Pro Sportsman Association becomes official!

Pro Sportsman Association becomes official

We are pleased to announce that the Pro Sportsman Association is now an official entity. The Pro Sportsman Association has filed as a nonprofit corporation. Much like a group of dairy farmers who form an association to run ads like the ‘got milk?’ commercials, we are seeking to increase our fan base and subsequently race track demand for our classes by improved and increased promotion.

The PSA will operate within the scope of their mission statement: “The Pro Sportsman Association is a non-profit organization formed to build the value and ‘brand’ of Top Alcohol racing. We are an organization primarily funded by the membership dues of racers, racing businesses and fans who have a vested interest in seeing Top Alcohol racing reach the proverbial ‘next level.’ We plan to reach our objectives through the hiring of a dedicated PR and Marketing team. Our objective is to increase the support, participation and profitability of NHRA Lucas Oil Top Alcohol racing. We intend to specifically target increased media exposure in both local and national markets. By building our value to both the tracks and NHRA, we hope to not only maintain but increase the number of events that feature our classes as front gate draws. By building the awareness of our classes through media and other promotions, we hope to build our fan following in the long term. We also hope our efforts lead to more new teams entering the Top Alcohol classes. The PSA will not get involved in performance based rules issues. We do not intend to become our own racing series aside from NHRA. The scope of the organization is to be a promotional tool for the Top Alcohol classes, not a mediation board between NHRA and the racers.”

The initial board of directors has been established as follows:
President: Will Hanna
Vice President of Business Membership: Noel Manton
Vice President of Racer/Fan Membership: Marty Thacker
Treasurer: Ray Drew
Secretary: Mark Billington

All board members are serving free of charge and the PSA will hold an election of board members by their membership June 1.

“I’d like to thank my fellow board members for the time and effort they have put into this becoming official so quickly,” said Hanna. “The race season is quickly approaching. We have a lot of good things already in the works for the alcohol racers, but we need to get membership dues in as quick as possible. There are a number of admin costs we need to tackle as a new company along with generating operating capital to achieve our objectives. What we are trying to do is relatively unprecedented in the drag racing world, but we believe we can achieve unprecedented results for the alcohol classes. The more membership support we have, the greater rewards we will be able to achieve.

“I feel very confident we will reach our goal of 100 members,” Hanna continued. “Judging from the feedback we all have gotten from fellow racers and businesses, I firmly believe we will exceed that goal. There are roughly 100 teams in each class, and probably more than 100 businesses out there that are actively engaged in alcohol racing. If we can get 35 teams from each class and 30 businesses, we will meet our goal.”

The PSA is close to finalizing terms with a well known figure in the sport to handle the promotional duties of the association.

The PSA is offering racers and businesses an introductory offer to save $100 on membership dues for 2012. If a member joins before March 1, dues will be $595. After March 1, dues will be $695. The PSA will also offer a two-payment option with the first payment due Feb. 15 of $400, and final payment of $295 plus a $5 late filing fee by June 1.

The PSA asks members to send checks made out to the Pro Sportsman Association to:
PSA New Membership
8619 W Lynx Ave
Milwaukee, WI 53225

Please include Name, Address, Phone, Email, Class and number or business name and type.

The PSA plans to be able to accept credit cards and paypal in the very near future. Email Treasurer Ray Drew at rdrew@wi.rr.com and he will contact you as soon as we are able to process those payments.

The PSA hopes to have their website, www.prosportsmanassociation.com up and running within the next few weeks. We are also in the process of finalizing a fan/crew membership level.

Any questions can be sent to Will Hanna at will.hanna@insidetopalcohol.com

 

why should you join?

I'm sure a few of you are asking, "Why should I join?"

What we are doing is creating our own 'in-house' PR machine.

With someone full time on staff, we will be able to send out more Top Alcohol feature stories to the national and local media than has ever been done. We will have someone that knows how to write a good story and knows how the media game works. This person will be calling editors up in the markets we race weeks in advance letting them know we're coming to town and he will be sending them a release.

It takes talent to write something an editor will want to run with and it takes time and follow through to make sure the editor knows what we're doing.

