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By FSCF Webmaster · Comments  So if you follow the little Twitter account for this website, you might have seen a post about a nasty little legal term called collusion the other day. That’s because we had seen what had been to that point a private e-mail that circulated from some track owners to the TBARA.
First we’ll give you the definition of the term collusion, because it’s really fun to talk about at parties.
Collusion is an agreement between two or more persons, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage.
Got it? Good.
So now there’s this thing called the “Track Owners Alliance” going on here in the state of Florida. Never heard of it? Well, sit up and get ready.
First we need to talk about pavement late models, I know, I know, painful…but really it’s germane, I assure you.
So pavement late model racing used to be a big deal in this state. The past couple years? Not so much. It was pretty much on life support as a traveling series (and even weekly shows really) until the FAST series got started and ran with a blended engine rule (9:1 compression, Florida spec and crate motors) that balanced everything out with weight rules and such. Healthy fields of cars showed up, just about every track made money, fans came out, almost everyone was happy…until one night at Auburndale Speedway the track took it upon themselves to overturn FAST series officials due to some on-track altercations with one of the founders of the series Wayne Anderson and Auburndale favorite Kevin Ingram.
Fast forward (or FAST forward if you like) to the present and you’ve got the “Florida United Promoters Late Model Series” running essentially the FAST rules at all of their tracks. And oh yeah, there was originally going to be a relatively open meeting at a local Hooters but when some FAST officials were going to show up to hear what the plan was, the meeting was then moved at the last minute to…wait for it…Auburndale Speedway!
So why do you care about this late model nonsense? Because this e-mail (mentioned above, that we had seen) was made public over on USA Sprints the other day:
Track Owners Alliance 2011 Sprint Car Base Purse
1. $350.
2. 335.
3. 325.
4. 315.
5. 305.
6. 295.
7. 290.
8. 285.
9. 225.
10. 225.
11. 200.
12. 200.
13th-20th 175.
$ 4500. Purse approx.
- 2,400. back gate
$ 2100. Actual purse.
Will deduct $175 each when car count is less than 20.
Will pay additional $175 for each additional car over 20.
Now, we were going to attempt to contact track officials to see if they had any comment about all of this, then write up an article, but the cat’s out of the bag now that this was posted on USA Sprints. So that was sent to the TBARA, which has been paying $1,000 – 1,200ish over the past few years to win. $350 doesn’t even pay for two tires.
So first we’ve got this “Promoters Alliance” first screwing with late models (and let’s be frank, it’s insulting to real promoters to call some of these gentlemen promoters at all…) and now magically all of a sudden we’ve got something called an “Owners Alliance” of damn near all of the pavement tracks dictating a fixed price that they all will pay to the TBARA.
So you read that definition of collusion up yonder, yeah? Let’s lay this one on you next, because we like law and order and free market economics, laissez-faire economic philosophy and all that neat stuff entrepreneurs like while they are making money until suddenly someone outsmarts them and they do something stupid.
There’s this neat thing called the Sherman Antitrust Act, perhaps you have heard of it. It was the first Federal statute to limit cartels and monopolies, and today still forms the basis for most antitrust litigation by the United States federal government. The purpose of the act was to oppose the combination of entities that could potentially harm competition, such as monopolies or cartels.
You can read more about the Sherman Antitrust Act here if you like, but we’ll break down how this applies to the TBARA, and you never know, maybe even more sprint car series, you never know…
- You’re a sprint car series promoter looking to book some dates for 2011, you call Track A.
- Track A says, “hey, times are hard, I can’t afford you.”
- You say, “that’s cool, I’ll lower my fee, but you have to give me some concessions.”
- Track A says, “nope, I’ll pay you $4,500 and not a penny more, take it or leave it.”
- You say, “leave it pal, I’ll take my series somewhere else.”
- You call Track B.
- Track B says, “nope, I’ll pay you $4,500 and not a penny more, take it or leave it.”
- You start to think, “what the hell is going on here,” so you call Track C.
- Track C says, “nope, I’ll pay you $4,500 and not a penny more, take it or leave it.”
So what you’ve got are legal companies that are not owned by the same holding company, cooperating to set market value and limit competition, which is kind of sort of against the basis of a free market economy.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and this “alliance” will go away and the sprint car clubs in this state will be free to negotiate with each track on a one-on-one basis.
If not, perhaps we should all move to Indiana where the tracks actually respect sprint car racing, promote their races and play to good crowds.
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