Entry fee at divisional events for TAD &TAFC

This is nothing more than a test....hit the new guys, or the ones that took some time off and hit them with the fee...

Then see the reaction and take the heat...

Then as everyone becomes familiar with it and gets used to "some", (and in this case very few)paying, then hit all alcohol racers with the fee...they will justify all racers being charged next year with:

"Hey, are you better than the new guys that paid last year???"

and Lynn...I just got my insurance bill on truck and trailer and shop...and this fee that we will have to pay for taking last year off...it would go a long way to help with these insurance costs...or highway taxes discussed in another thread that my "RV" will be hit with ....expenses we all have to incure just to "get to the race"...

One thing that has to change is the mind set of : "we are just happy to have a place to race"....

We have to sit down with those tracks that want us...discuss what we can do to creat a great show so everyone prospers...and tell the other track owners "no thanks"...if they don't want us there lets walk...

but here is the rub...the tracks that really want us, and that bring in fans to watch us...most alcohol racers today consider many of these track unsafe...

Would love to go on..but have some engines to get ready....but one final thought...

One major thing that we should have learned from the pro-mod side is:...when you bring your own sponsor you control alot more of your racing future...I said years ago that we should go find our own "round money" and "class" sponsors. I believe it might be time to hit the streets and sell our classes to corporate america as a group and not as individuals....it's very apparent that if it is going to happen for us, we are going to have to do it...if not we will continue to die a slow death...

It is, and aways has been: "show me the money"


Kevin Hool

 

The first few Div. races will tell the tale. If races that had full fields last year have less cars this year. They(track promoters)will get the point! Thing is I agree with Woz, only races that hold Nationals should be required. Some of these tracks are Very unsafe!

 

Good comments Kevin and everyone. How much does AMS pay for Pro-Mod? How much of that goes to NHRA for the title rights? And why did they pick pro-mod as the class to sponsor? I believe they were already involved. Is TARA working on something like a title sponsor? Maybe, Ashley Force will bring some interest to the class and we will all benefit from it. I would volunteer to help with any effort to ensure the longevity of our classes. If this is the kind of stuff TARA is working on then I need to join right away. I honestly believe that we need to think outside the box and come up with some ways to prevent the death spiral of the alcohol classes. From being on this site for a while now, I realize that most of us have the same goals and want to continue racing in the classes we chose. Geographically, I can't very well run IHRA and with my blower, I can't run other stuff either. Let's be honest, the entry fee is not going to break us, but it's the trend that's scary. I would love to have some brainstorming (or just a breeze in my case) and see if we can do something.

 

Allowing the tracks to now charge the alcohol cars is something that may help sustain the life of the class at the division tracks. The track owners need help. In division 2 last year the total purse payout for a division race was $41,400 of which $16,200 (39% of the entire purse) went to the two alcohol classes. The track operators deserve a chance to get back some of the payout. The tracks are responsible for the entire purse and make their money off the gate.

 

I just got off the phone with Mike Rice, Div 6 director and it is policy for all 7 divisions.
He stated that most if not all div 6 tracks WILL NOT charge any Alky racers. It is a blanket policy, but it is up to each and every track to decide if they want to charge or not. This division is so competitive that one racer in particular that went to four div races and ran 5.60's at all of them (only qualified at one race), and finished #11 in the div six standings. He was a regualr and would have to pay. That is certainly not right.

Dean

 

I think most of you would agree that it is not about the money / fee. It is about the respect. I moved into TA/FC this season because it looked like the track operators appreciated our efforts. Free admission and being treated a lot better at test and tune days. I was told that this came about due to all the unhappy comp guys who had to run through a field of 100 cars for a small purse. (I notice that they score big in the contigency department.) It is just the opposite for us.....I note very few dollars paid out for decals and such. As we figure not to win anything our first season we will not use any decals on our Team unless we are paid in product or cash. This seems to work fine as we have had a positive response from several companies with raceing ties.

Our divisional director said they are running a three card system. 1/Gold ..for some guy named "ACE". 4/Silver and 5/Bronze. The gold gets everything free for the season. The Silver gets free admission for Driver and three crew. The Bronze gets just the Driver and I think one crew member ( not 100% on this?) It does seem fair that you can earn your free pass. It still seems alot better than sitting at the tree for 3seconds waiting to chase down that VW rabbitt!

