RACE FORMAT CHANGE POLL

[grasshopper]

And for me, racing should first be about racing, the "hobby" thing is secondary.

HUH? 

[weggieman]

  That should be a dead horse he's spanking because the spectator thing has been hashed over and over again until it's stupid. Please ..........spectators are not going to show up in droves to see you race. You are not Hayden and joe blow on the street could care less if you are racing in his back yard. Sorry but that's fact.
CCS won't be spending any extra money on advertising anytime soon and part of that is because they only consider expensive advertising methods.

As for gate fees....this is a money maker for CCS and the tracks. CCS gets the majority of the gate but the track gets a cut of it too. Yes that means the more people thru the gate the more money they all make however, it has been proven over and over that advertising in national mags and racing papers doesn't get more people to the track.

For the few people that are surprised there is racing locally they won't bring in enough money to offset those advertising costs. Although there is a cheap way of advertising that the orgs continually ignore. The simple flier sent out to local dealers in a roughly one hour travel time of the race track. It's easy to do and costs are low but for some reason they won't do it.

[Woofentino Pugrossi]

anything beyond that you get hit with a $20 fee per incident.

Was thinking of making a sign for the crash trucks trailer that said "$20 a tow" mainly to joke around with some of my "regulars" :lol:

But if they seriously did something like that, you'd watch the grids dry up faster than Twinkies disappears in Rosie O'donnells house.


BTW for the newer racers, since I've been with CCS starting in 1999, theres been 4 different owners. PACE, SFX, CCE and now Kevin.

[loc_dogg]

YES! Only if we got more purrse money for the other/ remaining classes!!

[George_Linhart]

Was thinking of making a sign for the crash trucks trailer that said "$20 a tow" mainly to joke around with some of my "regulars" :lol:

But if they seriously did something like that, you'd watch the grids dry up faster than Twinkies disappears in Rosie O'donnells house.

OK, maybe it is a harsh and unrealistic thought.  All I know is that I've watched certain people come in 5 times in a weekend on the crash truck.  Racing incidents are racing incidents, but that is just silly.  It wouldn't affect me at all and if I did crash 5X in one year I would probably deserve to pay for my stupidity.

George

[ecumike]

SO I have an idea... how about charging for transponders like WERA does?  There's a way to grow revenue w/o raising entry fees.

[GSXR RACER MIKE]

I have lived in the same county as Blackhawk Farms my entire life, yet I never knew it was there, much less that motorcycle racing went on there, until I was about 23 years old. After a fellow motorcyclist asked me if I was interested in going to Road America to spectate the AMA event I never even knew it existed either. After that he told me about BFR and I went and spectated every event from that point on. After seeing a Learning Curves flyer at the track I called Rick and found out it was so easy to get involved - prior to that I thought you had to have an 'IN' or something to do it! At the end of my 2nd season of spectating I took my new racer licensing school and started racing myself at the start of the next season.

My point with this is that I drove within a couple miles of that track on a regular basis my entire life and never even knew it was there! The promotion of many race tracks sucks and the promotion of racing organizations is lack luster as well. I had gone to motorcycle and ATV dealerships and shops for many years, yet I can't recall ever seeing an advertisement for racing at Blackhawk Farms or for motorcycle road racing. If I had known how easy it was to get involved I may have started racing 10 years earlier than I did, it was very frustrating to me once I eventually found out about BFR being so close to me and never knowing it. Promotion for spectators is one thing, promotion to get more potential racers involved is a different concept. Developing an attractive 'product' is another issue, make the act of racing a desirable and attainable thing that someone interested can do.

Personally I see so many potential racers fall into the rut of track days, LOTS OF THEM! Yet who's best interest are Track Days in? Defenders of track day org's brag how they are a stepping stone to actual racing, yet how many Track Day org's have sought to be certified as being able to provide 'new racer licensing' for CCS? (After all, that's not in the best interest of the Track Day org's that have effectively driven track rental rates thru the roof - both bike and car org's) I think CCS should offer incentives to brand new racers to try and get them to start racing ASAP so they don't have time to get all worried about racing after taking their school. I can't tell you how many times I have heard "I have to do alot more track days to get good enough to go racing", what a bunch of crap, there really weren't track day org's when I started racing - you just went for it! I think when a brand new racer gets their 1st race license they should get coupons good for a couple free entries and a certain number of discounted entries as well, say 2 free entry coupons and 4 coupons good for $20 entries. That will hopefully get them to race several classes the same weekend they take their school and still have a couple coupons left to get them to the next event as well and start the addiction (1 step backward at the start by CCS to start new racers running). A common complaint I here by newbies is they can't afford to pay for the school, a racing license, and races all in the same weekend - the coupon idea would help to get them on the track ASAP before they start having 2nd thoughts and planning on going back to doing Track Days! I also believe that a BRAND NEW racer should get a discount on their 1st race license as well, say 1/2 price, just to get them started - (give a little, gain alot CCS!).

More people on the grids will help us all by bringing in money to CCS to cover costs, more racers per event = less increases!  

[clutch]

Keep the GT's.  I like my 12 lapper or so on Sat.  I would like to see qualifying for all SS classes, even lightweight, even if they did it by practice times of say the 2nd practice round.

[251am]

 Well, so far it is 5 to 1 AGAINST eliminating a class to increase lap #s or fees...

[SV88]

I believe that CCS and their predecessors have completely missed the marketing boat.  This is motorcycle racing even if it isn't at a national event and is exciting to watch for most people.  Granted, BHF is not the greatest spectator track because you see a maximum of two corners at the same time. 

