Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

FYI Chuck said he reads the racers blogs (assumming he meant message boards) so maybe he's listening.  No complaining from me and I will be there most of the time. Hey Chuck heres an idea for you, offer a full season VIP pit pass for all access.

While I don't personally have a business of my own that is raking in millions of dollars a year, I do know a guy.... Look, some of you are trying to make sense of how this guy is going to pay the bills if he pays out all this purse $.  When you bring in the money these type of businessmen do, you have a few choices what to do with it - pay a lot of taxes and keep whats left, donate it to any number of corrupt 'charities', capital investments in current business you own or invest that money in other new business ventures.  It looks to me as if Mr. Brennan has chosen to invest in new business.  Who do you suppose the sponsor of Badlands Motor Speedway will be?  His business was already the title sponsor of the 410 class the last few seasons.  So, he buys the speedway and dumps a lot of money in it.  His company sponsors the track and classes.  He pours money into the purse.  If he loses money, he writes it off as a business loss and takes the tax break.  I'm probably over-simplifying it here, but you get the picture.

I for one would place my money on Mr. Brennan being a saavy businessman taking full advantage of the system our lousy politicians have established.  The only thing I'm not too sure about is his ticket prices.  A little high for the midwest if you purchase tickets to events individually.  However, if you purchase season tickets, the average cost for a nightly event is actually quite reasonable.  Looks to me he is really trying to push people to purchase the season pass.  Someone else already said what I'm thinking - you get a family or a group of friends to purchase the season pass and they share the cost.  Really a win - win for a lot of people who only intend to attend one night a week.  I only wish I lived in S. Dakota from May to September and Southern Cal. the rest of the year now...

If he or others in his organization do read this board, here's a couple of points of constructive criticism to what has been announced.

- Rock n Roll Gold Cup sounds great, but the advertised ticket prices (unless a typo or part of some package) are extremely high compared to all other major dirt track events.

- Purse for the Gold Cup is extremely top heavy, $1500 for 5th $1,000 for 6th probably won't get it done from a car count perspective. May be better to go for $25k to win and spread that cash out more.

I honestly have no issue with them racing Saturday nights, Husets is 300 miles from Knoxville, I hope this generates more sprint car teams honestly and I think competition tends to stir folks from being complacent.

Maybe he should the people on the message boards are the heart the passion of sprint car racing they are the $ in the seats every week they are $ that's buying tshirts some might be crazy or out there or just plane old a$$holes (posse) but thats what makes sprint car racing awesome and give it the passion the people that message on boards like this or read there every day are the people that have the 10 year old tshirt of there favorite driver they are fantastics that use there vacation not to goto islands or other clicky places they are the people what want to spend there vacation at exotic places not knoxville Eleora or the grove getting dirt in there beer and love ever drink of year after year 

Wow, just wow, lol....

A strong testament to the sobering fact that our teachers are failing to educate.

I like his take on the Posse, pretty accurate for the most part but I'm thinking he's more than likely a senior vs. a youngin...

I wouldn't buy any season tickets until there's 25-30 410's there every night...personally I think the guy is full of it. Lots of were gonnas every time he speaks. $1000 to win for street stocks? There's going to be plenty of them there every night.

I sure hope the prices listed for the Gold Cup are incorrect... IF they think fans are going to pay $195 to watch 2 nights of qualifying and 2 $50000 to win features the weekend after paying $175 to watch 4 DAYS at knoxville(which will ALWAYS be the sprintcar capital of the world by the way) they are just plain crazy!! Lot of race fans save their hard earned $$$ all summer to attend the week at Knoxville and sure aren't going to fork out that kind of $$ the very next weekend for this show.  May be bad timing for this big race from a fan's wallet standpoint.... just my $.02

The Knoxville Nationals don't cost that much for the entire 4 day event! He ISN"T the Knoxviile Nationals by any stretch! Maybe this guy can bring Huset's back, because it has gone backwards. We'll see. But I don't think he has the answers yet.

Agreed. It can't be better then the nationals simply because the cost is higher. Nothing will ever be the nationals except for the nationals. I remain optimistic that this will be nothing but a positive change. 

Feel free to read the entire press release next time. 

SATURDAY NIGHT 410 Feature: 

• Feature: $5000, $2500, $2000, $1500, $1250, $1000, $950, $900, $850, $825
• Racers that finish in 11-15 will receive $800 | Racers that finish in 16-22 will receive $700

http://www.badlandsmotorspeedway.com/track-info/driver-payouts/

That will never pass. Even if it does, the SD portion of his business is extremly minor. It won't affect him, or his business, at all.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eRYll903Sns

Feel Free to listen to Chuck's Press Conference next time too.

I stated that something doesn't jive.  He mentions a purse much smaller (almost $6000 less for Saturday Night) in his Press Conference than the purse in the Press Release.  I simply asked which is it?  If it's the one he talked about in teh Press Conference, the one in the Press Release is impossible.