This person will also work hand in hand with the tracks, NHRA and Lucas to create and cultivate promotional opportunities to get more people to our races.

This endeavor will take time, and we all know time=money. I'm sure there's a lot of us that would love to volunteer the effort, but this takes time that most of us don't have. We also need some media talent and experience. If we don't do the job properly it isn't worth doing at all. I'm afraid volunteer efforts just won't get us anywhere.

If you are a TAD/TAFC racer, we need your support, and we need it now. If you can't swing $595, there's the $400 option, and if you can't swing that, chances are you don't need to be going to a race anyway. I hate to be blunt but if we don't act, we are leaving the fate of our $250,000+ investments rapidly deteriorating in value.

The sky isn't falling yet, but we need to act to improve our stature in the racing world and invest in the future viability of our class.

So let me connect the dots for you. By increasing our media exposure, more fans are aware of what is going on in TAD/TAFC. By working with tracks we are going to put more people in the stands. This is the only way we are going to get races added to the schedule. This is also the only way we are going to keep races from being taken away from us.

Obviously we have to right the ship before we can even think about 'pay raises,' but the only way we can ever hope to be able to get more money is to draw more fans. Before you increase supply, you have to increase demand.

So this is a call to arms for alcohol racers and the businesses that support our classes. Get on board now and give us the operating capital to take TAD and TAFC to the 'next level.'

And please sign up now before I have to send Marty and Ray around the pits on bicycles with briefcases 'witnessing'...

 

name

Thanks for the input Rog,

It's a little late on the name, and we have had quite a bit of discussion on the topic. TAD and TAFC are, or at least used to be, referred to as "Pro Sportsman."

Outside of our drag racing world, sometimes the word 'alcohol' puts people on guard before you get a chance. Trust me I know because of my website/business name.

I agree if we were putting on races, then maybe PSA wouldn't be the name of choice, but that's not what we organized for. Yes, right now we are pumping the association up, getting the word out, but the PSA's role will be a promotional arm in the background.

We have a lot of ideas in the works. Right now we just need membership so we can have some operating capital.

We should be able to announce the person we are hiring for the PR/Media job early next week. I think that will get a lot of people excited. It's like we needed a quarterback and Peyton Manning was available.

 

members

Hat's off to Chris Demke for getting his dues in first! His was postmarked just before Brian Mans...

Here's a list of members as of yesterday (1-30-12):

Chris Demke-TAD
Brian Mans-TAD
Paul Gill-TAFC
Bryan Brown - TAFC
Mike Burns/ Len Cottrell - TAD
Gord Gingles / Cliff Bakx - TAD
Forrest Fair - TAD
Dave Hill - TAD
Ray Drew - TAFC
Mark Billington - TAFC
Marty Thacker -TAD
Will Hanna - DragRaceHose.com/InsideTopAlcohol
Noel Manton - Manton Engineering/Pushrods/Rockers

 

benefits

Anthony, thanks for the interest, and hopefully I can answer a few questions for you.

We have been working with NHRA on this since day 1. So far the attitude has been very receptive. We are working on a promotion for the Gainesville D2 race with Rich Schaefer. Even though he has the least amount of alcohol races in his division, he is defintely someone in the alcohol racer's corner.

With Todd on board, he will work hand in hand with NHRA Field Marketing on the media side of the Lucas Oil Regional Series. There is more cooperation with NHRA in the works.

Can we hold a gun to their head and make them do things? Obviously no. We can sit back and say "NHRA ought to do this and that all day long." Should the tracks be doing some of what we are going to do? Probably. We can also ride the attitude that we are entitled and deserve this and that right into the history books. Whether or not we do is besides the point, to a degree. We are in a terrible economy, we have been riding the back of a 30+ year old business model that hasn't been working for the tracks. This is the same concept as 'nobody will run your business as good as you will.' Even when the NHRA and the tracks do want to promote us, they have alot of other things they have to do as well. The sole focus of the PSA is to promote the alcohol classes. More exposure, more fans, promote long term growth.

So NHRA is on board with what we're doing. We are trying to increase the demand for our classes, not increase our demands.

