Talk about Potential!

[landlord]

To bad about the radio stations.The chamber,lodges and rotory I know for a fact would give them out at no cost.Nick your idea is awsome the kids go home with free tickets and drag (paying)mom and dad to the track.Arthur,is Graham seeing any of these special tickets at the gate.

[Lucky161]

I realilze a lot of radio stations do charge for this type of thing, but do they all? And while the most listened to stations can command huge fees, what do the smaller stations charge?

I once volunteered to put up posters in the DFW area for TWS. I was pretty young, but I had a lot of energy and a car with plenty of gas. I only talked to one official but he just brushed me off, asking me if I had any idea how much posters cost. Frankly I didn't have a clue, but I did get the impression that they weren't very interested in promoting their track. Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember posters being put up for night clubs and surely a major superspeedway had a better marketing budget than a night club. But maybe not.

[landlord]

What I don't understand is local dirt tracks don't do much promoting and they have people showing up.I just wonder if it's the Texas mentality(Drag and dirt)seems to be all people here are interested in.We went east last weekend and I sat in the stands at 5flags.The fans knew their drivers and the rival drivers and were there for a dose of the saga.It just might be a geological deal!!!!!In the southeast corner of the U.S. pavement racing is KING!!!!!!!

[Del Harris]

i did a radio station for 3 years, they sponsored my car ( no money involved ) the track gave me tickets to give away, the radio station give me things to give away from them and i made apperences once a week to a restaurant that advertized with the station and the station would announce on the radio almost daily about my racing and ticket give aways. hmp has made every attemp to make sure i have tickets to give out when i have my car at a display and flyers about hmp with map and schedule, if i have any left over, i take them to my bank and the store i always trade at. anyone i do business with, i try to give them a reason to have to come out to the track. i play pool in a tournament on wednesday night and give out flyers in the pool hall, the restaurant that sponsors my car has kids night every monday night, every other monday night i have my car there on display, pass out flyers, pictures, put the kids in the car so the family can get a picture with them in the car. my next big adventure is going to the school district and doing the same thing with them as the fire department does with fire prevention week, try to start a mini-pit crew membership and fan club, it may not go over, but you don't know until you try, i bet those kids will take those flyers home to mom and dad though, i don't have all the answers about hustling business, but the worst thing that can happen is, they tell me NO!!! del---------- p.s. i got more sponsors just because of the radio station, thanks kstar radio 99.7 in conroe texas !!!

[NickHolt]

Very good deal, pro.. shows a lot of initiative on your part.

 

But, try getting a radio station in the Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Wother or Austin markets areas to do that for ya ... different story.

 

Nick

[speed demon 7]

Well, I just got off the phone with 93Q, we are meeting next week. But they do want money for advertising, but we may be able to work something out since some of the stuff I am doing is raising money for Texas Childrens Hospital. Nick, I need help with my fund raiser, give me a call at 281-541-1301. Maybe you can help me.

 

Arthur

[Lucky161]

To bad about the radio stations.The chamber,lodges and rotory I know for a fact would give them out at no cost.Nick your idea is awsome the kids go home with free tickets and drag (paying)mom and dad to the track.Arthur,is Graham seeing any of these special tickets at the gate.

 

I agree that Nick's idea is a good one. I also think your idea of service clubs is a winnner too. I understand that not everyone is a good speaker or does stuff like powerpoint well, but those service clubs are nearly always looking for speakers. Also, it might be worth it to work out a deal of tickets to them at a discount to help them raise money for their charities.

 

What I don't understand is local dirt tracks don't do much promoting and they have people showing up.I just wonder if it's the Texas mentality(Drag and dirt)seems to be all people here are interested in.We went east last weekend and I sat in the stands at 5flags.The fans knew their drivers and the rival drivers and were there for a dose of the saga.It just might be a geological deal!!!!!In the southeast corner of the U.S. pavement racing is KING!!!!!!!

 

Unfortunately we Americans tend to be sheeple. For all of our education and savvy, you'd be surprised at how much we follow the crowd. I heard on the radio the other day that 24% of the bottled water sold in the US, is nothing but repurified already purified tap water. Check the label next time you get a bottle.

Dirt racing is in the vogue these days in most places. I don't want less dirt racing though, I just want more paved racing too.

[Del Harris]

we must also realize the importance of the track owners giving us tickets to give out, i have given out tickets at hotrod hill for the drivers to give away at some of their adventures, and next thing i knew was that they were giving them out to family and people that were already regular fans at the track, that only cost the track money, so in doing this, you have to be careful how you hand those things out!!! del

[landlord]

Give out general admission tickets.Family and friends of racers want to go into the pits!!!!Graham Baker is a smart man it does not surprise me that he gives out the tickets and fliers!!!!!

