Thoughts while sorting through an endless stream of press releases, Facebook announcements and other various and sundry rip rap.Yawn!!!
If I get another facebook message urging me to visit another racing blog that updates daily (daily updates this time of year are over the top IMHO), another press release about some "rebranded" domain that sat idle for a year and a half or another press release about a "new" event telling me I gotta' "be there, be there, be there" (insert echo and engine noise in the background like something out of a Monster Truck radio spot) I think I'm gonna puke.
A press release for the Belleville 100 Modified race in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Belleville (Kansas) Speedway says it all for me. This sport ladies and gentlemen has been around for 100 years. My dad, grandpa and uncle sat in the stands and watched cars turn left on dirt ovals before WWII. I grew up listening to my dad tell stories about the old Rex Speedway in Cottage Grove. There was a Midget track in the Minneapolis suburb of Crystal, the State Fair offered ten straight days of racing when I was a kid growing up on St. Paul's Hamline Avenue and by that time had a history of racing dating back to the early part of the century. In other words, what could possibly happen in this sport that is so new and exciting as to trump it's 100 years of history? Do we really need to be using Pro Wrestling, Monster Truck type of hype to generate interest in dirt track racing? Is it really that hard to get the attention of the younger generation that we have to present the sport like that to get them off their ass and out of the house? I hope not but if current marketing trends are any indication I must be a dinosaur in my thinking when it comes to marketing dirt track racing to the masses.
What about the proliferation of racing websites with the flashing graphics that border on seizure producing? One of the first things I learned with graphics programs was how to create animated gifs that are so flashy they'll blind you and induce vomiting. However, after the thrill of "hey, look at this cool graphic I made" wore off and I realized how annoying they were I stopped using them. Case in point, lets look at two of the biggest most visited websites on the internet. Google, the popular search engine has one simple logo, two buttons and a few text links on a plain white background. Ladies and gentlemen, proof positive that it ain't the chrome that makes 'em go. And the second exhibit in my case for simple websites, Craigslist, another of the most popular sites on the internet, no logo, plain white background, all text links. So there you go, if you build a functional, simple website with an easy to remember name, information and resources that your viewers find value in they will come back.
The fact is, if you want to reach millions of people on the internet you'll make it about a subject other than dirt track auto racing. We're a niche no matter how you cut it. Even the biggest of touring series when all is said and done is nothing more than 10-20 colorful 18 wheelers loaded with racing equipment touring the country putting on a show. It kind of reminds me of the circus or the old State Fair Carnies of my youth, come into town, set up, put on a show, tear it all down and move onto the next stop. That has probably been going on since the days of the Roman Chariot races and maybe longer for that matter.
At this point you're probably thinking "you're not much of a racing fan" and in a sense you're right. I think of racing in a different light than a typical fan. As far as being star struck by the drivers that just doesn't happen for me. I appreciate their skills but as Tiger Woods recently showed us "superstars" or "big shots" as my grandma called them put on their pants one leg at a time. Maybe their pants are more expensive than my $15 Walmart Wranglers but if you're wondering why I don't sit on the edge of my seat wishing for an autograph from some celebrity I think Tiger illustrates my point. In my personal life I'd steer clear of hanging with anyone who had a beautiful wife and adorable children but messed with four other women on the side. If I peeked out my window and saw one of my neighbors burn out of his driveway in his SUV and run into a tree while his wife beat his ass with a golf club I wouldn't emulate that kind of lifestyle. My son has a philosophy about race car drivers that I find amusing. When I first started doing media work I offered to take him down in the pits and introduce him to some drivers. He said "no thanks dad, to me drivers are like strippers, I like watching them do their thing but I don't want to get to know them." In other words what he was saying is that he'd rather hold them in esteem for their skills on the track. I drivers personally and most of them are great people but they one thing we all have in common is that we're all people.
