I had planned on attending the Badger State Nationals at Cedar Lake on Friday October 2nd and Saturday October 3rd but the rain has nixed my plans. There are other specials coming up during the next week or maybe even two weeks but I'm not sure. It seems like every time I check the message boards some track has made another last minute addition and is running one more invitational. I can't go by the schedules, I had to say enough is enough and hang up my camera bag for the season. I know for a fact that there are races yet to be run in Alexandria, Proctor and Ogilvie but I'm worn out and need to give it a break.
My last race of the season was a Sprint Car race on the big half mile down at Jackson. What better way to close out the season than to attend one final Sprint Car race? That's going to be a tough act to follow and I don't want to muck it up by filling my head with a lap and spin Midwest Modified that takes a half hour to get the first lap in. I want to keep that final Sprint Car race fresh in my mind.
A lot happened this season so there is a lot to sort through to figure out what went right and what I can change for next year. This season I went to way too many races for my budget to handle and I have to make some adjustments on that prior to next season. As it turns out I attended 44 races this season, it would have been 46 if this weekend had not rained out and over 50 if several other rain outs and a dry pond had not interfered. 45-50 is too many, 25 would be a more comfortable total. The problem is that I have taken on so many tasks these past few seasons that the number of races has gotten out of hand. This season I was listed as a track photographer which obligated me to a bunch more weekly shows and a series photographer which filled up almost every Friday night. I can't do that anymore, something has to give.
Seeing as I have to cut my total number of races down the question was "what am I going to cut?" After giving it some thought the solution was simple. Next year I'm going to put the emphasis on Sprint Car racing. Being a track and series photographer is in name only and only comes with more obligations including rushing home after each race to send photos to the publications. I'm hardly selling anything and I'm not being paid for the extra work so there's no reason for me to continue doing all that extra work up and above what the other photographers are doing.
I'll attend Sprint Car races in 2010 and will also give some PR to whatever other classes are running with the Sprints. I'll still see plenty of racing that way and I don't think those Stock Car guys will miss me. The Sprint Car people seem to appreciate the coverage I give them and thank me, the Stock Car guys apparently take it for granted because they get a lot of coverage here in the upper Midwest. I have friends in all the classes of racing and I'll miss seeing them on a regular basis but I just got to a point where I can't do it all anymore. I have run the idea past Dan Plan of the Racing Connection and he understands and agrees to me covering Sprints. It has to be fun and if I'm out there feeling like I'd rather be somewhere else but I feel obligated by some track or series that's not fun.
I'm not sure how the tracks will receive this news. Some have grown accustomed to me covering all classes and have depended on me to send them victory lane photos and be there on a regular basis. There are some that have come up with attendance requirements and I won't be able to meet those anymore. We'll see how that goes. I'd be everything to everybody if I could afford it but it ought to tip people off when I'm hauling around $3000 of camera equipment in a $1000 car that I'm doing my best to hang on. If I was retired and had unlimited funds I could go around doing volunteer work but I'm to the point where I need to limit the photography.
In other news I'm pretty close to starting my own interview site similar what I was doing with dirtcast.com. If you haven't noticed, I'm no longer doing interviews on dirtcast.com or racemn.com. I learned a lot working with XR and I wish them all the success in the world but working on those sites was no longer a good fit for my personal circumstances. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm low key and like to take things at my own pace. Those sites are a business and anyone contributing to them has to meet a quota of a certain amount of interviews. I like putting the racing on the back burner from October through December then I pick it up again when the trivia contest gets underway. When I can walk away from racing for a few months I feel refreshed and ready to get into it again. Thanks to Barry and his staff from XR for all the encouragement and training they gave me. The experience helped me to get the confidence I needed to do the interviews.
My plan is to start an interview site that will concentrate on tracks around the Twin Cities and surrounding area with the emphasis on local racing. The site will include sections for both dirt and asphalt interviews as well as a weekly racing talk show with me as host and Dan Plan as the co-host. I'm not doing this to compete with other racing interview sites but I'm doing it because I think there is a niche for something like this that focuses on our local racing. That was one of the things about dirtcast, I felt like my local coverage was overshadowed by the national emphasis of that site. Also, I would go to Kopellah and shoot the breeze with Buzzy Adams for example then a couple days later hear him in a dirtcast interview conducted by someone 1,000 miles from Wisconsin who had never seen Buzzy race. I felt like there was a disconnect and that I could have given the interview a more personal touch. This way with Dan and I doing a local interview site the communication will be much better and there won't be the potential for that type of crossover.
I'm not going to be concerned about competing with any other site or about market share nor will I feel the need to sling around corporate buzzwords. No team building exercises, or group hugs for the staff, just some no bullshit local racing interviews done to the best of our ability. All the interviews I have done to date were my personal choices and lined up via my contacts so there shouldn't be much difference in the type of content. We're not sure at this point about sponsors or backing for this endeavor. We'll see if we generate any interest and how well we can keep up the pace. Even though my personal race attendance will have an emphasis on Sprint Car racing I still plan to interview drivers from the other classes of racing in our area. I've got the contacts and phone numbers, quiet a few of the drivers know of me, so we'll do alright on a limited local basis. That's not to say for example that if the World of Outlaws are coming through the area we won't interview one of the Outlaw drivers. We'll be open to that but for the most part on a week in week out basis we'll be putting all the emphasis on our local racing. I think the interview site and a reduced role as far as actually attending as many races will be a good fit for me next season.
There will be more to come as I work out the details.
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