Pro Sportsman Association moving forward with Interim Formation Board

Just dropping a note to let everyone know that we are making progress in making our Top Alcohol Organization a reality.

The organization will be called the Pro Sportsman Association. We currently have an interim Formation Board of Directors that consists of myself, Noel Manton, Marty Thacker, Mark Billington and Ray Drew. The Board is currently and plans to work free of charge.

We are in the process of trying to finalize our official mission statement, but our goal is still to build the value and ‘brand’ of Top Alcohol racing through the hiring of a professional PR/Marketing staff. This staff and organization will work hand in hand with NHRA, Lucas and the tracks we run regional events to better promote our events. We intend to specifically target increased media exposure in both local and national markets. If we can build our value to both the tracks and NHRA, we feel we can not only insure we maintain the number of races we have currently, but hope to get more tracks to pick us up in the future. By building the awareness of the class through the media, we hope to build our fan following in the long term. We also hope that increased awareness will lead to more new teams getting into the Top Alcohol classes. The Pro Sportsman Association will not get involved with performance based rules issues. The scope of the organization is to be a promotional tool for the Top Alcohol classes, not a governing or mediation board between the NHRA and the racers.

While we have not become an official organization yet, we are diligently researching our options on what type of corporation we will file as. We are not able to accept any dues as of yet, but dues will be set at $695 a year for team or manufacturer membership. We will give everyone roughly one month (from the time we are official) to take advantage of an introductory offer to become a “Founding Member” of the PSA. The discounted rate will be for $595. We will offer a payment plan for those who may not have all of the money up front. The initial payment of $400 must be in before the conclusion of the one month period, with the final $295 (plus a $5.00 filing fee) due by June 1. After the one month grace period, all dues will be set at $695 per year.

We understand during these tough times this may be a tough pill to swallow, but our concern is if without sufficient funds, we will not be able to do the job that needs to be done. If we lose more races in the near future, we all will be spending much more than these dues. This is a very modest investment in our future. When we accomplish our goals, it will be well worth it to all of us.

Our goal is to reach at least 100 members in our first year. We feel this is easily attainable if we are to get a minimum of 35 racers from each class (70 total) and a minimum of 30 manufacturer members, we will reach our goal. I really feel we can go above and beyond that goal.

Our intentions are to use the dues to pay for a full time staff member to do the bulk of the PR and Marketing work. Ideally we would have the budget to have this person on the ground at most of our regional events. We would also like to recruit some college interns to assist our paid staff. Obviously a portion of the dues would have to go to legal, admin and other expenses the association would incur.

We hope to be ‘official’ and accepting dues by the end of January, if at all possible.

Please feel free to email me or any of the other board members if you have any questions or ideas.

Will Hanna - will.hanna@insidetopalcohol.com
Noel Manton – noelmanton@msn.com
Marty Thacker – mlthacker@marathonpetroleum.com
Mark Billington – mark.billington@pepsico.com
Ray Drew – rdrew@wi.rr.com

 

contingency

We have some contingency plans in place. We have received very positive feed back from both racers and manufacturers so far. I don't think this would have gotten as far as it has if we didn't think we would get enough membership to make it fly.

PLAN A is to have someone fulltime. PLAN B is to put together a part time team. I think we'll be alot closer to PLAN A than B, so I don't think at this point we need to have an exit strategy.

 

plan

Geno,

I appreciate and understand your concern, as I'm sure many will have those concerns putting that kind of money into a new organization.

First off what the Sportsman Advisory Committee did and what the Pro Sportsman Association will do are two completely different deals. One was to get feedback from racers on rules and competition related items. The Pro Sportsman Association will be solely to promote our type of racing.

I have 11+ years of experience doing PR work for alcohol teams. Not to mention running this website, sponsor hunting, etc. I know what can work, we just need to have someone to do the work. If we have a qualified rep (and they are out there) to work for the classes instead of individual teams I think it can be very successful.

Not saying I'm the best PR guy to ever walk the planet, but between my input and other people that are helping this project in the background, we don't have to solely rely on the expertise and experience of whoever we hire.

From strictly a media perspective, the one thing this project has going for it, is the bulk of material the pr rep will have to choose from in putting stories together and getting them out to the media. This rep will be able to ask an editor, "what do you want?" Do you want the story on points chases heating up? Do you want the special interest story on the local guy? Maybe they want both. So this person would be working with local editors where we go race these regional events as well as national and automotive media.

These efforts would be coordinated with the tracks and NHRA, so everything works hand in hand.

One point that was brought up in our board meeting last week is that we need to treat this like a fraternity and make sure everyone gets on board. We may need to put some peer pressure on those who don't want to get on board. As one guy said, well, if the guy who isn't in the association comes to my trailer looking for parts, maybe he doesn't get them.

There's no way we can make everyone join this. So yes, it does suck that some will reap the rewards of those who are paying in. But we can't scrap all the good over a few who will ride the coat tails of this.

Obviously the more we have to spend, the more we can do. We can still do a lot even if we have to go with a part time "point man" and get volunteer help to fill in some of the admin tasks. We could do a lot more with a full time rep on the ground at our events too.