I hope they succeed, but with the big splash and Press Conferences, I expected Chuck to state they had a $40,000 purse for Saturday and then see the Press Release that was $36,000.  Instead he talked about a $30,000 purse in the Press Conference and it shows $36,000 in the Press Release (pretty much the opposite of how he approached all other subjects (biggest Monster Truck Show Ever, National Finals with largest purse ever for Tractor Pull, etc., etc.) during the same Press Conference).

If everything ends up being how he says it will be, that will be GREAT for the Racers.  Unfortunately, I really didn't like when someone got up at the Press Conference and vocally supported Huset's putting I-90 out of business (I assume it was a fan).  Thankfully, Chuck is a smart enough businessman to say that is not their intention.

The owner of I-90 speedway pretty much did himself in buy paying less to the racers, charging more @ the front & back gates.

And also lowering the purse for the 360 CI sprints over the past couple years & this past season dropping the class for 305's & only paying them $300 to win.

Vande77 - better watch again.  He specifically said Saturday "has an approximate $35k purse every Saturday night".  3:43 second mark in the press conference.  

https://youtu.be/v5dPBGZbzcM?t=223

The total feature purses for the 3 classes on Saturday is $35,675 (not including the extra $2k qualifying purse as he specifically mentioned that seperately)

Wow! This all just sounds too good to be true!  Hopefully the unfortunate ones can keep funding this guy that is going to bring great fortune to the Sprint Car World!  What the Hell am I saying? I mean the Entertainment World. I just hope he doesn't wipe Knoxville off of the Map! I would sure miss the Nationals.

highly doubt it. you first need fans in the stands and at 20 bucks for saturday night, way to much for what you are going to see. I know the racers are all for this and so am i for them but chucky thinks the fans are made of money. I do not see this lasting to long with the ticket prices. for the racer i hope it goes over but the fan is the one gonna get raped

Like I said, I hope it's the larger of the 2, but thus far I'm skeptical as even their website says "SUBJECT TO CHANGE" for the purse.  Chuck stated if they have a short field the winner will get the $$$ from those positions that no one came to race for (yet, the Press Release and website says nothing to that effect).  He also stated that all cars will get start $$$ if they have more than what fills the field for the feature (again, the website and Press Release show nothing to this effect).

I personally think he's blowing smoke up everyone's @$$ and people are buying it all hook, line and sinker.

I remember the Petty's having a huge Press Conference in Charlotte for a big National Touring Series to rival the Outlaws too.  Remind me again, did they actually run any races??? 

Did the NST put the WoO out of business like people thought they would because they had the "star power" and the Outlaws only had Schatz and Saldana? 

Did the United Sprint Association put the WoO out of business because they had the "star power" (Kinser and Swindell) and big owners (Karl Kinser, Harold Annett) in their corner?

IMO, Chuck has got to PROVE IT when the going gets tough (when car counts aren't what he hopes or the weather is bad and not enough fans in the stands to consitute the costs), not just talk about it.  I don't think raising admission will be very popular either, but that's just me.

I think he'll do very good in year #1 (new exciting things), it will be year 2, 3, 4, 5 and on down the line that prove if he's in it for the long haul.  Fans are fickle and some will drive 4 hours to some other track just because admission was raised (even though that will cost them A LOT more than the $5 per ticket price increase to go somewhere else).

I hear it all the time about Knoxville.  I remember when they raised tickets from $10 to $12, there were people that said they were never coming back becuase that was ridiculous to have prices raised (and some never did), same thing when they went from $12 to $15, more said they were never coming back and never did.  Others did the same when Nationals Ticket costs were increased $2 per night.  That $8 over 4 days was enough for them to never come back.  Same goes for concessions, people complain when they raise the price by $.25 on an item and stop buying concessions at the track.

I can also use Iowa Speedway as another Example.  It opened to huge fanfare, and press (TV, Radio, Newspapers), and sold out everything in sight in year 1, Nationwide, Trucks, IndyCar, ARCA, etc. (including temporary seating for the Nationwide race to have nearly 60,000 in attendance).  Now they aren't even selling out  the 25,000 permanent seats for the Nationwide race or even coming close at any other race for that matter. 

Things got tough and the owners bailed (because they spent more $$ building it than what it could generate in revenue and the track was going into Bankruptcy over it (thanks NASCAR for buying it and not allowing that to happen)) and now NASCAR has taken over track ownership.  Still not selling out any races even though they put on arguably the best racing NASCAR has to offer.

These Press Conferences and Press Releases are all nice and dandy, but he hasn't ran a single race yet or made it through season #1.  Just becuase he has $$$ to spend doesn't mean he will spend it, spend it, spend it and never expect a return on his investment (if so, he would be a horrible businessman, and I highly doubt that is the case).  If the races don't turn a profit, odds are is 1 of 2 things will occur.  They will cease to exist or costs will be cut (ie: purses) so that they do turn a profit.