On Pro Mods..it's simple. They have greater fan appeal. Due to the names, body styles and wild paint jobs. TA/FC's had better ditch the giant company logos from the sides of the car and ad some bad ass graphics to grab some market share. WE have a good sponsor and have plans to follow the above scheme. You don't have to be the fastest to be the best draw. Rummmmmmmmm!
Brownman

 

man, this is b.s.. how much money do they think they're gonna get out of the new cars that come out. seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a few hundred bucks. barely even worth goin to a divisional already, especially for someone who is just getting started. sure, compared to what we all spend it's small potatoes but come on already. i race at woodburn, or 3 times per year at match races, he pays me 1800 for 3 rounds on sunday, saturday testing is free. everyone is guaranteed 2 rounds and he packs the stands, why?? he is a promoter not a revenue collector. some of these operators don't do anything to get a crowd because they can make a living off of the weekly bracket entry fees, randy is right, most of them don't want us there anyway (or nhra for that matter except for the insurance and the "brand") so they have the big divisional and write the check (tax) to wally and then are too broke and narrow minded to spend some more and promote the show to create a crowd to pay for it. they don't have to do that every week to pay the bills, just collect the revenue from the bracket guys.. we are all a bunch of sick individuals with a very bad disease, and they are just taking advantage of that. hey lawren, golf and harleys does sound good!!!

 

in div.4 there is no free entry, at least in the past couple of years. we raced in bowling green last year and the pay-out was bigger than in div.4. i can remember in 2002 that the dallas div. race the track gave away 10,000 tickets over the radio and other locations. the place was packed for 2 days. asked craig hutchinson if they would do this at the houston div. he said no. r.f.c. chaplain larry smiley said dallas trippled their money just on concessions. we do have a couple of sponsors that help out tremendously but most comes out of two pockets. it is becomming worthless to travel to all these different locations for chump change. plus the back to back races. it is to hard for the little guy to service the car,take off work, take kids out of school and get all your shit together in 4 days. being that we will not making alot of races this year because the fire in noble we will be screwed the following year. probably should just go back to boat racing, but then again ihba and sdba are as screwed-up as nhra

 

Golf and Harleys. I like that Idea.


The Great Dilemma
Pomona, Wed, Feb 3, 1999 02:54 AM
Randy (I wanna be like David Duval) Goodwin is torn between golf and drag racing. Since this photo was taken in the pits at Pomona, it looks like drag racing has won out, at least for this weekend.


Photo copyright 1999 Auto Imagery Inc.

[ January 22, 2004, 11:44 PM: Message edited by: Randy G. ]

 

Clint you took the words out of my mouth. I am tired of track owners blaming us for their laziness.

I participated at a match race at Denver last May and he packed them in. I think he almost had as many spectators for this deal as he had at Friday night qualifying during the Mile Highs. The cars that matched raced were 4 jets, 2 TAFC, 2 TAD, and 2 no name Nitro cars ( one didn't make it back for the 2nd round). Now how do you think he got all those people to attend that race. Do you think he might have advertised?

Then in June, he has a LODRS and hardly any spectators are in the stands. Whats the difference? Racers from the Denver area said that he didn't advertise. Why??? Instead of only having 4 alcohol cars to entertain the fans he had 18 or so. This really doesn't make any sense to me.

I think the track owners are enjoying the EASY money that Comp.,SS,S,S/C,S/G, and S/ST provide. They know that the Alky classes can bring them front gate money but it takes WORK and they don't want to work.

First it was the Sportsman National deal and now this. Believe me it will trickle down. Next year all of us will pay except the Div. Champs. Bitching here won't change a thing call your Div. director and complain. I did.. Lynn did..anyone else.

For what I have already spent this year I could have paid cash for a HARLEY!!!

 

Lawren:

I remember back in the early 1990's when Brad Anderson was still driving and we were racing the division event at Bakersfield. We stopped for breakfast in Delano (sp) up the freeway from the track and the waitress noticed our racing t-shirts. She wanted to know where we were headed and I told her. She became upset because she never even knew there was a race that weekend...due to no advertising. She loves funny cars and Brad Anderson's car especially. I told her I wasn't sure, but I thought Brad was going to be there. She went flying over to her boss to see if she could get the afternoon off. True story.

How many others like her would come if they knew what was going on at the track? Many, I think. But the operators don't want to shell it out by advertising and take a chance on rain, etc. ruining there bottom line, I guess.

RG

[ January 22, 2004, 11:43 PM: Message edited by: Randy G. ]

 

lawren, for what youve already spent this year you could have a hd for everymember of your family!! just pickin on ya . lynn

 

ok.... I read this post twice and missed seeing the one question that burns foremost in my mind... bear in mind the standard business formula:

Profit = Income - Expenses

.... where's the income for the expense (of including TAD-A/F) going?

I know that if I want to make a profit (or cover the cost) from a product, I have to write the ad, submit the ad to the adverstiser, and pay for the ad space. I have to spend money to make money.