Going after more local media coverage isn't just a function of increasing exposure for racer's sponsors. It's about raising and generating local awareness about our racing in those markets. Sure they know about John Force. We want to let fans know more about the Artie Allens, Andy Bohl and Clint Thompsons of the world. If we can get well written stories, ready for print to local editors, thats great advertisement for our racing.

If your race team is not part of your sponsor's local marketing plans, why are they sponsoring you and why aren't you part of that plan when you do go to a market?

If we make more fans of Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car racing when we go into the regional markets, maybe some will follow us more than when we just come to town. One of our objectives is to get more fans to follow us. That means keeping them informed when we are on TV, encouraging them to "DVR" us (thats the easiest way to watch now days). As we try to create more "personal" connections with fans, they will be more apt to follow us. So increasing our fan following has both direct and indirect benefits to sponsors.

We are trying to rebuild our 'brand' of racing from the ground up. It all starts with having fans. If we don't have fans, then we are nothing but a bunch of car club racers. By creating 'fans' it makes the task of getting them to the track, 'promotion' easier. If you are a fan of the alcohol classes, or maybe you met Forrest Fair last year and found out how nice of a guy he was and how nice he was to your kids, when you see an advertisement/promotion of some sort that the alcohol cars are coming back to town, it's a much easier sell. We have been underpromoted for so long, it's not as easy an connection anymore. We have got to build that connection with race fans back up.

We get paid a purse because we are supposed to generate revenue above and beyond that purse for a track. Sure there are plenty of times when tracks just flat out haven't promoted us (thats part of the reason why we are here). There are other times when tracks have promoted us and lost their ass. Other tracks hear that. Track owners talk, and we need the tracks that we do run at to be 'happy customers.'

If we have more fans, then everything else the class needs becomes easier to attain.

As far as grey areas, there will be none. We are a non profit corporation. We didn't just go get a bank account under a DBA or something. The rules for non profit corps don't leave much room for grey area. That's one of the reasons we went that direction.

We intend to be as transparent as possible in all of our financial dealings. We already have a CPA on staff. We plan to make our financial statements available to members on request. As a non profit, I believe that makes our tax returns public record anyway.

The board is not paid. We don't get a discount, don't get in for free. We pay just like everyone else. If you don't know Todd, he's about as modest as drag racers come. I will probably have to prod him to write about himself when they win races.

I have stated since the meeting in IMIS that I would not take the paid position because I did not want people thinking I was creating a 'paycheck' for myself. I paid for all the up front costs to form the corporation, etc., out of my pocket. This organization has taken a lot of my time away from my businesses. I'm not bitching by any means. I firmly believe that this association will improve the business of alcohol racing, so I think this is a good investment of my time and effort.

Increased media exposure is not our sole purpose. We also plan to work directly with the tracks and our series sponsor Lucas. "What can we do to help you make more money?" If doing a display at one of the track's sponsors or a retail chain that does business with Lucas helps either one of them, then we are building value. It is our hope to be able to start developing strategic marketing relationships that benefit everyone - the racer, the track, NHRA and Lucas. We're all in this together.

I don't think it's going out on a limb that the Top Alcohol classes will get more media exposure than they ever have. That helps us in just about every area we have problems. It will help make us more appealing for sponsorships. It will help get more races on the schedule. It will help reverse the notion that we are a dying class.

It's a new idea with a lot of momentum. We're just starting.

Anthony, I hope this answers some questions for you, and hope to see you come on board.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them publicly on here, email me at will.hanna@insidetopalcohol.com or call me at 979.415.4959

 

progress update

Since becoming official Jan. 18, we have made a lot of progress. We have a lot of hype going. There is still a long way to go, we need to get some races back in different parts of the country, but we are making some good headway on rebuilding our brand of racing.

We have been working with Rich Schaefer, Div. 2 director, on a "Will Race For Food" promotion at the Gainesville regional event. Basically fans will be able to get in the gate with a food item, which will be donated to local food banks.

I have already had two track operators that have called this week excited about what we are doing.

Both CompetitionPlus.com and DragRacingOnline.com have agreed to run monthly feature stories on alcohol competitors.

We are getting a good deal of positive feedback from a number of manufacturers who plan on joining and supporting what we're doing.

We look forward to seeing more of you join in the next few weeks!