Short fields (1 Viewer)

[Cliff]

Phil, dead on. Could not wait until I was old enough to DRIVE..... And I agree the advertising for a Nat'l event is poor.

 

[DanTheFan]

The ads used to run on local radio stations that the target audience listened to. Local radio hardly exists, mostly sat radio and pre-recorded stuff. And kids don’t get their music that way.

 

[ZWeinstein]

In the few years pre-covid (18-20) I felt like I saw/heard more tv/radio ads and saw more billboards than I had in previous years.

I've always felt one of the best ways to put butts in the stands is to give a person who is not familiar with our sport a full sensory overload to show them a taste of what a race is like. I know money will always be the driving factor but if I was lord emperor of NHRA I would have a "touring in-house" dragster and/or funny car or pay a local team to come into town a week or two before a race and setup at a Wal-Mart or Camping World or wherever and fire it off for a minute or two (complete with throttle whacks) and show the average person what these beasts do. Afterwards have have a flown in big name driver sign autographs for an hour or so and at the end pass out coupons for $25 grandstand tickets for that race. Pack up and head to the next Wal-Mart or wherever and do it 2-3 times a day. Get a random person on the street to even casually follow the sport and in turn you will not only get butts in the stands but you will get them to watch on television or maybe even buy nhra.tv and turn them into a fan. I'm not smart enough to run a cost vs. expected return on doing a program like that but it is something I've always wanted to see tried out.

 

[James]

They seem to run the TV ads around here during the local news program the week of the race. Seems like a good strategy.

 

[mgty3whlr]

I haven't seen a commercial for a national event for a good number of years on my local t.v. stations. Only during a race on fs1 or fox local if they broadcast it. I used to hear them on select local radio stations but, that was a really long time ago. NHRA should buy blocks of ad space on Pandora or Spotify, XM/SIrius being a lot of people stream nowadays.

 

[TSK]

I realize buying an ad that airs nationally during broadcasts, such as baseball or football, is expensive. However, during those broadcasts, the TV station carrying the game also airs ads local to their market. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but those local ads are not nearly as expensive as ads that air nationally.
The national ads are paid to the network. The local ads are paid to the station carrying them.
Just as an example, Little Rock is about six hours from St. Louis, about the same to Topeka, 6.5 hours to Ennis (I've made that drive about 20 times), and 8 hours to Houston. They are close enough that it seems like running even a 15 second ad will only help.
The only time I see ads for upcoming races on television is on FS1 or Fox whenever the latest event is running. That has always confused me. Why run that ad when the people watching the race are probably already aware of the schedule?
The ads need to be put in front of people who aren't typical fans.
I don't know, maybe it's already been tried.
I'm just throwing things out there hoping something might stick.
I just know that seeing half-full (if we're lucky) bleachers does not look good on television to any potential sponsors.

 

[Dragracer]

Phil,

I don't have time to go line by line, you have a very different idea about what it would cost to do this, and what profit could be made.
It's easy to say, "Just have two Safety Safaris" The one we have has seven semis and four duallys going down the road. So just buy more trucks? More tractors?
Did you know that the Safari goes in Monday before the event to do the setup and track prep?

"With twice the races and twice the TV shows you can sell more adds" Do you know what it costs to do a full TV production? And yes, you could stream on the web (which we do) But the reason NHRA spent literally millions on TV during the ESPN days was because without a good TV package the sponsors wouldn't be there. Is it great when the stands are full and your car gets seen on track? Sure, but that doesn't justify the investment of MOPAR, Toyota, Lucas etc. They do it because we are on TV. The deal we have with FOX is the best package we have ever had. Camping World would not have come to us without it.

"Let the #1 qualifier have the second round bye" What if Connie decides to experiment during qualifying (being that it's a short field) and Doug ends up down at the bottom. Would Brittany race Doug? Or could she decided to take the 1st round bye and make Leah race him?


Let's go back to where we started, the length of the day.
11 AM Round 1 Top Fuel 8 pair 30 minutes if all runs perfectly? 11:30 done
75 minutes turn around
12:45 round 2, 4 pair, 15 minutes 1:00 done
75 minutes turn around
2:15 semis 2 pair 2:25 done
75 minutes turn around
Final at 3:40

Put them on a quick turn around and you might get finished by 3, two oil downs and it's after 4

In Brainerd the TF final was before 5, and we ran Funny Car, Pro Mod, MMPS and others.

I'm off to Indy,
Alan

Alan, how many people make up the Safety Safari?