So I don't get star struck by dirt track drivers. I have rode in the elevator and made small talk with our company president, we're over 40,000 employees strong so I guess you could say that in my world he's a celebrity. No big deal, I wasn't star struck. I interviewed two NASCAR drivers for television, Kenseth and Blaney, as well as Schatz, Kinser, Bloomquist and other high profile drivers. I've done interviews as recently as last summer with high profile dirt track drivers and participated in a press conference with Dale Earnhardt Jr. I've shook the hand of Jeff Gordon and had an impromptu conversation with Tony Steward over an on track incident at Cedar Lake. I'm not trying to name drop but I'm simply illustrating that they all put their pants on one leg at a time and I'm not in awe of them. Sure I respect them and do my best not to screw up the interviews. When you're talking to those guys you know that you're going to be heard by a lot of listeners and that's an incentive to do a good job.
I came from a family that was involved in the sport as car owners and got to hang around the garage and meet some drivers. Sometimes I'd see guys like Scratch Daniels or the late Jerry Richert Sr., both became members of the Sprint Car Hall of Fame, so the drivers of my youth were as good as anybody today. The general consensus about drivers around the relatives garage was like my friend and current car owner Ron Wuiff so eloquently puts it, "don't bend my shit!" In other words, I appreciate the skills of the drivers but when it comes right down to it I'm probably as big of a fan of the machines as I am of the men (and women) that drive them. I've seen a lot of drivers in my day, guys like Richert and Daniels, Kettering, Lepinski, Laursen (Russ father of current Late Model driver Steve) and many more right up to the present. I didn't think of those drivers of my youth as superstars nor do I think that way about today's drivers, they're just people who happened to drive race cars.
On the subject of being a fan of the machines I think my outlook on that was influenced by my time on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. I spent some time hooking the planes to the catapult and running the port cat deckedge controls. When planes are hooked up to the cat tension is taken on the cat and they go into afterburner prior to the launch so you're standing a few feet from a plane that's turned at full power with flames coming out of the exhaust. The vibration and power are indescribable. Imagine the adrenaline rush of 410 Sprint Cars (or Late Models if that's your thing) coming out of the fourth turn at Knoxville with Doug Clark eyeballing the field ready to drop the green. Now increase the adrenaline, the danger factor, the vibration, noise and anticipation by tenfold and you can begin to understand what it's like working on the flight deck. The pilots went through a rigorous training program and we weren't "fans" of any particular pilot, they were all skilled professionals. We didn't get their autograph or wear "cartoon like" t-shirts with their names emblazoned across the front and back. A few of our pilots had come out of Top Gun, the Navy Fighter Weapons School. A couple had been with the Blue Angels and almost all of them had flown combat missions over Vietnam. I knew a few pilots personally and they had a swagger in their step and that same eagle eyed concentration that you only see in certain types of dangerous pursuits. Imagine by way of example that legendary glare of Steve Kinser the photographers like to capture while he's lined up for the A Main of the Knoxville Nationals and you can understand what fighter pilots are like. They're doing a very special and dangerous job that only a small segment of the population will ever understand and they're a cut above the average person. So I guess I look at race drivers more in that light, someone who's got a special talent and is doing a job, than something akin to a tabloid star where I want to follow their every move on Twitter and stand in line for their autograph.
Back to the subject of racing marketing hype. I think you can understand based on my experiences where I'm coming from. Yeah, dirt track racing excites me, yes, I respect the skills of the drivers and yes, I still get excited about certain races and seeing certain drivers. Nevertheless, I have dealt one on one with arguably some of the top drivers in this sport and when all was said and done I still had to roll the trash barrels out to the street and get up for work on Monday morning. The work I have done for the sport has been without compensation except for media passes but if you average what I do out to an hourly rate it would come in below minimum wage. I do it to promote the sport that I have loved since I was a kid and not for any kind of financial gain or fame. In part that's why I decided to back off on my schedule and concentrate more on Sprint Car racing starting next season. For over ten years I have covered all types of racing and at times trying to do it all bordered on a financial burden resulting in sucking a lot of the fun out of what I was doing. Fans of weekly racing and the entry classes will probably say "what's he bitching about? He gets into the races free and can go as much as he wants" whereas I'd be looking at it like a part time job. There are other factors involved too but I finally got to the point where I realized that I can't do it all anymore.
