Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009

LEADERS EDGE · 2/27/09, 5:33 PM

Thinking about it, saying that there aren't fees for entertainers isn't quit true as many states charge professional athletes and musicians taxes to be able to earn a paycheck in their state. Many states now charge what I believe is calles a sports and entertainment tax on top of all of the other fees and taxes they incur.

Seadog · 2/27/09, 5:58 PM

If the owner doesn't pay the fee, then the money will come from the fan's pocket through the increase in the price of a ticket. It's difficult enough to get even a thousand fans at a midget race, let alone asking them to pay $3 or $4 dollars more per ticket.

Everybody must pay to be entertained. And if you as a midget owner are not being entertained by running it, then you need to be entertained by doing something else - where you get more bang for your buck.

You have two choices: Either put up with it or walk away and don't look back. Look forward to something more entertaining for your hard earned $$$.

LEADERS EDGE · 2/27/09, 6:09 PM

Don't get me wrong, I to would like to see things change, but with the business model that most tracks either choose or have to work with, that is a hard nut to crack.

DonMoore10 · 2/27/09, 6:46 PM

Most of the recent posts on here are playing right into my hands again. The "that's the way it's always been done" mindset has such a grip around your necks, it's not even funny.

First of all, you need to stop feeling pity for the promoters. Promoting has always had some risks. If you can't stand the heat of promoting, then get out of the business. That's the nature of that occupation. You can make tons of money if you play your cards correctly, or you can lose your shirt.

Now having said that, promoting motorsports and the art of presenting a product that people will want to come back and see has gotten way out of control. It's no wonder that local tracks suffer from poor attendance. The product that is being presented needs to be updated.

For one second, erase, if possible, the mindset that the back gate is going to save the promotion no matter what. Let's concentrate on the promotion from the fans prospective.

I'm going to go back to the first experience I had watching sprint cars at a short track and move forward to a recent experience. The first time I saw a dirt sprint race was at little Springfield Speedway and the last one I saw was Gas City. I had the same fan experience at both places, only many years apart. What was that experience? Well..... I was totally pelted with dirt and dust. Yeah.. it wasn't fun the first time and it wasn't fun the last time. The guy next to me at Springfield had what I would call combat gear on.. plus goggles. After the races were over, I wish I would have had the same outfit. And it was no different at Gas City, actually it was worse than ever. Now I can hear all of you traditionalists saying "hey, that's the way it's always been done." Well, maybe that's part of the problem.

So you are going to invite the unsuspecting friends, neighbors, whoever to a sprint race. Is that the kind of experience you want them to have at a race track???

Do the huge, oversized sprint tires and powerful engines make the racing a better experience for the race fan? Is that what turns you on when you go to the track? the big wide tires? Based on what I have read from fans on this message board, it's the actual close competition with side by side racing and thrilling finishes that count as a great racing experience. and BTW, the wider the race car, the more difficult it is to pass!!! And I read time and time again on here the fans concern about the number of race cars that show up. Fans want to see big fields!!!!!

Maybe some or most of the problems are with the racing orgs and their rule book. Have they been looking out for the money (engine builders, tire companies, etc etc) and not the fans??

OK... I've said enough. I would be interested in some of you IOW fans to come up with some solutions. Take over where I'm leaving off. I'll post my thoughts on this later.

Charles Nungester · 2/27/09, 7:21 PM

Maybe some of those sponsorships the tracks get could be used to offset particapant fees? or do they already?

owracer · 2/27/09, 8:58 PM

Hello Mr. Don,

You and your BS is not appreciated by me. I'm personally tired or your negative attitude / comments. I do race with the WM and am greatful for what Dan and his team has done. Why don't you start your own topic if you feel this way. Don't use our club for your benifit. I Have been racing for 25+ years and enjoy what we have here in MI. If you have a problem with the entertainment business start your own gig. Leave our series to alone. WE DON'T NEED YOU AND YOUR NEGATIVE BS. Quite honestly I'm happy to have a place to race in this economy. Leave yourself and your car home if you don't like the way things are operating. But to always be negative will never resolve a thing. If you have a comment that is fine, how about solutions. Geeze that's a novel idea!! Free everything you must be a LIB. Remember nothing is for free and sooner or later somebody will pay$$$. Maybe you won't be happy until there is no racing and or it is controlled by our govt.
WOW how about that?

