fieldafm

why does moroso and the jersey events always have great turnouts? looks like NHRA is taking surveys to find out... the moroso event had a survey machine everywhere you looked... props to NHRA for that

state of spocom drag racing?... i honestly believe this is gonna be one of the best years yet

now bring on vegas
on a side note, really kickass racing at moroso... the product for fans is really there... side by side racing all day long in eliminations

KFMRC

In order to have a strong show there needs to be a strong financial backing. Many of the manufacturers that spent allot of money early on have realized that the maketplace isn't was it looked to be. The sanctioning bodies haven't helped much either. There are to many variations of classes with rules that have been pushed and twisted to the point that cars have become beyond the reach of many that were at the forefront. I know that everyone feels they need to start somewhere and many start trying to build a car that is out of reach and think they can build it over time. Save your money you can't build a hot rod car over time. Many of the parts that are great today will be junk when the car is done. "HEADS UP" is a form of racing that so many want to do but don't realize the to make it happen successfully it takes Deeeeep pockets. The money needs to be there before the car gets started unless your going to buid a braket car. Technolgy changes to quikly. Another major issue is that there have been manufacturers that have invested into the market and taken the time to work out problems and as soon as someone thinks there making money somebody's copying it and selling it for less. It takes allot of time and money to develope some of these products and the market is so small for the high end parts that it is difficult enough to get a return on your investment let alone having someone copying parts. Of course someone can make it cheaper when there is no design and development time invested. Not that I am putting a plug for xtrac but they did commit and made a major investment to supply a trans that is just flawless. Anybody running a manual trans car in hotrod successfully knows that it is a tool that makes the car reliable and allows time to be spent on making the car go faster and not constantly working on a trans that's looking for an excuse to fail. Yes this is where we can go back to the rules makers and "why" why do we need to have cars going in the 7 in hot rod why has it gotten so out of hand that the car counts suck. I personally feel that the next strong surge will come when with the next generation of racers that will have the support of the fathers or future fathers that are racing now. I think that will be when sport compact may become strong enough to stand against the nhra powerade. Nhra powerade series has been around for many generations and that is what has given it strength. The following of generations.
There are several guys here on ht with real talent that will help with some advise and such , but ultimatley there is no substitute for $$$$$$$$$$$ and without it building and running a heads up car doesn't work weather it's an all motor or a prwd it takes talent and $$ and when it's all said and done it takes more $$ to go and test than it does to race. There is no harm ment by this post just a little reality from a been around been there done that ht member that cares about the sport

blues2k3

very well said Bob

Regards,
Arnold

NOPIDRAGS

Hey Leslie, we do run that on Saturday, all day and after qualifying, it is called open session. $35.00 you get to run every time they call for open session racers.

Speaking of the discounts, we offer Military discounts at many events. It is even posted on the flyers that we distribute.

james111

then ask yourself why no one has seen the discount?

and what else could be expanded on that?

a simple sentence of answering the question is just what we are saying about the lack of effort....why not address the idea deeper?huh?

its not a bad idea to get ahold of the base relations officer and see what they could do for the troops and what you could do for them....

vendors where you at in this? golden eagle, revhard, etc etc etc, where you at on this?

james

james111

bump for waiting for a real answer from nhra nad nopi....

1 2 NV

good good thread. i think everyone has lots of valid points. i think the majority of the problem is too many sactioning bodies with not enough racers to fill the venue in teh pro fields (which has been mentioned).

i do hope that wil at exospeed is right about possiblity of the smaller sanctioning bodies turning to more regional events, i think that would be more than fair due to the little guy with less money not being able to compete against the pros that travel the country.

Slapshotnerd

I was out of town all weekend, so i'm catching up...

