
With this news of Ertefa’s shut-down I have to ask… is anyone really surprised?
It’s not like this hasn’t happened before I’m sure (actually I know) I am not the only one who saw this coming. The writing began to appear on the wall pretty early, and as problems with burnouts, parking, fights began to pop up that writing only got clearer.
Really the whole thing was an ambitious endeavour by the Ertefa organizers because I can’t recall the last time any large scale (500+ cars) weekly meet lasted without incident.
Which leads me to the question of the day, can any meet the size that Ertefa is (or was) last?
No matter how hard an organizing body tries to enforce their rules (as ridiculous as some may be*) there are going to be people who don’t listen, and don’t give a fuck.
And even if someone did manage to remove those individuals permanently you still have to deal with the fact that if anything accident related happens near by the cops are still going to point their fingers at the gathering because it’s the most logical place to start.
Discrimination? Sure. Unjustified? No. Let’s not kid ourselves street racers still exist, so why wouldn’t the police start by killing the meet to see if that stops the problem? It’s a sad state of affairs but at the same time it kind of is what it is and if they let the meet continue the non car car loving public would see it as turning a blind eye.
So what’s the solution? I’m not sure, Classic car guys seem to be the best at having long term meets but at the same time they are generally half the size and not without their own issues.
Truthfully I am not sure there is a workable solution to the problem once numbers get past a certain threshold, but anyone is more than welcome to prove me wrong.
Will Ertefa make it back? Time will tell.
*By the way Ertefa organizers my offer to sponsor a trash can still stands.
Site Updates
For event weekend this Sunday, CSCS, Meeting of the Mazdas, Torque Modified, and Vagkraft. Flyers below, click each for their respective sites.
I’ll be at Meeting of the Mazdas but I should have guest photographers at ever other event provided things work as they should.
Flashback Friday
Might as well go back to last years Vagkfraft
Vakgraft 2011 Part 1 complete coverage
Vagkraft 2011 Part 2 complete coverage
In all honesty, I believe the muscle and hot rod guys are able to meet with less incidents is because theyre on the older side. I know here in Cali the import scene is full of young guys full of hormones. I know the real car guys get it, old or young, just have to spread the knowledge and take it to the track.
@evasques: Unfortunately, all it takes is someone with a modified car to do something dumb and everyone gets problems. Even at organized shows, you get folks leaving the show ground to race, then the police camp outside the gate and start writing tickets and impounding vehicles for anything thats modified.
Maybe more shows at dragstrips? Folks who what to chill or just have a show-n-shine can hang out while racers (and wannabes) can bust ass all day without hurting anyone. Although I’ve had people tell me that organized shows aren’t “authentic” and we should “take it to the streets, man” even though the reason they’re in a closed show it because of dumb-asses on the streets. Although I think it’s probably endemic in car culture. I’m sure the original post-WW2 hot rodders got similar hassle from law enforcement in their day. My fathers generation got hassled. My generation (I’m in my mid 40’s, going on 17) got hassled. Today’s kids get hassled. Quite simply, The Man (sometimes justifiably) doesn’t like car nuts.
True… and I believe your idea on organized shows at dragstrips is a great idea. People that want to “take it to the street” can do so at their own risk. Most of us work hard for our cars and hate to see money thrown away in fines.
The Man will harrass anything modified, its what they do, but wreckless driving kills people, and its not just “racers” but its putting others in grave danger. I only speak on my experiece here in California.
I stopped going to Ertefa a month ago as I saw that this kind of crap was where it was headed. There just wasn’t enough people on hand “working” and perhaps some ego’s got a little inflated….
Whew I was worried this was going to be a dead post.
I agree that it is (sadly) getting hassled by the police is part of the culture. I go to a lot of shows at racetracks and for whatever reason people who are too scared to track their cars where it is allowed blow by me on the highway on the way home.
Any show I leave I do so in the slow lane so that I will not get caught up with those “caught in the moment”.
@mcordy I only went to ertefa once by then egos were pretty big .
First off, wtf kind of name is ERTEFA?
Second, as I said last time, this happened here in Montreal a couple months ago with a meet that grew to over 1000 cars on a weekly basis. Needless to say, things got out of hand there too. No accidents or injuries, but burnouts and traffic mayhem became serious issues. The end result was that the site owner kicked EVERY car meet off their lot, not just the one that got out of hand.
On the other hand, a couple of weeks ago I went to our annual All-Ford show which takes place at a dragstrip. There were no issues with people acting stupid on- or off-site, and there wasn’t a single police car in sight on the way from the site to the highway. But as Dave said, occasionally people do get worked up when leaving these kind of shows for whatever reason. It’s unavoidable.
As the Cat Herder said, it’s something that has been an issue for every generation of hot-rodder. Will we be able to put an end to it or prevent this kind of occurrence? Probably not. Can we do our best to reduce the chances of these things happening? We certainly could do more, or at least do more to relinquish some of the blame that may result from such an occurrence.
The drag strip show I attended makes you sign a waiver when entering the site. I’m not going to pretend that I read the whole thing (or any of it), but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a clause that states the site owner or show organizer is not responsible for anything that happens once showgoers have left the site.
The difference between now and past generations is that society is always looking for an easy target to blame. Fear mongering is also a thing that news agencies thrive on. Nowadays it takes only minutes for the whole world to find out about some minor event, and the media does their best to contort it into the biggest tragedy ever. As a professional truck driver, I’m all too aware of what it’s like to be an easy target.
Alright, I’ve probably gone on long enough, although I feel there’s probably a lot more to be said on this subject.
Phil, Ertefa is Stance in Persian. The guys who put it on are Persian so that is the name the chose, I agree it’s an odd name.
I think 1000 seems to be the breaking point, once you get there the chances of people acting a fool increases tenfold.
Good point though with the fear mongering, it’s true we are an extremely easy target to blame for anything automotive related.
This is evident by the street racing charge you can get all by your damn self.
my weekly attempt at organizing a cruise from the tri-cities to ERTEFA began with the statement, ” its only a matter of time before this gets shut down , so lets go while we still can , its an epic meet……” too bad I wasnt proven wrong , i had real hope for this one. To bad the “street racers” cant keep it in their pants.