RENO, NV (NOV.30) – The annual RPM Workshop brings the short track industry to the Eldorado Hotel and Casino for two days of sharing formation and ideas. Short track promoters and vendors have been gathering her for over 40 years.
Rick Murdock, Director of Casino Marketing at the Eldorado welcomes the attendees at the RPM Workshop.
After welcoming the attendees RPM boss Stewart Doty turned the lectern over to Rick Murdock, Director of Casino Marketing. He welcomed everybody and stated how pleased the Eldorado is to host the Workshop as it helps fill rooms during a slow period.
The Workshop is part of Race Promotion Monthly, the industry trade magazine. Reno’s meeting is the first of three with the other two being a one-day event in Indianapolis then the big meeting during Daytona Speedweeks.
Stewart Doty, editor of Racing Promotion Monthly gets the RPM Workshop going Thursday morning
Stewart compared the transition the short industry is going through to how the Eldorado is addressing a changing market.
“The analogy is to give people different things to do so they can enjoy themselves,” he said. “… the problem is how to introduce our sport to a younger generation that never learned how to shift a manual transmission. Suddenly everything has changed.”
The first speaker was Kendra Jacobs, who works for Spire Sports and Entertainment. She’s the marketing director of Knoxville Raceway and discussed how the track approaches getting the word out about its national and weekly events out to the public.
Kendra Jacobs, marketing director for Knoxville Raceway talks about how she works in a fast changing marketing landscape.
“When I got this job they sprung on me their weekly program, which was struggling,” she said.
Her answer was to start “town hall meetings,” at the track so fans could discuss what they liked as well as what they didn’t like.
“It got to be a great conversation with fans,” she said. “We walked away from the meeting with the best suggestions to make our consumers and fans happy and we also did fan surveys. Number one grievance of race fans is that time matters so we stopped having six hour events.”
The added constant communication with fans is necessary. They also shake up the schedule and have special nights, like college night, and other things.
“In this day an age you can’t afford to lose fans,” she said. “Use social media for great ideas from reasonable fans. Make sponsors partners who become stakeholders. A big part of my job was learning when to shut up and learn to listen.”
This past August the Sprint Car Council as formed with the focus on improving safety as well as rule consistency and maintaining costs.
One member of the Council is Steve Sinclair from K&K Insurance, a long time sponsor of the meetings as well as insuring racing events. He also operated the IRA Sprint Car series out of Wisconsin for the past 25- years.
He explained The World of Outlaws had a meeting every year and invite tracks and 410 as well as 360 sprint car series and tried in include everybody on rules changes and such.
Steve Sinclair, from K&K Insurance is on the Sprint Council, a body formed to help improve the safety in this type of racing.
“Tony Steward, when he bought the All Starts, took that meeting a step up,” he said. “We’re having at least four or five of them a year now it includes all the series and sprint car tracks across the country and we’re just trying to get on the same page.”
He mentioned two tragic racing accidents this past year of opened up a lot of eyes to some needed safety improvements. The focus now is making changes to the car’s roll cages but ones most teams can afford.
The Council is taking ideas from the best crew chiefs and chassis builders. Currently the World of Outlaw series now mandated two bars be added to cages for the 2019 season.
He said the reception to the council has been pretty good and added they aren’t trying to put any track out of business. The council isn’t a business entity but just an association or group.
“We have meetings, we have committees, there are track safety, rules committees and I would be on the track safety one as I’m one of the insurance guys,” he said. “All your major players are on board and I think it’s a good thing.”
The second morning speaker was Steve Beitler, the 2017 Promoter of the Year and recent inductee to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. He also owns and operates three tracks Skagit Speedway, Gray’s Harbor Raceway and another track that only has a part-time schedule.
Before he spoke long time friend Candy Jager used a slide presentation to give his background.
Beitler spoke of how he won the regional title four times before earning the national award. This comes from the vote of his peers in the industry.
Steve Beitler, 2017 Promoter of the year and recent inductee to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame relates how he markets and operates three tracks.
“We started focusing on each night, growing each night and making it better,” he said. “We went back and analyzing what we can to with the least attendance nights. Last February when it was announced we won Promoter of the Year I was chocked up.”
Being a sprint car driver was childhood dream come true when he raced in the World of Outlaws Series. After 10 seasons he was burned out so bought a parts store and grew that business.
Noticing that Skagit Speedway was getting a new owner about every two years he wanted to buy it. Thanks to a friend the money was raised and the track was his.
Beitler believes in slow growth and goes by how Sam Walton founder of Walmart, surrounded himself with good managers.
“I also met John Brickford, Jeff Gordon’s stepfather who said, ‘if you’re going to be professional, look professional,” Beitler said.
After that he invested in good-looking uniforms for the track personel. Then worked on advertising by using signs all over the place
“Probably the hardest thing is bringing the new customer but once you do it once it’s easier. The key is to get them in your stadium. Always start on time and run our show within two and a half hours, we start at 7 p.m. and want to be done by 9:30 and no later than 10 p.m.
Now Beitler runs three tracks, had two traveling series and runs a production shop. He also appreciates his good staff that helps keep things running.
The afternoon session featured Toby Kruse and Darren Shanley, who created Speed Shift TV. They use the digital product, both streaming and social media to bring more fans to a track.
This enables them to offer marketing for a track that will keep fans involved, helps attract advertisers and helps drivers grow their fan base.
Toby Kruse and Darren Shanley explain how they use Speed Shift TV to expose more people to racing using the digital world.