As someone who has tried to put together an event in another state from a cubicle in an office, I know how hard it is to try and track down these types of companies. If these companies would step forward and tell NOPI / NHRA / Battle / others that they know the market well and are willing to help, it can only benefit everyone involved. But it's tough for someone like NOPI to know exactly what's going on out there.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Sanctioning Bodies

While they don't always make the best decisions all the time you have to give them some credit as they all work their asses off to make things happen. However, I do strongly agree that the regional marketing of the events suck. Having radio spots running a day or two before the event isn't going to bring spectators out in droves. There has to be someone to come up with an aggressive regional marketing program for venues that will get the fans to come out. Simple things like sending prominent tuner shops in the area posters and schedules maybe even a couple discount cards off the gate admission, to some five bucks makes a difference. Have a popular radio station run a some 30-second spots throughout the week prior to the event. Don't understimate the power of radio, advertise something that will make people want to come to the event. Our sanctioning bodies aren't NASCAR or NHRA Powerade meaning that fans of those series know what their going to get when the venue comes to town and they are willing to be there both days. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Trust me, radio advertising doesn't do much. How many times have you heard an ad on the radio and actually headed down there to check it out? I know someone who spent THOUSANDS on radio spots in several markets to promote a car show series, and they got little to no spectators to show up. They tried no magazine promotion and no radio ads a year later, in the same markets, and got more people out. Why? you tell me. but radio ads SOUND like a good idea, but rarely work.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You have to do what everyone else does when looking for information - call around, speak to people on local forums such as HT was well as shops that you are aware of already. It's not a hard thing to do but it would help spread awareness. If you guys had 2000 rave cards that were handed to locals who in turn would hand them out and do the leg work for you and all you did for them was to give them free passes for them and a couple friends it would be money well spent. </TD></TR></TABLE>

2000? try 200,000 and you're in the area of HIN. that's per market as well. Said former car show would typically send out 30k flyers per market, and get around 500 of them back. 2% return... a little better than radio (which is typically around 1/2% if that).

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it would be nice if there some events other than BOTI in the Northwest. Seattle has to be one of the most ignored markets.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hate to break it to ya, but the NW had their chance. While NIRA had a decent turnout at SIR in 99, NHRA flopped badly in 2001 and 2002. Both times had less than 1000 spectators. I remember seeing complaints of it being "too far" for seattle people to go to (Woodburn is a mere 3-4 hour drive for seattle people, you can leave saturday morning at 7 and get there before noon with stops, and get home Sunday before 10p no problem) to too much for entry fee (paying to see the top racers in the country once a year is too much to ask?) to all kinda of other complaints. THe racers loved woodburn, as it was a very well kept track, but no spectators or racers lead to NHRA not coming back in 2003. Battle stepped in and had a moderate turnout of cars last year, which was nice, but I don't see NHRA coming back to the NW for a year or two at least.

edit 1 -
<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Look at the Skate Industry, seems like a good turnout at every event, ESPN 2 coverage, Tony Hawk is on CSI. Those same guys are the Drag Racers we deal with, so where is the miss correlation, Do those sponsors not see the same potential in our sport as they do the Skate Industry? and if so, why? </TD></TR></TABLE>

I think the biggest difference is because the technological divide is not there. Starting up in skateboarding / bmxing costs little ($300 or so) to no (if you already have the bike / skates / board / whatever) to get into. Also, there are alot more venues to compete at. Even though skateboarding is off limits most places, you can still do SOMETHING on the sidewalk in front of your street. Practicing your kick flips, etc. With drag racing, you need a car and a long straight stretch of highway with no traffic. Much harder to get ahold of.

I could skate or BMX every single day for 1-3 hours a day for little or no cost, any week. I can't say the same about drag racing. Plus i know that tony hawk has little more than I do invested into his equipment. The same $300 i spent is the same $300 worth of equipment he's skating on. Again, you see a little more than $300 seperating the ara's and stephs from the bracket racers [/understatement] How do we fix that? i don't know that we can. It's the nature of the sport.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Like I said, If every racer, shop and manufacturer, magazine or online magazine who has a website could make a little pop up window that shows maybe all events 30 days in advance, this would raise the awareness.</TD></TR></TABLE>

How many websites does the average drag racer visit? In my experience, it's FAR fewer than the average car show guy. While this method has been working for HIN and others, I am not so sure it would work for drag racing. Some of the best tuning shops that I know of don't even have a website. Or if they do, it just has contact info for the shop. Many tuners stay off of the internet, especially car message boards and event coverage, because they want to let their cars do the talking. Good idea? sure. Will it work? hard to say, but from what I know about alot of drag racers and tuning shops, not likely to have a direct correlation...

