Why does everyone think we are in the insurance business? I was having this discussion today ironically. We provide insurance, if needed. A business owner can decide what level of insurance they want, we do require the insurance to be a certain level to kind of protect the organizers from themselves and protect ourselves. I hate insurance, insurance is never apples to apples, it's impossible to get a fair rate because every insurance adjuster is under cutting anybody. I ask why we are evening dealing with it, but that's a internal issue I have here in the office.
Let me give you a story that happened to me when I first got to the AMA and all gunned hoe to fix the MX world. Three tracks in a large state are about 30 minutes from each other. They hate each other, not willing to work together, I spent hours on the phone trying to mend fences and get them to work together, to help them be successful. All the time I spent, it didn't work. They went on their separate paths, they continued to schedule races on top of each other, stole each other's staff, had terrible turnouts, ugly stuff. One of the tracks came to me and asked for me to do a email blast about their event, I said yeah and did it. Then you can guess what happened, the other two were pissed I didn't offer them the same, so I sent one for them also. The three tracks would always threaten to leave the AMA unless we did more for them, then the other two tracks. I was caught in a pissing match. I would ask the question, "why do we sanction these tracks, if they're not going to work together?" The answer I would get, "it's our business to sanction events, make it work."
After about a year, I got a phone call, a potential track owner. He and a fellow racer wanted to start a race tracks on their property and wanted help from the AMA to get started. These guys saw all the crap these three tracks would do to each other. They wanted to be different, wanted to work together in the same area. At first, I explained five tracks in this 1 hour circle is tough, but either way they wanted to go for it. So I explained the operations side and helped establish these tracks from a distance. These guys started a series between the two of them plus a few other tracks within 2-3 hours. To make a long story short... they are still in business, two of three other tracks are gone. The one track is just a practice track now.
The moral of the story, some people want to be successful, some can't. We have tools here at the AMA like email blasts, the magazine, the website, the rulebook plus some other things coming down the pipe. I stepped out of the "working for my members" area and entered the "promoter area," I learned that when your dealing with business relationships, they're are no winners, especially when you're the middle guy. So instead, concentrate on the things we can control, the rulebook, quality of racing, referees, etc. I want to concentrate on the members. And I'm not saying we do these things well, but we'll get better, atleast while I'm here. Oh and don't work with organizers from Texas, everything is bigger in Texas, even the drama.
