2017 track plans

I am going to hit this feaking dead horse once again.

Local races DO NOT have to run every freaking class that your have for Loretta Lynns! Have all your 40 classes for the qualifiers and Regionals, but at the local level cut the class structure back. Someone please give it a try! Also., the AMA should not allow people to race qualifiers in 3 and 4 regions. Make it one or two max, so that some of these guys go home and race some local races rather than qualifiers all the time.

I would like to see a track like Dirt Country go back to racing Saturday nights under the lights. Used to get there about 2 pm for 3 pm practice. Would give your Saturday mornings for other activities and other things that needed to be done, and your sunday was totally free also. Saturday night races were always attended well.

DMC needs to go back racing in the Dayton area. Like the track or not, their track prep has been decent the last couple years. They always had some of the best VET turn outs in the state. BUT......they made track changes this year, and I have heard people from B riders to Vets say they do not like the changes and wish they had not made some of the jumps like ethey did. I think some tracks turn people away because of the design.

Practice days..........NO Practice before race day. More show up for practice than race day. I get tired of hearing people say they need a million laps of practice on a track. Used to be we only had an opportunity to race some tracks because they never had practice, so you wanted to go race. Did Kenworthys ever have practice? Nope. Line up and race.

I have tons of ideas, but seems like no one wants to listen sometimes. How about the AMA, OMA, or CRA form a riders committee. A diverse group of seasoned racers that have ideas and opinions that organizations could discuss ideas and changes with? Maybe they would get some ideas to help grow the product.
 
John250 said:
I am going to hit this feaking dead horse once again.

Local races DO NOT have to run every freaking class that your have for Loretta Lynns! Have all your 40 classes for the qualifiers and Regionals, but at the local level cut the class structure back. Someone please give it a try! Also., the AMA should not allow people to race qualifiers in 3 and 4 regions. Make it one or two max, so that some of these guys go home and race some local races rather than qualifiers all the time.

I would like to see a track like Dirt Country go back to racing Saturday nights under the lights. Used to get there about 2 pm for 3 pm practice. Would give your Saturday mornings for other activities and other things that needed to be done, and your sunday was totally free also. Saturday night races were always attended well.

DMC needs to go back racing in the Dayton area. Like the track or not, their track prep has been decent the last couple years. They always had some of the best VET turn outs in the state. BUT......they made track changes this year, and I have heard people from B riders to Vets say they do not like the changes and wish they had not made some of the jumps like ethey did. I think some tracks turn people away because of the design.

Practice days..........NO Practice before race day. More show up for practice than race day. I get tired of hearing people say they need a million laps of practice on a track. Used to be we only had an opportunity to race some tracks because they never had practice, so you wanted to go race. Did Kenworthys ever have practice? Nope. Line up and race.

I have tons of ideas, but seems like no one wants to listen sometimes. How about the AMA, OMA, or CRA form a riders committee. A diverse group of seasoned racers that have ideas and opinions that organizations could discuss ideas and changes with? Maybe they would get some ideas to help grow the product.
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I have to agree with this. We used to make it a point to hit OIR because it was a great track and you got once a month to ride it. You had one practice session and your motos. I'd even race 3 classes just to get more time on the track. Kenworthys was the same. Steel city, red bud, all those tracks get huge turnouts on race and practice days because it's rare. Now, I know redbud is on a different level, it's unique and they'd probably get huge turnouts if they opened every weekend.

I know when those tracks around here ran once a month, had big turnouts. When you run every weekend, there's no sense of urgency to make it there. It's always, "next weekend"
 
Isn't it easier for the tracks to make ends meet with open practices? Much less overhead as I understand it. Same with GP's.
 
Ron505 said:
Isn't it easier for the tracks to make ends meet with open practices? Much less overhead as I understand it. Same with GP's.
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For sure it is much easier for a track to make $ just running practice. And I don't blame them at all for just doing that. Races need to be made more competitively priced in order for it to even have a chance to come back.
Every RACE track has been tamed down to cater to the "C" class rider. Jumps are all rounded, every double is now a tabletop, there is NOTHING technical on any track I have been too over the past few years. They are TT tracks with a stating gate. Again, build a track to cater to the largest class sounds like a fair business plan. But is it?
Racers are leaving because of the expense and lack of seat time. Practice offers a fix to both. But practice is not racing and then the true racers suffer because of everything mentioned above. True racers want big gates. They have to travel to "big events" to have that, which drives up the cost even more. A few bad results and the parents of little Johnny start to question is the sport right for them. Next thing you know, they are gone. Perfect example: Wyatt Brock. That kids was wicked fast on a 50 just last year. He has to travel to get competition, does not win. BAM. They quit racing. Now I have heard he may come back. But who knows.

Yes, this is ALL linked.