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">pass out free dvd's with movies of some fast import runs</TD></TR></TABLE>

Again, HIN usually goes through 150k flyers per market per event. 150k flyers cost about 1/100 of what 100k dvd's would cost to make. Justifying the cost may be tough. If each DVD costs $.25 to make (which is pretty fawkin cheap), and only 1% of the people you give a DVD to actually come out, then you're probably losing money on the deal. Especially if there's a discount associated with it.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">On top of the racers hitting the streets, I see another area that is pretty untouch and could be very successful. I think it would be great to see the series go after the military. I am sure that all of us racers would take some time out of the weekend to show those guys a good time at events. After all, most of them are around our ages, into these cars but some might not be able to attend. If the series get the military on board you could see a great increase in attendance and involvement.</TD></TR></TABLE>

GREAT IDEA!!

devils advocate - getting a large number of military to get the time off may be tough. I had a friend stationed at camp pendleton, and he happened to get 6 hours off on the day a HIN event was happening in Del Mar. We picked him up, took him to the event, and dropped him off just in time. But he said that it was rare that he got that much time off, and even rarer for it to be on a saturday. The planets must have been aligned Definately something to look into, just not sure how many would be able to attend.




Modified by Slapshotnerd at 10:40 AM 4/5/2005

1 2 NV

i agree with you on the NW part of it. in 99,00 when NIRA visited i think the main reason there were alot of ppl that showed is because it was still relatively new for imports to go fast back then so it was more of a "curiousity" for ppl to come. i too think NHRAs turnout sucked at woodburn both 02 and 03. with what ive seen from the NW as a sanctioning body i know i wouldnt come back.
with exception to the dedicated true drag racers that show up every year there is no real reason to visit the NW. since there are so few of us around the NW like that it makes it difficult. hell i have to drive 4-5hrs to attend seattle or the woodburn events. i know well in advance when they are and i either take the day off or work a 1/2 day then trek on over.

KFMRC

I don't understand why everyone is talking about discount this and that and flyers and radio and such. The big problems is there are not enough cars. If you go to the movies to see a full length movie and you only get to half of it and it keeps happening everytime will you keep going . NO not even for half price. I have been involved with allot of the street legal NMCA NSCA type racing and it is struggling to make a comeback and it really doesn't look that good. There were classes that were absolutely packed with cars years ago. As the et's dropped so did the car counts. It's a very simple thing to figure out. Speed cost's money and the faster you go there are ever fewer people with enough disposable income to keep up. Unless you have it to compete with on a very competitive level you won't land a sponsor. I am talking about a major sponsor to support a serious full season effort not a local parts store with some free parts. When NMCA Super Street was in the 9's there were races where 60+ cars would show up now there in the 7 0's and teens at 195++ mph and you get 4 cars. The first race in Louisiana there was 1 Super Street car that showed up.
I you want people to pay for a show you have to give them one. One other major concern right now is the cost of fuel which affects more than just the ride to the track. It also cost you almost twice as much to heat your home or shop this winter.
This alone could be the cost of travel to a race or two for some of the fella's. I know that the crowed here is on the younger side but years ago there were no et's shown on the score boards. You simply got a win light. The racers got to see their et and such but the spectators didn't. It's a shame we couldn't go back to that because there could be some significant rules put into place that would slam the et's back to a more economical level and as a spectator you would never realize it because you just can't tell if the cars are a half a second or so slower without the et's on the board. Especially if there is a good showing of cars.
It cost's a small fortune to rent a track for a weekend and when you add all the employees for the sanctioning body and their travel expences plus the advertising the last thing a promoter wants or needs to do is discount this and that. Like I said you need to have cars to put on a race and a race full of classes that are not full doesn't make a show worth the price of admission. Having a "big" race is like a traveling circus and if the circus doesn't have enough good acts nobody is going to pay to see it. Some wouldn't bother even if it was free.

