Agro, you, Waylen and the rest of the folks at Sin City MINI Club did a first class job organizing and running AMVIV. It was an organizational nightmare and you should be proud of the great job you all did. Inspite of the outside influence on the strip, I had a great time and met great people. Especially getting the strip cruise together.

99.9% of the comments I heard on the strip from the were positive. As for the three of us who received car damage, I guess we should buy lottery tickets or something.

I'm not sure my wife will let me go to AMVIV next year, but we have a year to let the bad part fade away in our memories and there are a lot of good memories to go with this trip too. Spectacular scenery and driving roads, great people, bargain mods for our cars, good food, etc etc etc.

 

MINIclo, I'll be glad to tell you in MY own words & give witness names of who was in the car with me on the strip when I was shot in the side during the "strip ride". I've never been more scared!!!

 

Beken, Tori and Cruzman - I'm so sorry for what you experienced.

After reading this thread and other threads (and other sites!) describing the Strip incidents, the one thing that continuously amazes me is how well all you have taken it. I've lived in Vegas for almost 20 years and never experienced what you 3 went thru (so yes, most likely it was tourist-related, since I rarely hang out on the strip.) No matter what, it was a horrible thing and I feel awful about it. I know we all do.

Thank you so much for keeping such a positive attitude and for understanding. I know safety was and will continue to be a big topic of discussion for any of our future events.

This was my first AMVIV I've attended (although the 2nd I've helped plan) and overall I was very glad to see everyone having such a wonderful time! All those negative comments heard on the strip came from ignorance (like all prejudice) and should be disregarded. What all those people don't understand is how wonderful it is to be part of the MINI (& Mini) community and how supportive everyone can be.

Maybe they DO know and they're just jealous....

 

Actually, that is an EXCELLENT idea, since there is a 10pm curfew for the "children" here. However, I think we chose Friday night because that was when most of the MINI's could be here and participate. We discussed Saturday but obviously that would not work well with the banquet.

Any later and we would definitely be sure to run into more drunks... Maybe earlier in the day would be best, although what makes it really special is when the casinos are all lit up.

Hmmm...maybe Strip cruise first and then the mixer? That way everyone could just relax and DRINK for the rest of the evening!

I'm sure we'll be discussing this at our next AMVIV planning meeting... (next week..?!?)

 

Sure, if you want to, please do tell me all about it, Shellbell. You may PM me. I'm shocked, stunned, and so very sorry you and the others were victimized! I bet you were scared. :impatient

I like Gromit801's idea of a non-weekend Strip Cruise. Maybe next year it could be on Thursday night, to avoid the drunken punks.

 

As Annette said, we planned the cruise for Friday night to get the maximum number of MINIs available. A significant number of cars arrive on Friday, and would miss a Thursday night run. I don't know if it's significant that this year's Strip cruise was 2-3 hours later than in past years and the 1st time that I'm aware of any of these negative responses from the crowd. Maybe reverting back to 7pm would eliminate the issues?
Something for us to try to work out. One of our problems is to come up with a schedule so that if you want to, you can hit every scheduled event. Making the mixer a pre-dinner thing with a bar meant that we had to allow enough time for people to get food and the booze to wear off before we hit Las Vegas Blvd. We'll keep tweaking things though. I think earlier might be a good idea, though I think we need to stay with either Friday or Saturday night.

 

I wasn't there for the event, rr, but been to LAs Veagas a few times and I hear ya loud and clear. Don't worry, we know who the jackasses are.

 

honestly if people were honking and i was not in my mini i would probably be just as pissed. honking is extremely annoying. and so is the mini horn ha.

then again thats my big city mentality ha. oh yeah and i was in vegas 3 weeks ago, and getting anywhere u want to go is such a hassle in a cab or deuce bus. imaging 400 minis blocking your path. i would be pissed too...

but then again..

 

The Las Vegas Strip is basically a parking lot any night of the week. Adding 260 MINIs to the Strip makes effectively no difference to the traffic situation.

 

^^^^^That's EXACTLY right!

Even a daytime run on Saturday may be good because the "good tourists" are out and the drunken college kids are passed out in their hotel room. In fact you see more adults with their kids walking during the day on the weekend.

 

That's not a bad idea. You lose the neon appeal, and it means pulling everyone away from the Boot N Bonnet show and would conflict with the poker run, but the pictures would be killer if you could see something of the MINIs off in the distance other than the headlights.
Hmmm....*pondering*

 

Sorry to hear about the incidents and the damage. It was a parking lot out there. We were stuck in front of a car with a boombox that was shaking our Mini but we managed to move over finally. It was a lot of fun over all, expect for those things.

Here is my video of the Strip Cruise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-CuAiPjzE

 

Michael,

Thanks for the great video. It captured the moment well.

Next year I will drive the Cruzin Cooler down the strip to keep everyone "cool" & "refreshed" during the stops. Might have to wear my helmet for protection.

