Track Owners Expence

Does anyone in the ALKY. ranks look at racing from a point of view of
the track owner??
Lets do this,
# 1 You and most of your crew get in for free.
#2 You bring your own food and make alot of garbage, that we clean up.
#3 You oil down the track and we clean it up for free.
#4 You bitch and moan when you can't hook up to the track,=
more traction compound that we pay for.
#5 You expect every thing and what do we get?
Look at the stands next time your on the starting line.
theres no one there to compansate me for what we do for you,
Ya I know that your race car cost you
alot of money to build and race, so did this race track,
how about having a little compasion for me????
So if you were me, what would you do to help defray cost ???

 

I'm sure having half the alky runs take place on a friday doesn't help matters. The stands at the grove were practically empty on friday, but on staurday there was a pretty decent crowd. I'm not saying they only show up to see us run, but I'm sure a lot of fans have a hard time justifying eating a days worth of wages to go to the track.

I have no answers. But it's a good question.

 

expense

Great post, i see your point of view but most tracks do no promotion for our
races(even a few flyers) maybe a radio spot for something in return we all gotta be creative and none with the exception of Reynolds Ga track thinks outside the box they bring in a band for the weekend and they actually have a good crowd in the stands. Just 1 example but for your side, i would charge all crews no matter what, maybe do some type of gamblers race on friday and racers do a pot thing and the track get a cut, most of the traditional thinking is not working got to be different i agree, we all get screwed except NHRA and the big boys
feeling your pain
On the sidlines in BAMA

 

costs

After dating a local track owner/operator, I know the costs/work/time it takes to run a track. I helped with the track prep, sweeping, brooming, VHT application, cleaning the pits, return road, getting the timing system ready, and so on. There are alot of costs that racers do not think of that I never did until I was behind the scenes. As a driver/owner of a car, I now know BOTH sides of the fence. I know the costs of VHT, insurance, employees, and other costs. All I can say is, be patient guys and treat those track people a little nicer...

 

Will those are intersting points. Also, I wonder if the Alky cars have "out grown" the Divisional Races. In the late 70s and into 1980, most Division 2 (and many others I asume) races saw shrinking Nitro car numbers. When NHRA dropped the Nitro cars from Divisionals in 1981, Alky racers were told "We" are the new headliners at that level. For several years the Atlanta Div 2 event (a week before the Gators) had an 8 car Nitro FC show that drew all the big guns (and a crowd). You are right that a track has to at least promote a Divisional race to see if they get a return RE more spectators.

 

Suggestions:
#1 - If you would try anything to promote us this would not be a big deal. You are giving away passes, not merchandise, so in reality it cost you nothing to let driver and 4 crew in for free.
#2 - If you would guit serving $6 dollar hamburgers that taste like s**t maybe teams would spend more money for concessions. The food typically is horrible at race tracks. Charge a $20 waste oil/trash removal fee. I think that is fair.
#3 It's just part of doing business. All the other classes oil the track as well. A team gets a free oil down per event. If a team oils the track more than once they should be charge a clean up fee of $100.
#4 Maybe the teams should learn to tune to the racing conditions. But, a track owner shoud realize that he has high horsepower car running on his track and should spray accordingly.
I work everyday at promoting my business to stay alive. Why are you any different than I? You need to do promotions. I can only assume that you have a McDonalds, Sonic, Gas Stations, ect. ect, in your town. How about doing a $10 car load promotion. Or give away free tickets but charge $10 to park. BTW stock up on your concession food because they will buying it.

 

Will, that kind of answer wont get any one motavated, if you think that they are lazy you are so hopelessly wrong, I think they are going broke and can't afford to advertise, so why not have the alky racers do it themselves? pay to get in the track in addvance and use the mony to addvertise, promote yourself if you will, then if the track makes more money they in turn pay out more. P/S I'm not a track owner, But i did sleep at a Holiday Inn last night!

 

Div 7 director Mike Rice and I had this discussion. These races are not promoted right. You say we bring in our own food, well we sort of have to with the mark up you charge at the track as we are spending a small fortune ourselves just to get there. Also I don’t know about you but at 99% of the tracks we go to we really appreciate the people that put on a place for us to race. Now back to the promoting a race. One easy way to bring in more money is do a two for one or three for one ticket and 16 and under free, why think how many 50 cent beers you could sell for $5.50, or .75 cent hot dogs for $4.00 etc. Like said above think outside of the box, a band works great. There are many ways to improve your gate.

 

I can't speak for track owners but do know this one fact- I would rather be a track owner than a Top Alcohol Funny Car racer. To have all those empty seats and to know that with some advertising I could fill them- what a deal. And the attraction to fill those seats is coming to entertain for FREE. And those who aren't coming for free are going to pay me to perform on my stage. What a deal. I am in the Pacific Northwest and we have the opportunity to see both sides of track ownership. We have Woodburn Dragstrip where the track owner does promote his events, has good food, and gets a great crowd when the weather agrees and we have another track that does ZERO promotion and the track is empty, the food blows and the facility is falling apart. One has only a dragstrip and seems to be doing quite well and the other has a motocross track, driving school, and a national event and still is struggling. I have no sympathy for track owners who think the world owes them a living and the fans will come as if telepathy is all the promotion needed. I will trade roles any day and I bet most alcohol racers would too. Dave Germain

 

I think we had this argument not too long ago. All it did before is upset people, and did we get anywhere? NO! We all had ideas on how to resolve this, but I see nobody acted on them, did we? So, lets either drop this subject and worry about more important things, like how to get Paris Hilton out of prison!!! Lighten up guys, this is supposed to be for fun...