KFMRC

Thanks Arnold

bob

james111

"I don't understand why everyone is talking about discount this and that and flyers and radio and such. The big problems is there are not enough cars"...


this can be answered in a simple sentence...

with a high turnout in attendance at a given event or series companys will be more likely to come on board to sponser drivers and teams because the will see the return investment possability in those thousands of faces at the race...

why does a comapany sponser a team or driver? return investment...they see the possability of selling there product to the demographic which is attracted by the team or driver...

thats a no brainer.....

companys want to get a person hooked on there product or atleast get in there head at a early age....a life long dependence on them......they want to somehow get in there head so that when there friend says he lookin for a intake and they remember seeing a cool intake at the race or in the magazine with there name on ot he will say to his friend , hey man check out company x's intake....

its a brain thing man, thats what marketing is in short.....if we can get more people thru the gates and they see things they were looking for in the vendors row or on the side of that hella fast race car going down the track or in the pits then the vendors get return investment.....

once they see the posabilits(ms) of that return investment they will be more likely to spend some cash on that racer or that team that they got a sponsership proposal from last month......

next


james

Slapshotnerd

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by KFMRC &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I don't understand why everyone is talking about discount this and that and flyers and radio and such. The big problems is there are not enough cars. If you go to the movies to see a full length movie and you only get to half of it and it keeps happening everytime will you keep going . NO not even for half price. I have been involved with allot of the street legal NMCA NSCA type racing and it is struggling to make a comeback and it really doesn't look that good. There were classes that were absolutely packed with cars years ago. As the et's dropped so did the car counts. It's a very simple thing to figure out. Speed cost's money and the faster you go there are ever fewer people with enough disposable income to keep up. Unless you have it to compete with on a very competitive level you won't land a sponsor. I am talking about a major sponsor to support a serious full season effort not a local parts store with some free parts. When NMCA Super Street was in the 9's there were races where 60+ cars would show up now there in the 7 0's and teens at 195++ mph and you get 4 cars. The first race in Louisiana there was 1 Super Street car that showed up.
I you want people to pay for a show you have to give them one. One other major concern right now is the cost of fuel which affects more than just the ride to the track. It also cost you almost twice as much to heat your home or shop this winter.
This alone could be the cost of travel to a race or two for some of the fella's. I know that the crowed here is on the younger side but years ago there were no et's shown on the score boards. You simply got a win light. The racers got to see their et and such but the spectators didn't. It's a shame we couldn't go back to that because there could be some significant rules put into place that would slam the et's back to a more economical level and as a spectator you would never realize it because you just can't tell if the cars are a half a second or so slower without the et's on the board. Especially if there is a good showing of cars.
It cost's a small fortune to rent a track for a weekend and when you add all the employees for the sanctioning body and their travel expences plus the advertising the last thing a promoter wants or needs to do is discount this and that. Like I said you need to have cars to put on a race and a race full of classes that are not full doesn't make a show worth the price of admission. Having a "big" race is like a traveling circus and if the circus doesn't have enough good acts nobody is going to pay to see it. Some wouldn't bother even if it was free.</TD></TR></TABLE>

if a small discount yields substantially higher attendance, then the discount is worth it. If entry is normally $25, and only 5k people show up, but a $20 gate price will yield 10k people, then the end result is worth the discount.

if a $5 discount only brings out an extra 100 people, then you're right, it's not worth it.

Drag Race Inc

5000 * $25 = $125,000
6250 * $25 = $125,000

That is how you start to figure out lowering pricing or not. I have found that when selling parts if you sell at one price and it is too high you sell zero. If you lower the price and sell 1 then you have at least made more then selling at the higher price.

