motorsport

What's wrong with Long Beach's customer service!? by Justin Foster

I went to the Long Beach Grand Prix. It's almost beginning to become an annual thing for. I mean, I like cars, and motorsports, and road racing. And the Grand Prix has all of that. There are cars. There's several motorsports. And it's all raced on a road. And this year all that was good, except… 

Pretty good view of Turn 1, right? Nope. Can't watch from here.

Pretty good view of Turn 1, right? Nope. Can't watch from here.

The customer service. The shitty customer service. The shockingly bad customer service. And not just the restaurants. The whole shebang. All of it. Food, hotels, and especially the venue staff. Each one of them were rude, disrespectful, and absolutely unhelpful. 

From the ticket booths, which you'd think would have gone easily since all they do is scan the ticket you'd print at home (even that resulted in an argument) , to just walking around the track, those useless blue/yellow shirts seemed hellbent on ruining each race fans' weekend. And in my particular experience, they succeeded.

Nope. This is strictly disallowed.

Nope. This is strictly disallowed.

And that's why I'm so bummed out about it. You see, the race portion of the whole weekend was fine. It was the last ever Pro/Celebrity race, and that was filled with entertainment and perilous antics (a track worker was hit by one of the cars, but quickly bounced back up). You can thank race controls weird decision to not give the drivers a full course caution on that one. The IndyCar race actually had no full course yellows, which was an amazing testament to the drivers' skills. And there was motorsports drama to boot! But will I tell all my friends that when I remember this weekend? No.

Right up to Turn 9? Probably not.

Right up to Turn 9? Probably not.

No, I'll probably just bitch and complain about how terribly I was treated by the staff. And if this is still fresh in my memory next year, will I want to go back to the Grand Prix? Will other people? Probably not. And yes, this is a slippery road speculation, but that could spell disaster for the Long Beach Grand Prix in the future. If shit customer service is going to be a regular thing for Long Beach, then quiet possibly no one will want to go. Ticket sales will suffer. Sponsors will drop out. Then no more Grand Prix. And that's something I don't want to happen.

This wasn't a spectacular place to watch the race, but it was apparently also illegal.

This wasn't a spectacular place to watch the race, but it was apparently also illegal.

Anyways, here's a picture of my dad with a T-rex:

There. That put me in a better mood.

There. That put me in a better mood.