Tom Fedorczyk
PS that's my real name.
No hiding here.

DonMoore10 · 2/27/09, 10:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by owracer

Hello Mr. Don,

You and your BS is not appreciated by me. I'm personally tired or your negative attitude / comments. I do race with the WM and am greatful for what Dan and his team has done. Why don't you start your own topic if you feel this way. Don't use our club for your benifit. I Have been racing for 25+ years and enjoy what we have here in MI. If you have a problem with the entertainment business start your own gig. Leave our series to alone. WE DON'T NEED YOU AND YOUR NEGATIVE BS. Quite honestly I'm happy to have a place to race in this economy. Leave yourself and your car home if you don't like the way things are operating. But to always be negative will never resolve a thing. If you have a comment that is fine, how about solutions. Geeze that's a novel idea!! Free everything you must be a LIB. Remember nothing is for free and sooner or later somebody will pay$$$. Maybe you won't be happy until there is no racing and or it is controlled by our govt.
WOW how about that?

Tom Fedorczyk
PS that's my real name.
No hiding here.

Well, thanks Mr. Tom for all the nasty and rude comments which are a violation of the terms of agreement. Apparently you have a distaste for my opinions and you keep punishing yourself by reading them. Real simple. Don't read my posts. Maybe you could contact the webmaster of IOW and apply to be editor-in-chief and delete all the comments that you don't agree with. I'm not going away, so next time, try to avoid reading anything with my screen name attached. Make your day much more pleasant. Thanks again!

Anderson36 · 2/27/09, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussiemidgetfan

Don haven't you noticed that it is called motorsport. It is SPORT not entertainment.

I can see Don's head spinning after reading that one!!!

Without this "sport" being entertaining to someone (fans) there wouldn't be anyplace to race. Without fans paying to watch this sport (be entertained) it certainly wouldn't be cost effective enough to continue running these cars. I am by no means saying it is cost effective to begin with, but imagine having NO spectators at all.

WOMS,
I am grateful to see that you are making concessions to raise the purse, but I am NOT impressed with having to pay a possible $50 registration fee. It may all come out in the wash, but I would feel much better if there were NO fee's and I knew I was running for $950 to win. I honestly wouldn't even care if you still received the same purse from the promoter and kept $50 per car to yourself.

Don, would you be opposed to the pit gate passing on the fees to the NON-members of the competing series' pit passes? You will get your freebie and so will your driver, but on the backside your crew will make up the difference. Now, if you pay the pit pass fee for your crew your going to get it jammed up your poop shooter still. On the other hand if you don't pay those expenses then how long will it be before you are wrenching on your car alone.

For example.....

30 owners
30 drivers
120 crewmen in the pit area

At $25 each that's $5400

Now Take the owner's and driver's out of the equation with the same amount of money $5400 at the backend to pay the purse..

Now pit passes are going for $37.50 each.

If you raise the front gate prices to make up for the money lost at the back gate because owners'/driver's get in free with no increase in pit pass prices then you start loosing fans who feel that the entertainment is no longer important enough to pay maybe $20 bucks instead of $12 to get in.

If you can't pay a decent purse then you can't get a quality car count which in turn looses entertainment appeal. Now were back to square one.

Hopefully I didn't get off track to far.

racephoto1 · 2/27/09, 11:05 PM

First, I don't think Don has been to a rodeo. You pay to enter, but if you don't place you get no money.I know, I rode bulls for a few years, didn't make much money, spent alot though. There are sports that are pay to play.