Pricing is a balance game. You have to figure based on past attentance and charge in order to cover your budget. If you lower the price and the same number shows up then you are screwed.

fieldafm

the current discussion is about styling drag racing flyers/discounts to HIN's philosophy

but, the point was made earlier about gate prices being too high?
take a look at moroso, for example... you had some great racing this weekend, a lot of rounds say side-by-side ets in all classes.... two day pass was $30
that is a really good value for two days of the fastest import/sport compact cars in the country, a car show, and some free swag(granted not as much free swag as you can get at other events, like HIN:NHRA Poweraide:Formula D)

for comparison...
-i went to gatornationals, $55 for a one day pass, $140 for weekend pass... of course, there are no top fuel cars in nhrasc... but $140 for the weekend is getting steep
-12 Hours of Sebring, $85 Super Pass
-local midnight drags, with nothing but muffeled street cars doing a whopping 10.5 in the 1/8 mile is $10 for admission

seeing faster cars for $20 more, with 4x the time to enjoy myself at a nhra sc event vs some local midnight drags... there is really good value for the money

hell, JGTC was what $55? i dont remember the actual price... i got in free
but they drew almost 50k people... i dont understand why they wouldnt want to pay $25 LESS to go to NHRA SC

ExospeedAMcrx

My opinion is:

The problem of attendance doesnt mainly lie in:
1. Entrance fees and admission fees
2. Radio ads and flyers.

The deal is, if they were not fans already before, they wouldnt go anyways. Put up a radio ad on the popular radio station in the area and you arent going to suddenly Change the minds of thousands of people to watch an event they are not that into. People that go to our racing events are enthusiasts already to begin with. They will know whats coming around in their area and they will research that before hand, without seeing any local advertising.

Like Dustin/1 2 NV said, we know in advance already what events we want and can go to and we schedule our time for it.

I have a new generation of racers coming into our shop that are pretty hardcore with their cars. They are local racers that are into the same stuff we talk about on the boards here, but I ask them how come they dont go to the events.
They simply say, the track is not our thing, we just like building it for the streets. I hear this mentality alot from the younger crowd. Theyre into street racing and thats it. Of course i discouraged that and invited them to see us at the next IDRC event and even told them to hang out with us and have some of our barbecue. Maybe it'll lure them into the EVENT only racers.

Like I said in previous posts, the foundation of the industry lies with those guys street racing. We have to get them in the tracks and realize the fun times at the events. Many of them just know the streets and they dont see the any fun into going to events. I told them you will see alot of inspiration at the track and you can apply to your own cars. Flyers and discounts wont get them to go. The racing series will have to lure these guys in with Classes that appeal to them. And its not SFWD and PRO-AM classes that they need. They need something less competitive that they can have fun in.
Maybe better prize money for Bracket racing?
or
Index classes for slower cars?

fieldafm

"Like I said in previous posts, the foundation of the industry lies with those guys street racing."

Excellent point
case in point, two seasons ago when NHRAsc last came to gainesville.. the spectator turnout could only be described as pathetic
that saturday night... there was about 5 times the amount of people street racing in jacksonville than there was spectators at gainesville that same day

i think the series(nhra and ndra) really need to do a better job at 'converting' these street racers and try to get em spectating, or running brackets or sportsman classes
i say break out the NHRA 'safety wagon' again and go to the street racing spots

james111

alright hijack time


to prove a point or be really wrong i will ask everyone on here to post 2 things

#1 what is your background and future in racing

#2 what are you doing to make this sport better in your other world


this poll was kinda thrown out there by someone VERY high up at a VERY large sactioning body...

he said to ask the questions and to ask every one to be very truth full in there reply.

so guys and gals who are reading this and maby the mods on h-t will sticky this to the top , what yah got to say.....

oh yah , on my side i wnat to hear ideas that you think will help the sport,,now give this some thought and no idea is dumb.....u never know when something may help....

so there is my task to you and everyone on honda-tech


mods please stick at top for a week or two if you can..this may help all of us to get a idea of what we have in this forum...

james

NOPIDRAGS

I am not sure if I speak for the NHRA or not, but the NDRA is not going to assume any kind of liability by going to the street races.

What if: A kid gets killed Street racing on a Friday night before an event, and then come to find out that one of the sanctioning bodies was there hanging out passing out flyers. Do you know how that would turn out? Little Johnny in the Civic Hatch w/turbo/NOS never street raced until such and such sanctioning body showed him that they support street racing.

Granted, most who street race, know that no sanctioning body condones it, but let one of them be there when a kid gets killed. The media will have a field day with it and so will the grieving parents of the kid that had never street raced according to the attorney on the suit.

