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Please take just a few minutes to read this kick-off post. Thank you in advance.
The one outcome of 2020, was that it took tracks and series to put on their creative thinking hats on making concessions/alternative solutions here and there to be able to hold events. So, it was great to see people working with the problem and doing the very best they could.
2021 will hopefully mark a chance for a rebirth of dirt track racing assuming the current health issue has been pushed to the side more than it is at the current moment.
In the case of myself, I know I affected change for a lot of people this racing season by coming up with some common sense safety solutions that could help keep spectators comfortable and broadcast those procedures across several tracks.
And it worked. And fans did what they were asked to do. Literally I don’t know of one complaint post filed from any dozens of those events. Plus some of the other policied that created more of a positive fan experience needed to happen a long time ago too, so it wasn't all bad.
Here’s the point of this post:
There are a lot of smart people on this forum that genuinely care about sprint car racing. Many are media members, racers, manufacturers, fans close to specific racing teams plus a bunch of sprintaholics (yes I know, there is no cure).
My quest would be for you to make just 1 positive impact on the racing community in 2021 (if you’re not already…and if you are already, feel free to list it as a response in this post).
What does that mean?
Never sponsored an event? Even for $200? This is all about you doing the legwork to get someone you know to pay for a small event sponsorship at your local track.
In this post I can answer questions as they are filed over the course of the weeks to come.
On this particular forum alone there are literally about 1,000 people on it at any given moment with multiple times that many more members.
Even if only 3% of the members on this forum did something more to help that would be a number in excess of 1,000 people.
To make this simple, let’s just say 1,000 people step up and tell their bosses (one simple example of 100 that are out there):
“Hey, I see you are sponsoring a stick/ball sport, and I’ve been to several of those events, but are you aware of the dirt track racing community in this area and the popularity of it…as racing fans are very brand loyal!”
And then you can continue by saying “for $200 (but pick a number you’ll think is do-able…if you think you can get $500 or more, then do it) I can get this business direct exposure at the track through a co-op marketing partnership with an event so you can test the waters.” Furthermore, the ethos effect of connecting digital ads from that business directly to the racetrack is highly powerful.
Simply put, go to your boss, or a business that you’re a regular customer at, and you maybe know the owner or manager, pump them up to support the event, secure that aspect of it by getting them to commit, show up at the track on event night, have them present an award for a $200 Hard Charger…or $50 to each heat race winner (whatever you/they want it to before whatever the amount is), and meanwhile that business can do something simple like hand out discount coupons to fans (like $5 off a Large Meat Lover Pizza, or $5 off an oil change), write up a text block for the announcer to read to the crowd – and make dang sure at least some manager level member of their staff comes (and see how many times their jaws drop), as most businesses have no idea how easy it really is to get their foot in the door in short track racing.
Once that is established, who knows. If they start getting direct impact from the event (redeemed coupons; likes/shares on social media), they might even want to repeat the promo throughout the year – which effectively causes a pyramid effect.
But when you take just 1,000 hoseheads members (again, we’re talking just a couple % of you on this forum) and make an attempt to do something for this sport, that turns into $200,000 in the snap of a finger.
Now is the time to affect change in this sport.
How many of you out there are up to the challenge?
You know it’s the Holiday season and if you’ve got a boss in a ‘giving’ mode you might be able to pull in several times that.
I mean, I know. That’s what I did back in the 80’s at the start of my involvement in this industry. Result? Tommy Estes came up to the event at Jackson Speedway (Motorplex) and hauled out the door over $3,700 in his first-night ever in the Doug and Joanne Howell #4 car.
For that year, all I did was go hit up people to buy these stupid 2 gallon containers of popcorn as a fundraiser, collected enough in advance to have Arizona SportShirts make an event t-shirt, which we must have sold 1,000 of – resulting in a $20,000 purse injection for the sprint cars.
If Doug Johnson from Jackson Motorplex comes across this post, he was there at the same time kicking off his photography career…and I’m sure he’d remember some of the crazy shenanigans we’d do on that night – which included hand-throwing 5,000 wrapped donut puffs from our Spirit Lake Bakery van while it drove down the race track to the fans. But the joint was packed with 6,500 fans.
And what became of those proactive actions through the years?
Most of the racers owned a business to pay for their racing, and after I completed college, over the span of the next 15 years I ended up being GM and/or VP of three of the premier racing chassis companies in the country…and made friends with a huge list of industry members and drivers.
There are many other individuals out there that spend a ridiculous amount of times doing what they can to support sprint car racing in their area…some of the instant standouts are Bill W and Jim Harris. But they took the first step to at least do something….heck ‘W parlayed all of his legwork efforts all the way into a career at the NSCHoF&M Museum Coordinator. I know there are many others, but time to push this sport back in the spotlight on a whole new level in 2021.
So come on. Make a pledge to help. There are LOTS of people that are on this forum multiple times a day. This whole scenario might literally take you ONE HOUR to complete from start to finish.
Here’s what I propose:
In this post, the first person that has a post responce with, “I know someone, I can get the, to pledge $#### for an event at #### Speedway in 2021” you will then become HoseHeads Hero #1 (and your user ID), and I’ll continue to populate the list as more pledges come in. Even feel free to post a link back to the sponsor website or Facebook page for them to receive additional exposure.
And it doesn’t have to be just an individual poster on hoseheads, if you’re a manufacturer – feel free to jump right in to earn your Hoseheads Hero status! Of course, racers have tons of connections too. This is open to all to participate.
It’s time to give back to the sport. Here’s an easy, easy platform to make a mark in the sport that many of you proclaim to love. But do you really. Prove it.
You’ll handle all of the marketing efforts and money stuff on your end with the track. Who knows where your life could take you from there?
Heck, if there are enough of you that get onboard to affect change in 2021, I could develop a logo that you could use in your posts showing everyone that you’re doing your part to truly help this sport. And at that point, maybe we could even pull in a sponsor that would commit to producing cool little 3” Hoseheads Hero stickers for you to put on your car/racecar. That would be pretty dang cool, IMO.
I certainly know one thing, I didn’t know decades ago all these silly things like selling popcorn on my bakery route would affect my career or that I’d receive a cold-call from the editor of Performance Racing Magazine a few years back requesting if they could do a feature story on my short track racing marketing process, or that I’d sell as many race cars to awesome drivers from across the country…and visit most of those tracks along the way…all while at company expense.
But all of that happened.
>And if you come up with any sort of a track co-op marketing program for a track, you’ll be qualified as a HoseHeads Hero too. It doesn’t have to be the one (of many) shown as an example here. It doesn’t even have to be in the form of cash.
Final Example. Let’s say the guy that runs your local tire shop races at your track. He needs advertising, a co-op ad program between the track and the tire shop is a killer-effective way to create an ethos solution for them: “Come to Joey’s Tire Service for the best pricing and service around, and then join us at Sprinttown Speedway on Saturday night’s where you can cheer Joey on, as he pilots the #15 sprint car!”
One more thing: GO!
The countdown to the 2021 racing season begins now, let’s see you tough-talking hoseheadforum posters turn your keyboard muscle into a simple project that one day could turn into one of the biggest platforms that keeps sprint car racing ahead of the pack!
-Darin Short
www.DarinShort.com, Co-founder of www.SprintCarBandits.com and www.2021BOSS.com,
Hoseheadforum.com moderator and 360 Sprint Car Poll voter.
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