Well it's my first 2012 return to mater, happy 2012 for one. A lot of good points were made. Some truly crazy. Throttle Stops is the # 1 reason? Are you kidding me? I don't buy that for a second. Either way I like to address some posts:
Much of this lies at the feet of NHRA. They are busy promoting the NHRA, but the NFL is busy promoting the teams.
Try this for yourself. Go to NFL.com, MLB.com, NASCAR.com and so on. What do you see? The focus is on the teams, the players, the stories. It's about the sport. Yes, there's a couple of ads, yes, they try to point you to tickets. But the focus is on the sport.
Now go to NHRA.com. This is what you see today:
I've circled the portions that are about teams/stories. The rest is NHRA promoting itself.
Their various series,
their NitroMall, countdown to
their event at
their track, double side banners to buy
their tickets, a video celebration of
their sponsorship with Full Throttle, promo for
their newspaper, signup to
their newsletter, hell even a promo for
their Visa card.
If you want to see what's wrong with this sport, you need go no further than NHRA.com.
Excellent point Chris.
Jon Asher, you and I have discussed ticket prices for a number of Years! We both agree that they are WAYY out out of Control! Don't tell me that Compton/Light don't look at Gate receipts every race! If NHRA was really concerned about Full grandstands, they would do anything it took to make that happen! We both that won't happen...
Cannot disagree with any of that.
Stop worrying about NHRA and do your part to get the public excited about the sport you love. It never happens automatically, you have to take the first step. I was involved in promoting the sport before I was ever a racer. If you are a racer, share your sport, share your passion! Get your car front and center in the public eye. The NHRA is the Government of drag racing. Don't wait for their help make things happen on your own. We are promoting a big car show next weekend and are focusing our attention on the local drag strip. Yeah its a lot of work and risk but it's always worth it once it's over.
I was surprised with how few local racers we have interested in participating in our show. Oh, the show is full anyway and the racers that are participating get it. The others are either apart for the winter, don't really care or are lazy. I can't race with out a sponsor so anytime I get opportunities like this I jump on it and as a result we have made a lot of fans and a few critics along the way but people know our car and that's what's important. This coming year we will have several celebs in music and sports coming out due to our outreach.
So stop worrying and make it happen! Don't be a recluse! Make things happen in whatever market you live in and good things will happen to you as a result. Organize a show, do displays, anything that promotes the sport. Grass roots is how our sport will survive.
Capitol Auto Group Racing - Rich Bailey
I am not a fan of this post. Unless there's an actual occupy Glendora (don't get any ideas) this is never going to change from the fans side of the fence. The only way to get NHRA to even blink at what the state of the sport is, is to let the experience the bitter taste. The NHRA never changes anything until they go through a negative experience. Fan feedback means much of nothing there. Promote the sport? Won't work cause people are not buying what the NHRA is selling, and no matter how good a promoter you are, it's pretty hard to sell the sport when the NHRA has the same ol, "it's not all broken, so why fix it" ticket that they sell.
The only way to get this sport growth and longevity is if and only if it comes from within, meaning that unless the NHRA makes a change and runs with it and utilizes it, no one outside HQ is ever going to make a difference. NHRA needs to make a change and back it and promote it, or nothing will ever change. You could promote the sport all day, even if your successful the key is to have fan retention where they comeback at minimum once a year to the big nationals in their area, and if you look at 2011, the NHRA is clearly not doing that. What people have to understand is this sport is having trouble selling to the people who love the sport, but who cares about that. Rich you have to look further cause your using the same method the NHRA uses, you can't keep selling the sport over and over again to the same markets and hope that maybe it will sell a little more.
This sport needs to be sold to markets that have members that know next to nothing or completely nothing about this sport. Screw tv, screw it. NHRA should be paying for general ad videos on yahoo.com, bing, etc... youtube, AIM, general web advertising. I understand it may seem like "oddball" advertising, but this is the point the sport has come to. Don't put an ad on ESPN2, put an ad on Fox during American Idol, it may seem crazy, but again, this is what I feel the sport needs, take risks on new markets and see if they fail before everyone says no never work.
NHRA is completely ignorant to it as their # 1 gameplan for 2011 was Fan Interaction. Polls, Twitter, Facebook, OK they woke up and joined the way to reach the fans and young market, but they are sitting there tooting their own horn saying "we hit 300,000 likes on facebook" when that truly means nothing. I guarantee you the stat on the likes vs. people who actually give the NHRA money are amazingly low. Why not even try coupons, NHRA store vouchers, so on? If I was the NHRA i rather fill the seat at 50% off what it should be then have it empty.
Just like my book, I'm doing my part to promote the sport because it's not just a stats book. Am I gonna sell any copies to a non NHRA fan? Maybe a handful. Of all the fans that buy my book are they gonna be going to a race in 2012, each and every one? Doubt it. It's not negatively affecting the NHRA, but it's not of any help.
