Here are screen prints of my website statistics verifying the May 2009 totals.
As I type this on Saturday morning June 27 gotomn.com is on pace to hit over 15,000 uniques and exceed 25,000 total visits. To put those numbers in perspective imagine a track hosting a race with that kind of attendance and you can begin to see how impressive those numbers are. There are many sponsored racing websites that don't receive even close to that many visits per month. Unfortunately it's difficult for an individual like myself to make this clear to potential advertisers who tend to overlook gotomn as a hobby site not worthy of their support. I tried selling ad banners but had problems with advertisers requesting that I change their banners in the middle of the season (the price was too low for me to have to drop everything and redo their banner) and others who felt their $50 gave them the right to dictate how I ran my website. Consequently, I decided to discontinue the banner program because I wanted to be able to call my own shots and didn't have time to redo their banners half way through the year.
Here are the June statistics as of 10am Saturday morning June 27. As you can see, the uniques are currently 14,729 and total visits are up to 23,397. I'm confident that we'll see over 15,000 uniques and 25,000 hits this month:
Photo sales so far this season have been very slow for me. There is no question that my work is of good quality. My photos have appeared in The Midwest Racing Connection, Hawkeye Racing News, the Sprint Car magazine Flat Out Illustrated, Dirt Late Model, All The Dirt, National Speed Sport News, The Cedar Lake Speedway, Kopellah Speedway, RACEMN.COM, DIRTCAST.COM, The Upper Midwest Sprint Car Series website, and my personal website at gotomn.com as well as various other tracks and media sources too numerous to list.
I have had several inquiries for photo cards (aka hero cards) that the drivers pass out after the races. I know how to do those and don't do a half bad job at the artwork. Unfortunately now that I'm doing internet interviews I no longer have time to do the art and must defer those requests to others. The only thing I have time for this season will be standard 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10. I don't have a low cost processor for larger sizes so I have to mail order those which makes my turn around time slow.
My photography skills are not the problem. I get plenty of my photos in the racing papers and magazines and get excellent feedback on the quality. There are several reasons that I'm not having my usual success (I was doing great at this time last year). First, as I already mentioned I had to sacrifice doing the artwork due to the time spent on the interviews so I had to defer my Hero Card business to others. Another reason is that after every race I rush home to meet the photo deadlines for racing papers and press releases. While I'm at home tending to that many of the other photographers are still at the track hanging around and having a few cold ones with the racers. Who are they going to remember when they want a photo, the guy they shared a beer with or the one that left as soon as the races ended? Yet another reason is my timing getting my work online. Only after filling the needs of the publications, writing my column for MRC, answering last minute email requests for the tracks and papers do I finally find time to upload the previous night's photos to my gallery. I commented earlier this season that I would not be posting on the message boards when my photos are uploaded to my website. The reason for that was that by the time I got around to uploading photos the other photographers that were at those events have already posted.
After giving the matter some thought I decided to "throw out all the stops" and continue to announce when my photos are posted. In addition to announcing my photos I am also including a list of the media sources I contribute to. There are some photographers using the press credentials of the publications to get in and I have heard of cases where they did not send any photos to the publisher that setup their credentials or call to thank the publisher that set them up after the race. You probably guessed what I'm getting at by now. In my mind photographers that do that are like vultures out to make a buck of the racers, tracks and publications without giving anything back to the sport. Fortunately there are just as many guys out there working hard and giving their all to the sport. I'm not saying that the salesmen don't do a good job because many have the best photography equipment money can buy and are very good at what they do. I'm just pointing out that they have a different approach that I personally find distasteful. It takes all kinds to make the world go round so the vultures are here to stay. Unfortunately those squeaky vulture wheels get the grease or in this case the photo sales. In my case I'm not shooting for the moon but it would be nice to be able to recoup a portion of my expenses so I can make it to the end of the season.
My racing budget suffered two major setbacks this past week so that's going to make things even more difficult for me going forward. First, the 1993 Ford Ranger pickup I have been driving since 2003 has terminal rust problems and was deemed unsafe by my brother-in-law/mechanic. I was driving down Hwy 61 near the Blacksmith and the front driver side leaf spring bracket broke dropping the rear end four inches and ramming the loose spring into the bottom of the bed. When they got it up on the hoist they found multiple problems that would have been too costly to repair considering the truck's age and general condition. Secondly, my daughter lost her job a couple of days ago and will be moving back in with her daughter. Without going into a lot of details about my personal finances either of these things alone would have been a major hit but both happening together at the mid point of the season are like the "perfect storm" for me financially. To add to the mess my wife is still rehabbing from her shoulder surgery so I'm having to make insurance co-pays every week for her physical therapy.
My son Les opening a cold one in front of the Ranger at the 2003 Jerry Richert Memorial
I've got a borrowed minivan for the weekend and will be buying an 89 Merc Marquee with a 302 V8 from my brother-in-law. It's 20 years old but he says it's solid, runs good and everything still works. This will be a "one payment" car and admittedly will be a bit of a gamble because the only driving it's seen has been a shop loaner for customers. We'll find out how the mileage is (the Ranger got 23 on the highway and I expect this to be close) and how well it runs next weekend when I drive it up to North Central Speedway. Some of you are probably laughing and calling me a cheap SOB because I won't go out and buy something newer. Again without getting too much into my personal finances the wife doesn't work and I maintain a '98 Olds that she drives. That along with helping out family made it come down to a choice between spending my money on racing or taking out a loan and making car payments. I chose the old car and racing over the new car payments and sitting home on weekends tending a garden.
This has been the best and the worst of seasons. The best in that I'm having fun and seeing some great racing, yet one of the worst financially. Hopefully giving 110% in support of racing will pay off somehow and allow me to continue at the level I'm doing now. Nobody owes me anything, I try to do a good job and give something of value back to the racing community in terms of media coverage and some nice photos. Prior to the start of the season I evaluate my budget and try to match my media commitments to my budget as best I can so that I can fulfill those commitments. Unfortunately circumstance doesn't appreciate my media commitments and sometimes deals up mountain like obstacles in the middle of the season.
All I can do is keep plugging away and do my best which is what I plan to do. Thank you for reading this mid season update.
