Pro Sportsman Association increases Top Alcohol News coverage 150%

Sorry I haven’t had a chance to post an update sooner.

Many of you ask how things are going and what has the Pro Sportsman Association been able to accomplish.

One of the most notable things we have been able to do from day one is drastically increase our media coverage. From January 1, 2011 to June 31, 2011, there was a total of 20 ‘feature’ stories that appeared in CompetitionPlus on Top Alcohol racers. During that same time period, we have had 50 stories posted this year, an increase of 150% during that time frame. We have featured the guys at the top of the class, along with the ‘little’ guys and new guys and gals. Todd Veney has done a first class job with this assignment. We have delivered on this short term goal with flying colors. It also sets us up nicely for our long term goal of increasing our fan following.

We have also put together autograph ‘hero’ cards for our members in the East and North Central Region. These have been a huge hit as they have the dragster members of that region on one side with the Funny Car members on the other. It is complete with website and schedule info for other events. We have plans to get these out for the Central and Western Region racers. Our problem is getting the images. Our in-house photographer David Smith hits races predominantly on the East Coast to the Midwest, so we have plenty of images for this. We are working with several photographers to get the images for the Central and West Coast cars. At this point, we don’t have the budget to purchase the rights to these images, so that has been the hold-up. Diana Harker has given us a great rate to get these cards done and the quality is excellent. We hope to have the Central Region cards done for Cordova and the West Region cards done for the Woodburn race. We are currently printing 1000 per region and distributing these to the members. We are offering racers the opportunity to buy these at our rates to have their own ‘stock.’ As they are all the same card, we encourage racers to pool together to get a better quantity buy. This is a direct value to our members. It’s hard to get a good handout card done for the money that our membership rate is.

Our participation has been solid, but I will admit, I had hoped we would see better participation, especially on the manufacturing side. As I write this, we have 38 racer members, 9 manufacturer/business members, and 14 Crew/Fan memberships. While we are not in jeopardy of having to close up shop, we do need more members to build our budget to better accomplish our goals.

We completely understand this is one of the worst economies we have seen in years, and running our types of cars isn’t getting any cheaper, especially with the increased travel of the regional format. As we have shown in the first 6 months of our existence, we are getting results, we are building the ‘brand’ of alcohol racing. We have the start of something really special, but this won’t happen without membership support. If you don’t have the money to front the entire $695, let us know what you can pay on an installment plan, and we’ll work with you.

We have talked to a number of you who have verbally committed to join, or at least expressed interest. We could really use your support to complete our budget goals for the year.

Looking forward, there’s a lot to build on what we have done. Next week we will be contacting our membership to get their recommendations to NHRA for next season. NHRA and many of the tracks have been receptive to what we are trying to accomplish. We hope to deliver the message that the ingredients are there for every track to have a turnout similar to Norwalk or Bandimere. We hope to help those that may not be promoting our regional races start to focus on building a front gate event. We continue to look for new ways to promote our type of racing. We hope a solid ‘offseason’ of pounding the ground will set us up to have some exciting new opportunities in 2013.

We look forward to what the remainder of 2012 brings and we look forward to seeing more of you join our ranks!

Feel free to email any of us if you have any concerns or questions.

Will Hanna – will.hanna@insidetopalcohol.com
Marty Thacker – mlthacker@marathonpetroleum.com
Justin Jacobsen – jjacobsen@ace-mfg.com
Mark Billington – mark.billington@pepsico.com
Ray Drew – rdrew@wi.rr.com

Current Members:
RACERS
Driver / Team
Chris Demke
Brian Mans
Paul Gill
Bryan Brown
Mike Burns/ Len Cottrell
Gord Gingles / Cliff Bakx
Forrest Fair
Dave Hill
Ray Drew
Mark Billington
Jay Blake / Todd Veney
Dean Dubbin
Peter Dove
Gene Snow
Clint Thompson
Lance Van Hauen
Don Nolan
Cowie Racing -Ron
Todd Odom
Darryl Hitchamn
Jim Whiteley
Anne Whiteley
Geno Tumbarello
Marty Thacker
Steve Harker
Ross Stickler /Tom Yancer Race cars
Doug Gordon - MB Cabinets
Duane Shields
Greg Hunter
Scott McNiece
James Thompson
Kevin Newburgh
Joey Severance
MarkTaliaferro
Todd Robertson
John Lombardo Jr
Chris Foster
Jackie Fricke
David Brounkowski
Diana Harker

FAN/CREW
Jeff Johnson
Chis Saulnier
Wiliam Satterfield
Joe Lease/ Don " Pinky" Cobbs
David Smith
Richard Schefen/ Dick Colby
Bill Anderson
Jason Neiser
Thompson Pepper Racing
Thompson Pepper Racing
Thompson Pepper Racing
Thompson Pepper Racing
Mike Gasparrelli
Bill Moore



MFG/Businesses
Ace Mfg / Clutches - Justin Jacobsen
Tri State Raceway-Reid Kulhman
DragRaceHose.com - Will Hanna
NRE Cylinder Heads – John Noonan
Moduline Cabinets – Paul Gill
DMP Awnings – Dean Dubbin
Tom Yancer Race Cars – Ross Strickler
MB Cabinets – Doug Gordon
Woodburn Dragstrip – Joey Severance