 

Thanks Norm, I'll be looking out for you.

 

I look at it like this. One car got a pellet through the drivers window, missing his head by inches. A BB is not going to break the glass like that, but a pellet fired from a pellet gun will. Did you know that the muzzle velocity of a quality pellet rifle is about the same as a .22 rifle?

Now for the strip cruise, I fully understand wanting the most massive turnout possible. Would it have been worth it if that Mini driver had been wounded in the head by the pellet? Lost an eye perhaps? I shouldn't think so.

I'm not on the organizing committee, but if I were, I'd vote to rearrange things for a weeknight or daytime strip cruise. In the daytime at least, you'd have good photography light.

AMVIV is a regular event now, happily. What if "Shoot the Mini" becomes a regular thing also, among the morons? In daytime, it's harder for them to get away with it.

Just my 18¢ (adjusted for inflation)

 

Maybe a morning parade could begin one of the scheduled runs on Saturday? Those wanting to run out to the Valley of Fire or whichever fun run is scheduled, could continue on.

Motoring down the Strip at 8:30 AM would be fun and you know that the drunken ones would not be astir yet.

 

Don't you live in the Central Valley of California? The most gang banging, drive by shooting, meth making, car thieving part of the country? So do you go out at night? Just in case you hadn't heard: http://www.valleymeth.com/introduction.html

 

The pellet-gun incidents are the first thing like that I've heard about any of the Strip runs; hopefully that's an abberation - the previous three had nothing like that happen. I'm wondering if any of this was reported to the LVPD. They are pretty tolerant of a bunch of MINIs essentially taking over the strip for an hour or so, but a shooting report or two, pellet-guns or not, might make things a bit harder to pull off so cleanly in the future. BTW, the cop calling over his loudspeaker for everyone to come out with their hands up was actually grinning when he said that, and then started honking his horn right after - he joined in the fun.

If they move up the cruise time to dusk on Friday, or just as the lights start up, it would probably cut down on the amount of alcohol already consumed by the spectators - that might help eliminate some of boorish behaviour. As for traffic flow, heck that was the fastest I was able to travel on the Strip that whole weekend, day or nite! I think the Strip Cruise is one of the highlights of AMVIV and should continue.

BCNU,
Rob in Dago

 

Being the one that had my glass shot out, I believe the incident was an abberration. I do not believe the vast majority of people would go around the streets of America shooting a pellet gun at anything that annoyed them. Being the religious guy that I am, I believe that if it was time for me to go, it would have been time for me to go. Apparently, it wasn't. Thanks to all for your concern. After the initial shock to my psychy, I'm fine now and had some time to reflect. I do not hold anybody involved in AMVIV responsible for any of this.

I think the incident had more to do with the basketball game than the MINI's clogging up the strip. Being from Vancouver and having witnessed some pretty ugly riots after our professional sports teams lose a championship, I normally stay away from Vancouver's downtown core when a championship game is on the line. Too many drunk idiots and too few policeman to handle them. So this was more of an issue of timing and an external event. Having said that, I'm sure the AMVIV organizers would like to mitigate the risk as much as possible. But it will be more and more difficult as the number of cars increase from year to year. If we had gotten started maybe 10 minutes earlier, this might not have happened. Who could have predicted when the basketball game would have ended?

My personal view was the cruise down the strip at that time (evening) was just one of those "must do" things for a gearhead like me. I would have attended AMVIV just to do this. If the opportunity comes up, I probably will do it again. If anybody asks me what one thing to do if they were to go on a roadtrip with a MINI, I would say attend AMVIV (though driving the dragon if possible might be something else too). Getting to the staging area and joining up with everybody as we got organized and then listening to all the good comments and answering questions from bystanders about our cars, it was exciting. Moving to daytime or to a weekday might take something out of it.

I can't speak for Tori or Cruzman, but I'm not going to let this incident ruin my life. Our cars can be repaired and nobody got physically hurt. I'm going to continue to live my life to the fullest and to the best of my ability and hope I can impact those I meet in the most positive way possible. So I agree with Vanwall. The evening Strip Cruise should continue.

 

Yes, let's continue.

I'm glad that you guys that got shot at are ok. This was the first that I'd heard anything negative about AMVIV! Sorry it had to be someone's car getting shot up. Seems like it would've been better to get a flat or something mechanical than being involved with firearms.

 

I'd say that a daylight cruise would be more spectacular.
Especially the time of year this is held. The neon, headlights, and darkness seem to not photograph well either.
getting that many MINI's on the strip will cause the local PD to notice, so might I suggest contacting the local PD and get their blessings and maybe an escort.
Many other groups do this and some even get to cruise through the redlights with a proper police escort.
Make friends with the police and occurances like the pellet parade will be taken care of immediatly by the proper authorities.