Edited June 30, 2007 by landlord

[firemdk]

I have to say there is some great discussion here about ways to get fans into the stands. Coming from marketing sporting events in other areas there is a way to get the radio stations to promote your venue for free. Give them tickets to give away on the air. Arthur mentioned that he is working on charity events for Texas Childrens, the media eat that kind of stuff up. They like to get involved because it doesn't cost them anything to spend 30 seconds talking about a charity event as a Public Service Announcement and then throw a famliy 4 pack of general admission tickets in at the end. People who win tickets to an event from a radio station generally goto the event just for the general purpose since they won them. Ticket giveaways are the old baked potato theory. Give away the potato and sell the butter, sour cream and chives. This is where the drivers and the promoters need to come up with some great racing ideas. HMP runs the same schedule every race night. Change it up a bit and rotate the main event every race night. One night have the Late Models run a big event, then the trucks, then the Pro Stocks (or what ever we're calling the Hobbies now). Also, one of the things we did at our track out west that the fans loved was before every race we would bring all the cars onto the track and open it up for the fans. We had the local photographer (Arthur) take pictures of the cars and make autograph cards our of them. We would have photos and candy and let the kiddo's come out and crawl around in the cars, take pictures with the driver and get up close and personal. We would also get local businesses to sponsor a race night and we had a special VIP area for the nightly sponsor and gave them so many tickets to bring their employees and families.

 

As for TV and Radio promotion you need to find the ratings and find out what stations have the draw. Advertising on TNT during a Nextel cup race is golden. Picture sitting at home with your kids wishing you could afford several hundred dollars to take them to a race then all of the sudden here's an ad for (your track here). All of the sudden kiddo is telling dad he wants to go there. Arthur, your getting people out to show off the cars is awesome. Keep up the great work, your a true motivator and a go getter. I think we as a racing community can do better in finding the sponsors to promote our event but anyone your going to get as a sponsor wants to know what kind of return their going to get for their investment. We can provide that. We can organize events, find the sponsors and talk to the local media about getting involved to promote local sports. I can assure you that the local high schools are not spending alot of money getting their highlights and some footage on the news. There was a guy who came out for the last race last year that did some high quality videography. If we can get some good footage edited and sent to the TV stations and ask them to throw it on the news as a local sporting event that might draw the response their looking for inorder to dedicate some time for their own crews to come out and cover an event. They could get interested enough to send the weather man out to do a Saturday weather report from the track, let the weather guy turn a few laps and report in a fire suit standing next to a car.

 

Ok, I know I'm getting long winded but it can be done. We are a very strong community and have many contacts between us. We can make this what ever we want, it just takes all of us working as hard as Arthur and the Huff's do.

[Del Harris]

where did you guy's go ? i wasn't through talking about this, i thought we had a good discussion going on, i need more idea's, thanks del

Edited July 4, 2007 by pro2000racing

[landlord]

where did you guy's go ? i wasn't through taking about this, i thought we had a good discussion going on, i need more idea's, thanks del

I think part of the problem is racers barely have enough time to keep their car running and race.I know for me that between bill paying WORK,WORKing on the car,honey-do WORK,homeWORK(keeping the home fire burning)and going to the kids extra curicular activities,I barely have enough time to go racing.Before this season is over though,I am going to make some time to do a showing with Arthur.

[Del Harris]

i know landlord, i have that same problem even though my kids are all grown, for some reason, i still have a couple at home from dead beat husbands that don't take care of their family, but thats what we're here for to step up when that kinda stuff happens, the bad thing is the grand kids get caught up being the victims in these situations. all you can do is help them and show them love. i think most people now days have forgotten that love comes from the heart, not just a 4 letter word. i have a showing and will need a few cars the last part of this month or the first part of next month, they have not gave me an exact date just yet, but i will give a notice in time for anyone that would like to bring their car, i will need about 5 cars. i am going to the school districts next week to see if i can start this pit crew club program. i am working on other venues at this time to help the track and our class. everyone don't have time to do this i know, but maybe if they just could bring their car out to show sometime, we could help them get some sponsorship. thanks del

[Lucky161]

i know landlord, i have that same problem even though my kids are all grown, for some reason, i still have a couple at home from dead beat husbands that don't take care of their family, but thats what we're here for to step up when that kinda stuff happens, the bad thing is the grand kids get caught up being the victims in these situations. all you can do is help them and show them love. i think most people now days have forgotten that love comes from the heart, not just a 4 letter word. i have a showing and will need a few cars the last part of this month or the first part of next month, they have not gave me an exact date just yet, but i will give a notice in time for anyone that would like to bring their car, i will need about 5 cars. i am going to the school districts next week to see if i can start this pit crew club program. i am working on other venues at this time to help the track and our class. everyone don't have time to do this i know, but maybe if they just could bring their car out to show sometime, we could help them get some sponsorship. thanks del

 

I think some of us were just catching our breath and mulling over the possibilities.