Like someone said early, there is no magic potion or answers to the attendance figures at these events. I am sure that all sanctioning bodies are doing thier best to promote thier events. I know how much we spend on flyers, magazine ads, web banners, radio, and tv spots. I assume that all of the other sanctioning bodies are doing the same.

I was not at the Moroso event, but from the pictures it looked they had a real good turn out. Who knows?
I am sure that Maryland this weekend will be good for us as it always has been.
I don't think the problem lies with the tracks on the east coast as much as it does with the mid-west tracks and the west coast tracks. Who knows? Is the market over this industry out west? Is the mid-west not ready for it? There are hundreds of questions to be asked, I am just not sure that anyone that any of us know, actually has the answer to these questions.

Also, you can't say that with a high turn out of race cars that the attendance will be huge. What happens when you have 68 Pro cars and 236 sportsman and bracket racers, and you only draw 5800 people through the gate? What else has to change to get the people there? The car count and advertising got larger compared to the previous year, yet the spectators did not come to the event.

How do you answer that? We answer it by not going back to that market, but in turn looking for better markets to do the events at.

Just my opionion on alot of the stuff that has been covered in this post.

fieldafm

to answer james1111
i have raced 'sportsman' type classes in battle, nira, nhra, idrc ever since there have been races within any sort of driving distance... earliest i can remember going to an import event was in bradenton in 97 or 98
currently i am building another sportsman car, and have started in the very early stages of a hot rod car

now back to glenn's post
i completely understand the liability aspect... but bar none, sanctioning bodies have got to reach out to these very same people better... if half of the people that hang out at local street races went to your events in even a 2hour radius of the venue, attendance figures and car counts would be huge!!!!!!
this is the future of the sport, and i think we all need to work to get these people into local test and tunes(more frequently) and into the national events... show them there is a legitimate future to their hobby if they chose to work hard

as far as east coast, nhra's survey this weekend asked a lot of questions about frequency of events attended at moroso, etc... i think they're really trying to understand that at moroso events or jersey events, are people there that will always go no matter what, or is there a large percentage of people that have never gone or have gone to maybe one or two events at these tracks?

cali people are really fickle... no offense to the california die hard drag race fans... ive been to many, many events in california... and there is really this heard mentality there... the people go to whatever is popular... and now drag racing is not popular to them

this weekend at moroso, i wore a formula D tshirt... just to see if anyone would notice... nobody cared... i get more people at best buy comment about the shirt, and nobody said anything about it at the 12k plus moroso event... i really think that east coast people are more heavy into sport compact drag racing... and west coast people are more into whatever is popular(minus a small percentage of exceptions)

a suggestion for the west coast:
what kind of crowd could you do if you had a formula d event and an NHRA event at sonoma on the same weekend... hell, you could co-brand it with HIN(which FD and NHRA have both done in the past) and have close to 30k people possibly???????

ExospeedAMcrx

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by NDRATECH &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What happens when you have 68 Pro cars and 236 sportsman and bracket racers, and you only draw 5800 people through the gate?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Coming from a business owner who relies on RACERS to keep us going, what we want to see are more bracket and sportman racers. As much as I like seeing and respect the work that PRO guys do. Those guys arent our customers. When you look at the overall picture. What fuels the industry to grow? PRO Racers or Sportman racers. To us its the sportman guys buying off the shelf ARIAS pistons, Eagle Rods and the Supertech Valvetrains. That is the INDUSTRY that is affected.
I've said before, that I gauge a success of a race event by the Bracket and Sportman racers. We should be seeing 500 or so of those racers at each event. Not 200 or so.
When you see more bracket and sportman racers, you'll see more Spectators. The spectators that come out are in big groups with those sportman racers. You rarely get just 1 racer come by themselves. They usually come with 3-4 other friends and family.

I used to bracket race back in mid to late 90s and when the PRO guys were getting bigger, the sportman guys were being put more on the back burner. I felt like we didnt mean **** being there. We were just extras to the show and werent HIGH PRIORITY. So what does that lead to. Sportman racers discouraged to go to the track and they dont attend future events.

I know its hard to please everyone and the PRO classes have to be run all the way to make the points series successful. But the Sportman classes can't be forgotten. Its still the heart of the sport.