A track has to try something different. It only take one... Offer less classes, double the seat time and cut the cost.
Then how are you the track going to make money? Simple. you cut your costs.
Insurance cost too much? find a better rate. (Instead of reading the rest of this, use this computer to search insurance rates. I did and it only took seconds)

Trophies cost too much. Just give one to the winner. everyone one else in the top 5 gets ribbon.

Paying too much to flaggers? (Not likely) find a camera system at harbor freight. post them around the track with used stop lights you can buy at a government auction for $30 and have 1 or 2 people watch the monitors and turn on a light when someone goes down. One time expense of $500 and you only need 2 "flaggers" the rest of your career.

Fuel costs too high? Really? Diesel is less then $2 a gallon now. you can use that excuse when it goes back up to $4... not now. Still want to cut fuel costs? OK. water the crap out of it in the morning. Then you wont have to the rest of the day. Kenworthy did this every race. worked for them.

Spending too much on advertising? Nope. Pitracer is FREE.

A cheeseburger at Red Robin is $10.95. A cheeseburger at McDonald's is $0.99. You are not Red Robin. Stop charging like you are and wondering why no one is buying your product.

Its a crappy Tuesday and my back still hurts, so I may be a little crabby.... but still correct.
 
Stop spewing truth......it's taken as nonsense.

Ps....you're only right in your own mind. Everyone's right is someone else's wrong.
 
I can appreciate the ingenuity, but cutting overhead costs are a little easier said than done. I'd say a couple of your points may be valid for some tracks though.

Little Johnny has to get a trophy too for his participation these days. Can you imagine the complaints and lashing a track would take if there wasn't a flagger out there to protect a downed rider? What track marks their food up that much? Diesel fuel isn't the issue, the initial cost of quality, dependable equipment is. And I think we've already determined that you need to promote a lot more than just on Pitracer.

Again, I love to see thinking outside the box, and I believe some could probably try/benefit from some of this....possibly....lol
 
ck1racerx said:
Paying too much to flaggers? (Not likely) find a camera system at harbor freight. post them around the track with used stop lights you can buy at a government auction for $30 and have 1 or 2 people watch the monitors and turn on a light when someone goes down. One time expense of $500 and you only need 2 "flaggers" the rest of your career.
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Suppose you need someone to respond to an incident in a few seconds notice, rather than a minute or two. Yeah sure, practices almost never have flaggers around the track. But, during practice riders are self-policing for the most part. In a race, a rider will not stop in most cases unless instructed to do so by track personnel.
 
If it were easy everyone would do it. Most think it's as easy as the logic applied above. However, I don't think it's that easy to change the fabric of the sport. I know it, I live it. I will make this offer to anyone that's willing to push for this change. I will rent my facility to anyone who is willing to step up and put their money where their mouth is. You rent my place for $8,000, I will supply the equipment and the knowledge, which believe it or not exceeds ck1s promotion experience by 11 years, yea I do math too my Kawasaki saddled friend, AND you can run the classes you want. I will give you the structure, I will get you the contacts, I will set it all up, I will even help you run it, you collect the gate and entries, however you pay all other expenses. That's the deal. Let me know my schedule for 2017 will be filling soon. My facility easily sees 500-600 under this broken state of affairs, so you should make out like a bandit. Btw, I'm serious. Let me know, I need a good laugh
 
Every track puts the flaggers on big jumps with blind landings. This is good BUT 90% of crashes happen in the corners. I have not seen a single corner flagger all year at any track. Put a "track marshal" or two on a quad with headsets to the people watching the monitors. When they see a crash they flip on a light and radio to the marshal and they go help. This would be 100% better than the 15 year old setting 40 feet off the track texting.

The cheeseburger is an analogy. Not every track is red robin. But they all charge the same.
Yes. Have the option for every kid to get a "trophy". If a $1 4 inch trophy for a kid on a PW is making you lose money. Then you have much worse accounting problems than I could ever repair. After the PW class it is time for little Johnny to learn only the winner gets a trophy.
 
BriarcliffMx said:
If it were easy everyone would do it. Most think it's as easy as the logic applied above. However, I don't think it's that easy to change the fabric of the sport. I know it, I live it. I will make this offer to anyone that's willing to push for this change. I will rent my facility to anyone who is willing to step up and put their money where their mouth is. You rent my place for $8,000, I will supply the equipment and the knowledge, which believe it or not exceeds ck1s promotion experience by 11 years, yea I do math too my Kawasaki saddled friend, AND you can run the classes you want. I will give you the structure, I will get you the contacts, I will set it all up, I will even help you run it, you collect the gate and entries, however you pay all other expenses. That's the deal. Let me know my schedule for 2017 will be filling soon. My facility easily sees 500-600 under this broken state of affairs, so you should make out like a bandit. Btw, I'm serious. Let me know, I need a good laugh
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J.O. If you get 500 a race than you don't need any of the suggestions. No reason to change anything. BUT 8 out of the 10 tracks in your organization are not pulling those numbers. Yet their hands are tied when it comes to class structure because of the idea of points. Then if you want a superseries race they have to run quads. (Dirt country had like 14 in 8 different classes).
Point is one size does not fit all.
I don't want to run your place. You do a great job with it. And trust me, I am very happy for you. But the sport has to exist outside of Nashport.
Oh. And how about more than 2 races a year?
 