I sometimes agree with your ideas but not always.After all this time, you seem to be fed up with everyone else.Improve things, start your own series and show everyone else how it should be done. I guess put up or shut up as they say.

DonMoore10 · 2/27/09, 11:16 PM

I would first like to compliment Jim Anderson on always writing sane, logical and friendly post, even when we disagree. Much appreciated.

Jim, I think you are still in the mindset that the back gate is the savior to keeping racing afloat. Somehow, the racing promotions need to get off the backs of the owners and drivers AND back gate subsidizing the racing operation. If the promoter has to shut the doors because he is allowing a free pass for owners and drivers (I'm proposing 1 owner pass BTW), then the promoter must be on thin ice to begin with.

Let me go back to the race promotion that I participated in last Fall, which ended in a $30 check from the promoter, but $245 in the hole for the evening. At that race promotion, there were TWO sanctioning bodies present. Yeah, TWO and double the race officials. I would say that there were close to one official for every midget that was present. Do we need a couple of college business professors to figure out that this is way over the edge, terribly expensive and unnescessary? And my critics don't want to hear it, but a big box midget org semi-trailer hauling a copy machine present also... plus a second midget org trailer belonging to the other sanctioning body. So this is big corporate midget America with a ton of pork charging the entertainers that the fans come to see outrageous fees to enter the race track grounds. Who is zooming who?

2/27/09, 6:46 PM	#24 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
DonMoore10 Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 1,474	Most of the recent posts on here are playing right into my hands again. The "that's the way it's always been done" mindset has such a grip around your necks, it's not even funny. First of all, you need to stop feeling pity for the promoters. Promoting has always had some risks. If you can't stand the heat of promoting, then get out of the business. That's the nature of that occupation. You can make tons of money if you play your cards correctly, or you can lose your shirt. Now having said that, promoting motorsports and the art of presenting a product that people will want to come back and see has gotten way out of control. It's no wonder that local tracks suffer from poor attendance. The product that is being presented needs to be updated. For one second, erase, if possible, the mindset that the back gate is going to save the promotion no matter what. Let's concentrate on the promotion from the fans prospective. I'm going to go back to the first experience I had watching sprint cars at a short track and move forward to a recent experience. The first time I saw a dirt sprint race was at little Springfield Speedway and the last one I saw was Gas City. I had the same fan experience at both places, only many years apart. What was that experience? Well..... I was totally pelted with dirt and dust. Yeah.. it wasn't fun the first time and it wasn't fun the last time. The guy next to me at Springfield had what I would call combat gear on.. plus goggles. After the races were over, I wish I would have had the same outfit. And it was no different at Gas City, actually it was worse than ever. Now I can hear all of you traditionalists saying "hey, that's the way it's always been done." Well, maybe that's part of the problem. So you are going to invite the unsuspecting friends, neighbors, whoever to a sprint race. Is that the kind of experience you want them to have at a race track??? Do the huge, oversized sprint tires and powerful engines make the racing a better experience for the race fan? Is that what turns you on when you go to the track? the big wide tires? Based on what I have read from fans on this message board, it's the actual close competition with side by side racing and thrilling finishes that count as a great racing experience. and BTW, the wider the race car, the more difficult it is to pass!!! And I read time and time again on here the fans concern about the number of race cars that show up. Fans want to see big fields!!!!! Maybe some or most of the problems are with the racing orgs and their rule book. Have they been looking out for the money (engine builders, tire companies, etc etc) and not the fans?? OK... I've said enough. I would be interested in some of you IOW fans to come up with some solutions. Take over where I'm leaving off. I'll post my thoughts on this later. _________________________________________________ Last edited by DonMoore10; 2/27/09 at 6:53 PM.

