Originally Posted by mac miller:
Here's five things they need to do, immediately!
* Get sprint cars off of midget tracks and back onto the 1/2 miles where they belong.
* Get back on real, live TV with a pro level pavement sprint car and midget series like Thursday Night Thunder, which actually did get their drivers noticed and trained them for moving to nascar.
* Hire more racing people and less PR hucksters.
GRADE D across the board!
While racing is never going to be cheap... It is already hard for sprint car teams to afford running the current series. If you run mainly 1/2 mile tracks... You just increased the travel costs of running the USAC sprint car series and not to mention the additional wear-and-tear on chassis and motor. Increase cost... Decrease car counts. that is not good for USAC Racing.
I agree with you on getting back on TV... but how do you pay for it. There is already alot of complaints about the purse for races not being high enough. I believe this issue also relates to the other issue you brought up about hiring race people vs. PR folks.
To get back on a crediable TV network you will have to pay expensive production costs. To do that... and still pay the current purse structure. You must increase the amount revenue you bring in.
Do you want to pay more at the gate... NO, of course not. That only drives away people because they can find something else to do that is far less expensive. To be honest... a small or large increase at the gate would not be enough revenue to solve the problem.
The only option you have is to get corporate involvement. The current economic situation has many companies cutting back on their advertising budgets. It has already effected the NFL & NASCAR, which is prime advertising for many large companies. Sprint car & Midget racing while loved by us... is far from being prime advertising. "WE" must increase our appeal to companies and convince them that by advertising/sponsoring sprint car & midget racing, they will get the biggest bang for their buck... and IMO that will be virtually impossible unless you promote better. It takes PR folks to do that effectively. You must have both racers and PR people to make a professional series.
I think we all know their are many more things other than promotion that needs to be done... but it is a important first step.
All of this goes back to my first comments about Kevin not being the only person that can effect the growth of USAC.... His experience in marketing was desperately needed... and should help USAC overall.
NASCAR didn't grow into the powerful series it is overnight... It took many years of hard work, promotion and patience. I believe over time... Kevin can make a positive difference.
You know, We all agree on what we want... we just have different opinions on how to accomplish it.
Sorry for the long spew.... I had a lot of hot air built-up. :wink