hershey said:
8k AND pay expenses?
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Well sure, just hand out ribbons, cut out most of your flaggers, run your equipment on h2o, and hire the Amish for a medical crew.

ck1racerx said:
J.O. If you get 500 a race than you don't need any of the suggestions. No reason to change anything. BUT 8 out of the 10 tracks in your organization are not pulling those numbers. Yet their hands are tied when it comes to class structure because of the idea of points. Then if you want a superseries race they have to run quads. (Dirt country had like 14 in 8 different classes).
Point is one size does not fit all.
I don't want to run your place. You do a great job with it. And trust me, I am very happy for you. But the sport has to exist outside of Nashport.
Oh. And how about more than 2 races a year?
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Thanks for the kind words, but this situation isn't that simple to solve, which is why I posted with a post dripping with sarcasm.

The biggest thing I see lacking Is a reason for people to get excited. Chilli town is the king of this. I think at one point I had it down, then they took a lot of notes and surpassed me by a mile. Promotion, location, track product. That's the recipe. You only owe me 2 beers for that.
 
BriarcliffMx said:
Well sure, just hand out ribbons, cut out most of your flaggers, run your equipment on h2o, and hire the Amish for a medical crew.


.
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You'll just listed all the expenses I'm paying for!!! Lol......

The battle series is a model for mx success. Let's face it, those are the races people travel out of state for.

It's my opinion after seeing these exact same posts across the country that the standard mx model is dead. You can list 8000 reasons (1 per dollar for JO) why it is but the truth is interest in it is not there any more. Everyone's reason is different. It seems the only thing that draws racers in droves are limited special events. I don't believe anything else will ever bring back the days of big gates every weekend.

So follow the successful tracks, model them. Run a couple open practices a month and 2 or 3 races tied to special events a year. Seems to me a couple tracks around here already have it nailed.
 
I think the flaggers should stay. Maybe be more careful of who is chosen to do it. A light is not going to tell a rider which side of the track a downed rider is going to be. Not sure what is said during the flaggers meeting, but hopefully they realize how important their job is during races and not turn to their phone for a call or text.
 
I run the 2 lowest turnout classes out there(open a/+25). So my only decision is to pick the big events or stick to practice. I've been to many local races where I've been the only rider in my class, it's not fun and it's not a race. This is not news to anyone, the numbers show my classes should be on the chopping block for changes.

Plus 25 needs reevaluated at the local level. IMO it makes sense to ditch +30 and make it +25 a/b and +25c. In turn have +35 and +45 classes in place of +40.
Or heck just make collegeboy 16-29. I know plenty of people in their upper 20s that are in college...

As far as A classes, combine em. Add an extra bike class open to everyone that needs that 3rd class to run.

That will improve numbers, or atleast make for bigger gates and better racing.
But none of that will ever work anyways because people will whine no matter what.

$.02
 
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Cost????
What about the Lipstick???

The "needs work"
1. Fence, needs put back up. All the idiot riders hanging on it everyday have torn it down
2. Stands. While the track is safe those stands up on the hill are crazy sketchy . One board wide? Not for this fat boy
3. Trees in the middle (down by the ponds). Trim those back some so you can see the whole track.

This is just general maintenance stuff. The place needs a little Chilitown lipstick. If you have been there then you know what I mean. You have a great facility. "Pretty" it up and crazy people like me notice

The bad:
1. 3 foot deep rain ruts. I am sure during a rain storm that place melts like a popcicle on a 100 degree day. But those things need filled in.
2. Drive way. By no means the worst I have ever been on but it does need some love. Rain ruts and pretty narrow in some places
3. Some maintenance on the other tracks. Peewee track is Rocky and like concrete. The arenacross track is pretty Rocky
4. Biggest issue by far. Zero flaggers. Like I say to all the tracks here in Ohio. If you are going to open to the public then you need to protect them. Yes the track seems safe but there still some areas that need flaggers incase a rider goes down. This is another track that could greatly improve with a caution light system. Someone sitting in a control tower with camera's in various areas with a full view of the track and some yellow lights that can be light when a rider goes down.
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When I get to the track I ask the girls which classes have the most entries and I sign up. If plus 25 has 5. I won't sign up. I just want to race a full gate damn it. But to do that I just pick 3-5 races a year. I'm bad for the promoter because I'm not a good paying repeat customer. But I would be if more people raced. If that makes sense...
 
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