S13Sean

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by PNG &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I disagree.

The problem isn't too many sanctioning bodies. The problem is that racers have to make a choice on how to spend their limited time and money. A lot of pros have committments to sponsors to run the full NHRA schedule, because the people who write the checks want the credibility that the NHRA name carries. They might want to run the full NDRA schedule, but because they can't travel coast-to-coast every week, they have to choose which events they can attend. On the flip side, there are guys who are mostly NDRA racers who will go to a few NHRA events because they're close to their home base. The same goes for IDRC and Battle.

If there are too many series, which one(s) would you eliminate or combine? If, in the end, the NHRA business model becomes dominant, it means that the only people who can race at the "pro" level are the independantly wealthy who don't have to hold down full-time jobs and can travel from one coast to the other to hit enough races to have a shot at a championship. If the NDRA model dominates, then it becomes hard for anyone to attract sponsors who are looking for a national spotlight.

I don't have any real answers, but I can tell you from experience that there will always be a successful sanctioning body for regional sportsman events (like the IDRC does), and that there will probably be a continuing demand for one or more regional pro points series (like NDRA was last year, or the NMRA & NMCA are in the domestic world). I'm not 100% sure that a national, pro-level sport compact series is going to be successful in the long-term, at least not as a stand-alone proposition. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm not sure it's a matter of someone eliminating a series but rather there isn't any one particular series that is doing a spectactular job at covering all the bases. At some point in time a series is going to have to step up to the plate and really address what is missing in the sport compact racing world. Racers are a commodity and they'll alway be around but the sponsors who foot the bill won't be.

The fact is that the market isn't large enough or flourishing enough to support all of these series. Wouldn't it be better for there to be 1 or 2 series that actually do a good job of representing the sport as opposed to everyone one doing so-so jobs? Unfortunately there isn't a clear cut answer to this problem and most likely the strongest series will survive and we'll evenutally get the representation and respect that we've been seeking. I strongly believe that the series that markets themselves the best and putting a vested interest in nuturing the sport in markets that are traditionally weak will end up being here for the long haul. I think that the NHRA has done a good thing over the years by having the best of the best run at the Powerade events and NOPI has made great strides since their inception and the racing is getting very good. I'm not sure what Frank is up to with BOTI but it's good to see that he's taking care of the West since nobody else is.

BDL IND

BDL Industries:
US Manufacturer of Sport Compact Performance Accessories

On Mars if attendance is low we raid houses and drag spectators out....J/K, I'm just playing with you James111. Did you mean in our other world?

I have started to give back to the Industry, sponsoring small shops for product giveaways, Dyno Days etc., any of our dealers/distributors if they are building a shop car or show car we will sponsor that car as well.

Aslo started "RFR Comittee" just got back from the State Board Yesterday. This will allow any racer to join and is a central marketing house (similar to how F1 gets sponsors) and promotional company. Explain more about that later.

I also try to attend as many events as possible, although it gets tough at times with R&D and product development. But to lend assistance, advice or knowledge to anyone who needs it.

We really need to concentrate on raising the value of our dollar (The Sport Compact Industry's Dollar)


Scott Miller
Sport Compact Enthusiast, Manufacturer and Dad.


Modified by BDL IND at 5:04 PM 4/5/2005

ExospeedAMcrx

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by S13Sean &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> I'm not sure what Frank is up to with BOTI but it's good to see that he's taking care of the West since nobody else is.
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1000s of to Frank. I wish the Battle series would have gotten bigger, but at the size it is now. Its still a great series for local racers to participate in. Good classes for everyone and still focused on the Grassroots racers.

NOPIDRAGS

Like I said earlier, we do more for the Sportsman racers than any other sanctioning body.

We offer a points championship, trading cards, and we do press releases on our website for any of the Sportsman teams that run our series.
We are even trying to get Speedchannel to cover some of the Sportsman racing at our events. Currently they do interviews on the Sportsman racers, we just have to keep pushing to cover some of the racing.

When we are on the east coast we generally have 300-400 sportsman, bracket, and open session racers, just if we go west of the Mississippi does the number start to fall off. Why is this?