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10/14/21, 5:30 PM   #12
Re: Rock Crest Raceway 10-16-21
Pitdad
Pitdad is offline
Senior Member

Join Date: Sep 2017
Posts: 667
 

Such vitriol over a name change! I haven't seen one post on this subject that actually refers to the "old" track by the name "Twin Cities Raceway Park", which according to the news article I read was the actual name of the facility.

The track in Meeker, OK has changed names about a dozen time since it opened in the mid 80's. Every new owner or promoter that came in changed the name to put his/her stamp on the track. Those of us who raced there simply said, "Are you going to Meeker Saturday?" We didn't spend a lot of time worrying about whether we called it County Line Speedway, Lincoln County Speedway, Claxton Speedway, Brill's Motor Speedway, or Red Dirt Raceway. Sometimes, a name change IS a good thing because it signals a change in leadership or management. If there was a bad taste from how things were being done at Twin Cities Raceway Park, then changing the name signals a fresh start.

That said, you do need for people to be able to find you and if you're not naming the track specifically after the town it's in, you need to make sure there are ways to find it. You've got a Facebook page. That's a great, quick, cheap start. You control it and you can communicate immediately with followers. You do need to get that website launched and if your relationship with the owner of the old Twin Cities website is good, I'd get that old URL linked straight to your new site. Then, if someone searches for "Twin Cities" and find their URL, they get taken straight to Rock Crest Raceway website and immediately you learn about the name change.

Another thing I'd focus on is setting up an Google account (free and you can set it up yourself) so you can go into Google Maps and change the name pinned on their site. Most people are using digital maps to find places (present company excepted) and having that change made will help you immensely. And the best part is you don't have to wait for the phonebook or road maps to be published. They can change that in a day. I actually just submitted a suggestion to Google that they change the name, but you can take ownership of the location and verify that my suggestion is valid.

Probably the most important thing you can do beyond that is to keep talking about the track, on this message board, other message boards, Facebook, etc. When I Google searched "Rock Crest Raceway", I see the IOW message board, the Rock Crest Raceway Facebook page and the news article about the name/ownership change in the Madison Courier/North Vernon Plain Dealer & Sun. That's great, but don't stop there! Keep pumping your name out there on other boards and pages. If you guys do a benefit night, track sponsorships, Back-to-School night, any kind of specials, get that organization to link their Facebook to yours. That creates more traffic and more links. The more links you establish, the more hits you get.

I like your last sentence on that last entry of Twin Cities Track Facebook page: "Leave your negativity at home and let’s go Racing at the Rock!"