A low cost communication campaign could potentially bring in thousand of dollars of spectator revenue, hype, media etc...The racing organization and the racers have made this into a relatively exclusive thing.

On the track day discussion - I favor them because when I was running slow intermediate lap times, I simply wasn't ready for racing.  I got to be one of the fastest advanced riders (with a rel. slow organization) and felt that I was ready.  Do you really want to ride with people that have had no track time?  Insane!

Yes track days are cheaper than racing right now.  The racing orgs. need to adapt (who has stolen my cheese) to make racing more attractive to the average performance rider.  Require min. lap time to get competent riders, develop spectator revenue and make it cheaper for racers to run.

[TrackAddix]

I just came across this thread, and funny thing is we just sent out a survey that many of you will receive that has a question asking this same thing about the GT races.  Our consideration in dropping the GT classes has more to do with insurance costs and small grids than anything else.

First let me start out by saying that on the surface all of this seems very simple to most racers.  However, I must say that it has been an interesting experience for me personally to have gone from one side of the grid as a racer, to the other side of the grid now as the operator and promoter of a race series.  I don't mean this in a negative way or anything like that, but most racers have no idea as to the incredible amount of time, energy, personal sacrifice, and money that goes into putting on a race weekend. 

When it comes to enty fees, gate fees, transponder fees, etc., you can slice up the pie and call each piece whatever you want to, but the bottom line is that it costs X amount of dollars to put on a race weekend and the race org must raise X amount of dollars to cover those costs...plus a reasonable amount of profit to make the whole thing worth doing.  It costs on average $25,000 to $30,000 to put on a race weekend.  If you were to invest $30 grand in a stock or savings account you would expect a return on your investment.  Business is the same thing.  If I invest $30,000 in putting on a race event, it is not unreasonable to expect a return on that investment.  If you want to have a place to race, the race organization has got to make money to stay in business.  Needless to say, I will be spending my winter working some serious overtime at my real job to recover from the losses we sustained in the first year of the TrackAddix GP.  Keep me employed, come fly the friendly skies of United!

Some food for thought regarding the dropping of the GT races.  We have settled on a format of Saturday being more of a track day than a racer only practice.  We are hoping that this will expose more track day riders to racing and hopeful entice them to make the jump.  The idea being to feed the street riders to track days and then the track day riders to race series.    We have found that our racers really like all the track time on Saturday so they don't have to take Friday off from work to attend a practice.  We also found that our racers really like getting done early on Sunday so they can get back home at a reasonable hour and not be dead tired for work on Monday.  So here in lies the problem of fitting 5 pounds of sh*t into the preverbial 2 pound bag.  We placed the GT races at the end of the Saturday track day with the idea being that you are racers and will most likely enter the GT races to do some racing on Saturday.  Cost wise we allowed the racers to attend Saturday at a deeply discounted price thinking that the combination of the track day and GT entry fee would roughly be the eqivilent of the full track price and help us cover the costs for Saturday.  Well the reality is that didn't happened.  We found most racers were enjoying a cheap track day and not entering the GT races, which caused us to sustain a loss on the Saturday expenses.  The biggest contributor to that loss was insurance costs.  Once you add competitive wheel to wheel racing to the day (even for only a couple short races at the end of the day) the insurance bill went up about $3000 for the day.  Something that may surprise you, our insurance costs per Saturday/Sunday race weekend....$6512.00.  Now add track rental, corner workers, ambulance, race staff, plaques, etc, etc, etc and you can see how costs can quickly reach $30,000 for a race weekend.

Because of the losses we sustained, because this is a new and growing race series, and because we really don't want to raise entry fees (although sometimes this is a necessary evil) we are looking for creative ways to cut costs for our 2007 season and still put on an affordable, fun, and well run race weekend for all of you.  Making Saturday a track day only with no racing will save $3 grand right off the top.  So now the problem is what do we do with the GT races?  Moving them to Sunday creates a couple of issues.  One, the day would be much longer and would eliminate one of things racers enjoy about our series...getting done early.  Two, the day would be so packed that there is absolutey no slack time in the schedule.  A couple of 30 minute delays for crash pick ups and now we are faced with shortening races to finish the day within the time allowed by our track rental contract.

There is a lot of talk on this thread about eliminating SuperBike and/or GP classes.  Here is something to consider regarding that.  Much of the contingency payouts are associated with those classes.  Eliminating them would mean fewer opportunities to earn tire money, etc.

Here is an alternative I would like to propose.  If the GT classes are that important to you, what about just eliminating the Heavyweight classes to make room in the Sunday schedule for the GT races and still be able to get done at a decent hour?  My thoughts are that it seems that most riders are either on a LW bike, a 600 or a 1000 these days.  So keep SuperSport, SuperBike, and GP classes but only run LW, MW, and Unlimited.  Most tracks we race on are somewhat technical so a 750 should be competitive against 1000's.  At MAM for instance the lap record is held by a 600.  What does everyone think about this alternative?

The TrackAddix GP is a race series run by racers, for racers.  If you raced with us this year, you will be getting a survey requesting your feedback and input.  Please complete it and mail or fax back to us immediately.  We are very busy getting ready for the 2007 season and need you ideas and opinions right away.

Thank you for your support and we look forward to racing with you again next year!

-Dean

[r1owner]

I wouldn't mind eliminating HW (but of course, I ride a 600).

Just quickly looking at the Jun BHF entries... it appeared there about the same number of entries in HW vs UL....  Although it seemed there were a lot more 600's in the HW class than UL.

I'm thinking you may get less overall entries if you do that as a lot of the 600's that currently race "up" may not go all the way to the UL class.