 

Thats the problem, nobody wants to do anything about this, Then when the class is gone you'll want to sue somebody, How about every div. has there own payed promotor, let the racers help pay him or her, just for the rest of the season , see how it works out if it works , Great, if it don't well at least you tryed, then you cant bitch when the class goes down the $h1tter, point in case is ihra, what will happen next year to them?? and to finnish,, You cant help someone who wont help themselfes. Talk about lazy! Hey Nick Bonafanti, Div 1 needs you, now theres a promotor.

 

Some of this sounds familiar, reminds me of ours days in UDRA.

A lot a track owners aren't willing to do anything that involves any type of monetary risk.

Also, some of these drag racing circuits that will go into a track and run for practically nothing doesn't help. You either have a TAD/TAFC or you don't. I know some don't want to hear that, but to bad.

This situation and a couple others is the reason we took a chance on going top fuel racing.

Tony (gonna drag the alky digger out of the moth balls on Saturday and do a burnout down the driveway)Smith

 

Bader

Will,
It's kinda funny how after reading the first page of this thread I thought to myself... Bader will show you how it's done. Though I wasn't there, I understand the inaugural Div. 3 event at his track was one of the best divisional race in NHRA's history. Give him a few years of these events and he'll make them almost as good as a national event. I also understand he's thought of combining divisional events with his infamous Night of Fire events.

 

The Denver divisional is run a month before their national event. They get near national event crowds for the divisional, at least for a day or two, and have been doing so for several years. They have a marketing partnership with the regional Grease Monkey chain. Grease Monkey gives away discounted or free tickets to the event, and people show up by the thousands. Bandimere charges $5/car for parking, and they own a good share of the concessions, so they don't have to rely on the back gate to make a profit on the event. I know I've seen at least 15,000 people at Bandimere for a divisional event, and there weren't any top fuelers, jet cars or wheelstanders.

Billy Meyer has done the same thing, partnering with a radio station in Dallas, for at least one divisional event I worked, and it filled a lot of seats in the stands.

A smart track owner won't try to promote such events entirely out of their own pocket. Doing so would be a break-even proposition at the very best.

 

Yes Bill does know how ! . Bill sr. and jr. have built one hell of a nice track over the years . The new updates this year are impressive . A definite promoter .

 

ROF passes are a track's merchandise
RACERS, I love you guys and think you deserve all the respect in the world for your investments, however I work at a divisional track with a world class surface that does promote it's event/s. The reality is times have changed and drawing a crowd is a lot harder than it used to be. In our case we have apopulation of almost 2 million within about an hour from the track. We advertise our divisional on TV, radio and newspapers(full page ads). We work with local media and get prerace coverage in/on all three and if the weather is cooperative we get a pretty decent crowd. The risk seems as much the weather man as it is the weather. If the weather man predicts even the possibility of lousy weather you can kiss at least half that crowd goodbye. In todays world people have so many more choices for their entertainment dollar than they did even ten years ago that they will simply plan to do something else. There are no easy answers but I'm pretty sure of this, survival must be a team effort. So long as we're thinking it's the other side's fault we'll keep going backwards

 

Interesting thread, I only have two things to point out about the original post:

My guys work their behinds off to make sure that I have a safe car to drive every pass. The LAST THING I'm Going to EVER DO is have them eat hamburgers - fries or hot dog's (fast food) every time. So I spend about 9 hours cooking and freezing food to have good meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (sometimes we skip one or two of those depending on our schedule) But all you guys know that the best after a long hot day in the sun is a good meal that goes in leaps and bounds from the easy route of concession food. (obviously not every team has that luxury, but hey, you can buy a Stoffer's party size lasagne, throw it on low on the BBQ until it's done and bread & butter, you've got a decent meal and it's cost effective).

Secondly, if people are leaving a mess in their pit, shame on them, tracks supply us with trash cans and service all weekend long. There is no reason for our pits to be "Cleaned Up" once a racer leaves the track, using a trash can is very simple, it may overflow a bit or oil boxes may be stacked outside of it, but it's still their for our benefit.

I know of one example that I was horrified that this guys team did this (he was/still is? a nostalgia racer) If someone leaves their pit home like that, can you imagine how they really live??? That goes for ALL Racers, not one class should be exempt for common decency. That is a very unfair thing to do to ALL Track Owners and personnel.

as for promoting, I have to do that every day as a racer and as a music engineer so that's just business practice that has to be applied if you want to succeed.

Have a good weekend guys and gals,
Nancy