[Andrew S. Quinn]

Always enjoy it when you post here for a "behind the scenes" look on things.....

Originally Posted by kdobson Five Grand Per Night Rent? No chance at that price to race more than a few really big ones. And that's one of the major problems facing the sport. We take up a fair amount of land to do our thing. Land has value. Facilities have value. Try to finance a good portion of that on a weather dependent operation that only holds 20ish events per year. You either need to have some sort of quasi-public venue such as a Fairgrounds (like we do at Jacksonville) and a Fair Board that realizes that having ongoing operations on the premises outside of the week or two of the fair actually relieves them of expense and maintenance for part of the facility they would otherwise absorb - and thereby charge a reasonable rent in light of that which might not make great business sense for them on paper. Or you need to have enough money to operate a privately owned track as a hobby expense - or have the major part of the capital expense out of the way from prior generations etc. I don't see where you confidently finance more than 500k for a nice facility for racing unless it has an incredible history or has multiple uses to generate other revenue. The only other way I can see is to just have a very, very popular venue that can draw a really good crowd like clockwork. Five grand per event almost excludes anything from mathing-out after basic expenses and purses for any event that can't draw 1,200+ fans every single time. I know you guys draw good crowds in Indiana - but there's no wiggle room for clouds at 5 grand.