I get frustrated in some ways with the current generation of our local racing fans. They think an exciting race is some entry level Stock Car class chugging around four wide door to door at 65 mph. These kids have never sat with fighter pilots and listened to them tell how they shot down a MIG in a dogfight over the jungle or narrowly avoided being taken out by a surface to air missile. They've never had the hairs on the back of their neck signed by a puddle of jet fuel ignited by an afterburner or had a sidewinder missile fall off the wing of a plane right in front of them during a night launch. I'm not trying to say that Stan is this brave macho kind of guy, just that my life experience, the things that get my blood pumping, more closely replicated by Sprint Car racing. Young people today claim to like extreme sports and video games that depict all kinds of dangerous action and excitement. How can these same young people who enjoy those extreme things prefer four wide Stock Cars chugging around in what looks to me like slow motion over Sprint Car racing? I have a theory.
Three generations of fans have been force fed on back gate promoting.My theory why racing is what it is up here now goes all the way back to when I was a kid in the late 1950's. Back then open wheel racing, the "Big Cars" as they were called then or Sprint Cars as we know them today ruled the area. Stock Cars were an afterthought, Sprints, Supermodifieds and similar cars appeared at just about every track in the area and drew huge crowds. Imagine 20,000+ people packing the State Fair grandstand for an afternoon Sprint Car race and you can picture the world I grew up in. Sprint Car races were front page news in the St. Paul paper where writers like Don Riley covered them right alongside professional sports. To grow up in that era was to grow up in a time when one thought it would never change. Unfortunately, it did change.
Today Sprint Cars don't even appear at most of the dirt tracks around our area. Established venues haven't seen a Sprint show in years and hopefully the UMSS can help correct that situation in the future. Sprint Car racing was going strong up to the mid 70's when I think several factors came into play. We lost two very popular drivers, Russ Laursen and Barry Kettering both at Fairmont in the mid 70's. Next the Twin Cities home of Sprint Car racing, North Starr Speedway, sat on premium real estate and the land became too valuable to continue as a dirt track. A few years later, in the early 80's, some of the promoters banded together in an association that catered more to the interests of promoters. One of those interests of promoters, something that became a sign of the times, was that they realized if they featured five or six classes of cars that payed $100, $300, $500 or whatever to win that they'd draw a ton of cars and four or five pit members and drivers for each car as well as more friends and relatives in the stands because they were classes the average working man could participate in. Sprint Cars traveled from longer distances and didn't draw as many locals, required trucks to push them off, more organized officiating due to their volatile nature and a well trained rescue crew. The promoter's found out that their new formula put more money in their pockets and you really can't blame them for that because without them there would be no racing.
This new formula or business model if you will has helped these tracks operate in the black and for that I am thankful. The Late Model and Modified divisions around here are second to none so from the standpoint of weekly racing we have some of the best in the country. I'm not really against this business model, it's kind of necessary in this day and age, but Sprint Cars are are more expensive and it takes more on the part of the tracks to run a good Sprint show. Unfortunately, some of the very tracks in our region that used to be stalwarts of Supermodified racing haven't hosted an open wheel show in years. The fan base has drifted so far from that type of racing that was such a large part of the history of these tracks that some of the more vocal fans dislike Sprints to the point where they get angry if their local track even hosts a Sprint Car special.
I don't think that we'll ever see Sprint Cars attain the status they had 50 years ago but I think they can develop a bigger following and get more shows if they work together. The UMSS, IMCA and JSTS as well as the MSA over in eastern Wisconsin and the 305's down in Iowa and Missouri are a few of the groups that seem to be taking the right path to generate more interest.
So as far as marketing the sport the pro wrestling, Monster Truck hype is a big turnoff for me. I'm involved in the dirt track media but I prefer to do it in a low key kind of way and let the excitement of the sport speak for itself rather than spewing out a bunch of marketing hype packaged in flashiness.
What do you think?