2/27/09, 7:21 PM	#25 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
Charles Nungester Senior Member Race Count This Year: 6 Race Count Last Year: 14 Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 21,241	Maybe some of those sponsorships the tracks get could be used to offset particapant fees? or do they already? __________________ Charles Nungester

2/27/09, 5:33 PM	#21 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
LEADERS EDGE Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 980	Thinking about it, saying that there aren't fees for entertainers isn't quit true as many states charge professional athletes and musicians taxes to be able to earn a paycheck in their state. Many states now charge what I believe is calles a sports and entertainment tax on top of all of the other fees and taxes they incur.

2/27/09, 5:58 PM	#22 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
Seadog Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 2,136	If the owner doesn't pay the fee, then the money will come from the fan's pocket through the increase in the price of a ticket. It's difficult enough to get even a thousand fans at a midget race, let alone asking them to pay $3 or $4 dollars more per ticket. Everybody must pay to be entertained. And if you as a midget owner are not being entertained by running it, then you need to be entertained by doing something else - where you get more bang for your buck. You have two choices: Either put up with it or walk away and don't look back. Look forward to something more entertaining for your hard earned $$$.

2/27/09, 6:09 PM	#23 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
LEADERS EDGE Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 980	Don't get me wrong, I to would like to see things change, but with the business model that most tracks either choose or have to work with, that is a hard nut to crack.

2/27/09, 8:58 PM	#26 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
owracer Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 28	Hello Mr. Don, You and your BS is not appreciated by me. I'm personally tired or your negative attitude / comments. I do race with the WM and am greatful for what Dan and his team has done. Why don't you start your own topic if you feel this way. Don't use our club for your benifit. I Have been racing for 25+ years and enjoy what we have here in MI. If you have a problem with the entertainment business start your own gig. Leave our series to alone. WE DON'T NEED YOU AND YOUR NEGATIVE BS. Quite honestly I'm happy to have a place to race in this economy. Leave yourself and your car home if you don't like the way things are operating. But to always be negative will never resolve a thing. If you have a comment that is fine, how about solutions. Geeze that's a novel idea!! Free everything you must be a LIB. Remember nothing is for free and sooner or later somebody will pay$$$. Maybe you won't be happy until there is no racing and or it is controlled by our govt. WOW how about that? Tom Fedorczyk PS that's my real name. No hiding here.

2/27/09, 11:05 PM	#29 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
racephoto1 Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 4,253	First, I don't think Don has been to a rodeo. You pay to enter, but if you don't place you get no money.I know, I rode bulls for a few years, didn't make much money, spent alot though. There are sports that are pay to play. I sometimes agree with your ideas but not always.After all this time, you seem to be fed up with everyone else.Improve things, start your own series and show everyone else how it should be done. I guess put up or shut up as they say.

2/27/09, 11:16 PM	#30 Re: Wolverine Midgets $1000 to Win in 2009
DonMoore10 Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 1,474	I would first like to compliment Jim Anderson on always writing sane, logical and friendly post, even when we disagree. Much appreciated. Jim, I think you are still in the mindset that the back gate is the savior to keeping racing afloat. Somehow, the racing promotions need to get off the backs of the owners and drivers AND back gate subsidizing the racing operation. If the promoter has to shut the doors because he is allowing a free pass for owners and drivers (I'm proposing 1 owner pass BTW), then the promoter must be on thin ice to begin with. Let me go back to the race promotion that I participated in last Fall, which ended in a $30 check from the promoter, but $245 in the hole for the evening. At that race promotion, there were TWO sanctioning bodies present. Yeah, TWO and double the race officials. I would say that there were close to one official for every midget that was present. Do we need a couple of college business professors to figure out that this is way over the edge, terribly expensive and unnescessary? And my critics don't want to hear it, but a big box midget org semi-trailer hauling a copy machine present also... plus a second midget org trailer belonging to the other sanctioning body. So this is big corporate midget America with a ton of pork charging the entertainers that the fans come to see outrageous fees to enter the race track grounds. Who is zooming who?