As most of you understand, If you don't qualify for a race, even at a divisional race, it almost always costs you more to have tried than you would have received to win. Now, that's some kind of incentive to show up, isn't it? (And what happened to "trying to keep the expense of running a TAD-A/F car down")

Yes, I do realize that that Alcohol classes don't pay for their own purse as do the bracket/comp racers. Nor are bracket/comp racers expected to cover the expense of additional insurance, additional track personel (insert ratio of addition track-hired personnel required per alcohol racer vs. track-hired personnel per bracket/comp racer on a bracket/comp weekend here), or the expense of having NHRA showing up & taking their cut.

So where should the money to pay for these extra expenses come from... logic suggests that it should come out of the income those expenses generate... from the pocket of the party receiving the income (NOT merely profit... INCOME... if the income is NOT profit... then somebody needs to spend some time analyzing their business's profit/loss worksheets).

I don't expect a free ride. But it would be kinda nice to be paid for my labor, not be charged for it.

I personally don't see a problem with racers putting out some effort to generate publicity for the race. (Publicity is free advertising.) A display at your local WalMart or parts store the weekend before the race to sign autographs & play celebrity. Yes.... I DO realize that it requires time & effort to wire tie the injector & chutes closed, put block offs between the headers & the head, tape the fuel cap on, wipe the oil off the back of the car. And it takes diplomacy & tact to prevent kids (& adults) from leaning on the body panels & tripping over the nose of the car. But I've also seen people who never knew about drag racing show up at the track just because I let their kids sit in the car or took the time to listen to some guy's tale about his high-school small block Chevy. But, then again... I've got a lot more time than I do money.

Also for publicity, local newspapers, especially small town papers, will often do a "public interest" story at no expense to the racer.

As for TARA (or any other racer's organization) "doing something" about this....

Members: GO to your organization's web site and POST your input so that the organization will have SUBSTANTIATED information to submit to NHRA and track owners. Don't expect the officers TO DO YOUR JOB without your help. It's YOUR mouthpiece... speak for yourself.

 

Good Post Deb.

Dean Murdoch

 

wheres the money supposed to come from?? it is supposed to come from spectators paying to get in, from all the beer and concessions these people buy. why does nhra have to charge the track owners so much? what do they do with all the money lucas gives them to have the "lucas oil series" what does mr lucas think about us having to pay to race for a purse that hasn't even hardly changed in twenty years?? i wonder what he spends? the big deal is the owners with enough motivation and business sense know how to use our draw, and our willingness to talk to the people, sign the autographs and entertain the kids to thier benefit. but they have to work and spend money advertising to do it. just like you randy i have had the experience many many times where people right in the race tracks town don't even know it's happening. i'm in the car business,and when i quit spending money advertising, the people quit coming through the doors. its not that we're not a good enough draw to fill the stands, it is the track not promoting the event successfully.

 

I have a good story about people not knowing about their local tracks. Our Local track was built next to the circle track a few years after it was built. We were there to do some test runs when a guy, who owns a dealership in town, came over to look at the car and then asked us what we were doing. We told him we were going to run it and he asked where? So we pointed at the dragstrip which you had to walk about 50 ft. to see. He walked over and was amazed. He was at the track and didn't even know there was a dragstrip there!!! And he owns a dealership!!! Crazy! I think even a little advertising would help there apposed to none.

Greg Hunter

 

I too agree, this is BS. In my business as any other including owning a race track, you have expenses to produce a product or service. We are the product or service and that is ENTERTAINMENT. Now if the entertainers( you and me) are WILLING to PAY the person(s) i.e. NHRA and track owners, to entertain folks (spectators), then who are really the WEAK, DUMM ASS(s), in this situation. The alcohol class is the worst class for ANY chance of finacial reward that comes close to make sense. Now if I had an expense increase for anything else in this stupid class (stupid defined as knowing better and doing opposite of better reasoning) other than PAYING THE "FOREVER GREEDY" NHRA and their "partners", I could except it, i.e. better parts, nicer ride, more convience, better help, etc. In real terms though, "we will always get, what we always got, because we always do, what we have always done: NOTHING !!!! We have NO, NONE, NOTTA, ZERO, FORGETTA BOT IT, NEVER WAS, NEVER WILL BE, NOT EVEN A NANNO CHANCE, of representation...( oh I forget, a drivers committee, an alchol racers association,,and less we forget a MEMBERSHIP in NHRA (A LEGAL NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION) that will rally all of us DUMM-ASS racers into doing something ALL together, even if it is just stopping another increase expense to us and additional REVENUE to those who risk being in the entertainment business and reap the rewards. They know it and that's why they're some of the smartest business owners around,,,,"you will pay to play" Wally was and still is smarter than Bill Gates. just my observation of our excrement,,,Warren Dauzat

 

WOW!