As you know, devils playground got no action this year for the 103rd running of the PPIHC. Although I have been following the event for years at this point, this was my first year coming to the race itself.

To get to the subject of this review, I have suggestions to make this event less of a nightmare for spectators, as well as your staff. If devils playground is such high risk of being excluded, it should be an absolute necessity to have a properly planned, then executed backup plan for those viewing from devils playground. If there were to be an area further down the mountain that has increased infrastructure in order to take the addition of extra viewers and their vehicles, people would likely have better reviews of the race.

This all became evident, and hopefully it will be to you when I explain it, why this change needs to happen.

We passed through the toll gate long before the sunrise, got situated, and hunkered down. We waited, and waited, and promised the race would start, and waited some more. 9:15am rolled around, the race started, but we were told it wouldn't be coming up to devils playground and we couldn't go down the mountain to view the partial race. Shortly after, we were told a contradictory plan, and told we could drive down, and park on the road itself, and hike to Glen cove if we chose. We did this, but upon ariving at Glen cove and attempting to find a place to view the race from, we quickly noticed two issues. Not only was the race's finish line still far further down the mountain, but the increased people in Glen cove meant there was basically nowhere to sit or watch safely. This caused your stewards and officials to essentially yell, at and baby sit the rapidly growing crowd. People were sitting in unsafe places, sitting in media designated areas, and complaining to the stewards, taking away focus from their tasks. After ariving at Glen cove and attempting to make the most of the situation at hand, we were told we needed to hike back up the mountain and move move our cars, as it blocked the essential path for first responders to access the helicopter pad at the top of the mountain, in the case that a life threatening crash took place. I asked the steward, "I will gladly move my car, but where do you want me to put it?" His answer, 'great question, I dont know'.

This race has the potential to be upon the greatest, most unique motorsports events in the world, but its poorly planned, poorly executed and has no clear backup plans for the mountains unpredictable conditions.

I will be back to enjoy this race, however, I hope it meets expectations, like a century old event should.