 

Kathy gave me some great news about the track in Lewisville, but in that news was something of a bummer too. She mentioned they planned on 3000 seats at the track. That means they have a goal of 3000 attendance. In the metroplex and surrounding areas we have about 5 million people. That means their goal is to attract 0.0006 of the area population! That's not a very big number. On the upside of the same thing is that they think they can turn a profit with just 3000 people and that's encouraging.

 

Breaking that number down another way, it's only a little over 1% of what TMS attracts for their Cup races or 2% of the hard core fans that come to the BGN, IRL and CTS races. That sure leaves a lot of potential fans out there.

[Lucky161]

Just an idea. Exact numbers subject to adjustment by any interested party.

 

I am seeing car entry fees that are somewhat new to me. I understand why they are there, just that when I raced we only paid our per person pit sign in fee which covered insurance. So in a way it's an extra expense for the racer, even though it is probably much needed income for the promoter. What about offseting those entry fees with new fans brought to the track. The tickets provided by the track for the racers could be marked in someway to identify which racer got the new fan to the track and for every new fan, a portion of the entry fee would be waived or refunded in some manner. Maybe it would be too much to keep up with, maybe not. Again, just a thought.

[PAPosse]

If you want to reach out to the military community (huge in the San Antonio area), there is a travel center on each base that caters to the base community - maybe contact them at each base and see what needs to be done. With a military population you have people from all over the country - I think SAS worked with the Lackland office because I sort of remember seeing something in a flyer that was sent to me before I moved here.

 

We just got notified today that the WNBA and local minor league baseball teams were doing "military appreciation" ticket giveaways. Now, the WNBA is something I honestly wouldn't go see even for free...but I've taken advantage of the baseball and hockey ticket giveaways.

 

Honestly - I know gas is expensive and all, but I don't see what the big deal is in driving 45 minutes to an hour to see something you want to see. I made it to THR in about an hour. It makes me laugh when I hear people complaining they had to drive a half-hour. Back home my dad and I would drive at least 2 hours one way each week, sometimes more if we wanted to catch a special show....guess maybe the culture has changed.

 

on the other side of things - I just arrived here from California. Perris Auto Speedway (Home of the USAC/CRA Sprint Cars) would do a special promotion every month or so. Kids in free during the month of June, Skirt night, (ANYBODY wearing a skirt gets in free or reduced admission - tended to be a little scary), Mustache Night, Bald head night, Tattoo (visible wearing normal clothing) were all some promotions they had.

Edited July 13, 2007 by PAPosse

[PAPosse]

Here are some of the key dates and promos at Perris for 2007:

 

April 28th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars "40' Night" anyone born in the 1940's - $5.00 admission

 

May 19th PASSCAR Late Models, Super Stocks, Modifieds & Cruisers - "50's Night" Anyone Born in the 1950's - $5.00 admission

 

June 2nd PASSCAR Late Models, Street Stocks, Modifieds & Lightning's "KIDS IN FREE MONTH"

June 9th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "KIDS IN FREE MONTH"

June 13th Open Practice - Pit Gate will open at 5:00.

June 16th PASSCAR Late Models, Street Stocks, Modifieds & Cruisers-"Bald Night" anyone that is "Bald is FREE" and "KIDS IN FREE MONTH"

June 23rd USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "KIDS IN FREE MONTH" and "Tattoo Night" anyone that has a Tattoo - $5.00 admission

 

August 4th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "Skirt Night" Anyone with a skirt on - $5.00 admission, $1.00 Hot Dogs & $2.00 Beers

August 18th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "Hot August 70's Night" Anyone Born in the 1970's - $5.00 admission

 

September 15th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "Back to School Night" Anyone with a school ID - FREE

 

September 29th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "60's Night" Anyone Born in the 1960's - $5.00 admission

November 17th USAC/CRA Sprint Cars - "Kindoll Classic"

- "Toy Drive and Fan Appreciation Night"

[Lucky161]

Another twist on this might be, not free tickets, but free transportation. I've not been in the military personally, but it's my understanding that a lot of those guys and gals don't have their own transportation. And I think that is an attractive demographic for racing.

[PAPosse]

Another twist on this might be, not free tickets, but free transportation. I've not been in the military personally, but it's my understanding that a lot of those guys and gals don't have their own transportation. And I think that is an attractive demographic for racing.

 

Actually, a lot of military do have transportation. Those that don't are usually either in Basic Training (and they aren't going anywhere anyway), or those attending Technical Training Schools - which there are a few schools here. The problem you run into there is that they do have curfews on the weekend depending on how long they've been "in", etc....

 

It would have to be organized with the base to work a trip, then figure out how many people make it worth it to do - almost like a tour - a certain dollar amount per person includes transportation, admission and if you want to throw in a food coupon or two. Maybe have one section (1-2 rows) of the stands reserved for them. I have signed up for a few trips that were cancelled because they didn't get the minimum number of people required.