79Any way you figure it, NHRA racing is one of the few places where the clowns pay to be in the circus. It is almost impossible to make a profit. The Snake knows where the real costs are and he is out of the game at this point, Schumacher has written the book on relationship marketing, he takes all of his sponsors to the game in first class. He cross promotes where he can, his sponsors love him as he creates sales for them ( even between each other) so no body has to make any excuses if they agree to sponsor any segment of his operation. He delivers more than he agrees to, that is the secret to sucess in any business or relationship. Kalitta does the same , he self funds the operations and brings his customers in on the fun.
Way back in 79 we ran the Over the Hill Gang TF car, we won 4 of the 9 NHRA events, had some decent sponsors and little overhead as almost all of the components of the team we already owned and we still lost $50,000 in 79 dollars. Of course that was before the hospitality days, a current sponsor or a potential one might have been given a cold beer and a hot dog. But is was sure a lot more fun that the rat race of today's "Big Show"