One thing they stressed is that SpeedShift is pay-for-view so there is no risk to a track due to revenue sharing. In fact they felt live and post-production will likely surpass that of any paid advertising. And the video content can provide a track or series with a potential extra revenue source.
After that there was a time to visit the vendors in the exhibit area. Then the room was divided in half for breakouts.
The one sponsored by K&K Insurance had three topics, “Should I Race Every Other Week”, followed by “Emergency Incident Management” and “The Evolving Venue”.
In Thursday’s breakout round tables one topic was “Should I Race Every Other Week?”
Next door was the Hoosier Racing Tire meetings that covered “Sealed Spec Engines, Here to Stay”, as well as “Paved Track Operations” and “A Better Driver’s Meeting.
Then the Workshop recessed until Friday morning. The second morning session is for legal situations involving the industry as well as a session where questions from promoters can be answered
The usual host Cary Agajanin wasn’t able to attend but two of his law firm associates were there. Both are from the law firm of Agaianian, McFall, Weiss, Tetreault and Crist LLC.
Their presentation was the year’s Case Law Summary.
During the review they stressed the importance of the waiver/release drivers, pit crews and people in the pits need to sign. That is a contract but there is also the assumption of risk that can come into play for defense of a track.
Don Ornelas said, “The ‘Assumption of Risk’ usually applies to contact sports including motorsports where the participant assumes the risks of injury inherent in the sport. Negligently increasing the risk of injury can defeat a waiver. You need to minimize risks but also do your best to not increase the risk of people getting hurt.”
Don Ornelas (L) and Paul Tetreault filled in for Cary Agajanian in the legal presentations for the Workshop.
Another subject was where minors are racing.
“Every year the issue of minors in racing comes up,” Paul Tetreault said. “It’s whether or not parents have the right to waive right against their children. There are 17 states that do this, 15 states say no and a dozen states haven’t decided.
“This picture changes year to year but this year it remained but expect changes in the future. So if a state enforces it have the proper waiver and release agreements.”
They also suggested a traveling series needs its own waivers although track will have their own.
There was a brief pause to introduce three sponsors, Bill Martens from Chevy Performance, Jay Simes from Simms Graphic Designs and Joe Vinson from Raceceiver
Then it was time for the Pro Bono hour where the lawyers answered specific questions from the promoters
After that there was the lunch break and all were encouraged to visit the vendors. Those exhibits ran from tires, weather insurance, graphics and other things.
The Workshop is a banquet of ideas for promoters no matter if they are veterans or new to the business.
In fact one traveling series credits these meetings as helping them get going. That is the Las Vegas based Late Model Truck Series and Mike Riefler and Gary Wyatt were present at the Workshop.
Mike Rieflen from the new Late Model Truck Series credits what he and Gary Wyatt learned from the Workshop that enabled them to set up their series.
“It’s our first year and let me tell you we couldn’t do it without the RPM show here. The community here is wonderful, couldn’t get this kind of connection with other promoters to figure this whole things out. It’s all new to us,” Riefler said. “The only way we’re able to do anything and take the steps forward that we have this first year for us in the Late Model Truck Series is because of the connections we’ve made here.”
The LMTS is a mini touring series that races at Havasu 95 Speedway, Orange Show Track, Speedway at Willow Springs and the Bull Ring at Las Vegas.
“We’re only pavement purpose built race trucks,” he said.
For further information on this series please check their website at www.lmtstruck.com.
Before the afternoon sessions got going Doty asked the group to suggest subjects for future Workshops. Then he turned the floor over to Mike Lysakowski, a consultant at Jennerstown Speedway.
Several times during the Workshop Lysakowski had been giving our “Marketing Minute,” suggestions.
His background is public relations and he’s made a living announcing races as well as being the first announcer for the World of All Stars racing series.
Mike Lysakowski explaining how he uses the digital world to help attract fans to Jennerstown Speedway.
“Word of Mouth is the best advertising,” he said. “It all comes down to exceeding expectations. I encourage you to do research about Word Of Mouth advertising an making money with your announcer.”
He gave several examples of how a track’s announcer can make the facility money, especially if a video of the race is being made. This entails taking to the viewer rather than just those in the stands as well as connecting sponsor names.
“The important thing is the entertainment value,” he said. “Be sure to tell the announcer he has an important role with first time fans.”
Then gave some do’s and dont’s announcers should follow as well as having pre-recorded parts for a special night or the track’s sponsors.
At the end of his presentation Lysakowski handed out a list of things tracks might want to try for keeping fans, sponsors as well as attracting new fans to the sport.
Finally it was time for the last two breakout sessions of the Workshop. The roundtable session sponsored by K&K Insurance focused on “Dirt Track Operations” and the “Elusive Race Fan”.
The Hoosier Racing Tire round table covered “As The World Turns, about how promoters can leverage social media” as well as “Now Hiring,” when promoters need to fill staff positions.
As the Workshop wound down Doty was asked his thoughts about trends he’s seeing.
“Trends, it’s hard to know. Everybody would like to figure out how to communicate with younger people better,” he said.
After that he gave his thoughts about this year’s Workshop.
“We’ll we’re in the Eldorado Hotel Casino and it could not have gone better. There’s not a more professional staff in the country,” he said. “The people have liked what they are talking about and have had fun but I haven’t gotten my reviews yet. This is a tough crowd, they’re professionals, they know their business.”
After Reno he heads for Indianapolis for a one-day session on December 5th at the Speedway. After that it’s off to Daytona for the next Workshop February 10 to 12.
Next year, if all goes well, the RPM Workshop returns to the Eldorado from November 27 to 29.
REPORTER’S NOTE: There is a photo gallery at the end of this article.
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