Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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Ask Frank

RBN The RacinBoys Broadcasting Network
http://www.racinboys.com/
 




 

My wife told me if I went to one more Sprint Car race 
she would leave me.................I'm sure gonna miss 
that ol' gal. 

I will make a stab at the reason and say that Toby probably had a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) in discovering that fair boards are not easy to work with. I have had experience working with fair boards from county to state level and will contend that ALL fairboards suffer from three ills that make it difficult for any promoter to be successful. First of all most all fairboards have far to many members that make decision making difficult when 12-20 opinions must be heard. Secondly many fairboards of multiple members have folks on those boards who do not have the slighest idea of what is happening on the race track on THEIR fairgrounds, and thirdly fairboard members are much like driver owned racing associations in that they have far to many self-serving rules, mandates, expectations and mostly the authority to void any idea that does not meet with their approval and make that decision final with no appeals. In isolated situations some fairboards do have members who do know the value of the race track, do understand the needs of promoters and will listen, discuss and compromise ideas and rules. Unfortunately these few are far, far outnumbered by other fairboard members. Just an opinion and completely unsolicited.

If this is true then....

Congrats Knoxville Fairboard, you have finally ran off the only option you had to bring the Knoxville Raceway to the next level. Not every member is bad. However, a majority of the board are pessimistic guys who have no idea what the term "customer service" means. There is a reason a fairboard only runs a couple of tracks around the country these days. This brings me to ask..What exactly does the fairboard do? Other than seeing Al Versteg sit on a golf cart 95% of his time I dont see fairboard members do anything productive besides taking tickets. They scoot around the track on golf carts (half are not race fans) with huge ego's and have the reputation of being rude to the fans.

Every decision they make is not to improve the Knoxville Raceway or the fairgrounds but to make more money. The only thing these guys dont understand is that by price gouging your current race fans, you will not be making any new ones. Most complaints the fans sent towards the Knoxville Raceway were never even given to Toby. The ones that were, he answered personally and made things right.

Toby did an outstanding job in the 1 year he was here. Did everything in his power to get the show started on time, over in a decent time, and was always meeting with people with an open mind towards the future. Until the Fairboard can give over full control to the actual promoter I see the steady spiraling downfall to continue on...

That being said, Knoxville Raceway is lucky to have John McCoy and Brian Stickel. Without them, I fear some of the fairboard members would already be planting their corn on the straightaways.

my rant is over for now

-Austin Rankin

all true.

why haven't race fans in marion county, iowa realized that they need to go out and vote in these fairboard elections?

I have my thoughts posted in my Hawkeye Ovals blog here. http://hawkeyeovals.blogspot.com/

Eric Arnold
Social Media Manager & Track Historian
Knoxville Raceway

Keep It Real

West Liberty (Iowa) Raceway, (stock car track, I know!) is also run by a fair board of around 20-some members.

And a perfect example of why a fairboard should shut up and stay completely out of the way of the racetrack promoter.....WL has never recovered from the 2004-2007 time frame when they tried to run the place themselves.

Agreed. Although many West Libertians are still angry about how the promoter took profits from there and put them into one of his other tracks.

I said it before Toby was hired and I'll say it again now.

The Fairboard needs to hire someone and give them free reign and a budget. You are hiring them to do (1) thing and (1) thing only. That is to turn a profit.

This year saw better crowds for the WoO Shows, Harris Clash, 360 Nationals and 410 Nationals than the past 5 or 6 YEARS and it sounds like the crowd for the LM show will be very good as well. That tells me that what Toby was doing WORKS to make a profit (which is ultimately the ONLY goal.

The Fairboard needs to only work on (1) Improvements to the facility and (2) the MARION COUNTY FAIR (that is what they are SUPPOSED to do).

If Toby is a candidate for the job in Vegas, I wouldn't blame him for taking it, he may be running one of those big tracks in the next few years (the whole shebang). If he got run out of town by the Fairboard however, that I have an issue with as both a VOTER in the election and as a FAN of the Races.

I feared something was up when I attended the AMA motorcycle races last week and the AMA thanked Brian Stickel and his staff for being so hospitable to them and he didn't mention Toby (that tells me the decision had already been made at the Fairboard meeting the first Monday of the month).

Now, I know there are MANY Fairboard members that feel like they OWN the track and that they need to get rid of Brian Stickel as well (they actually thought that they were going to when they hired Toby and have Toby do both jobs).

As far as the candidates listed in Eric Arnold's blog, I don't know any of them from a stranger, but just as an outsider I can give reasons to strike some names off the list immediately.

Andy Adamcik - brother-in-law of Jon Agan -- you can't have someone related to a competitor in charge even if there is no favortism, some fans will say there is (and some competitors may as well). - BAD BUSINESS

Steve Beitler - he owns Skagit - no way he is walking away from a huge investment like that to work for 24 guys

Chuck Spicer - not sure the passion for dirt track racing is there - they have a STAFF to do the work in Newton, lots of "hands on" is required in Knoxville.

Terry McCarl - his kids and himself are competitors, enough said

Steve Sinclair - seems to do a good job with the IRA, but isn't he part of SLS promotions, seems like a conflict of interest as he spends a lot of time promoting WoO events at other tracks and likely can't give 100% to the job.

Tommie Estes, Jr. - Why would you leave Dodge City, KS? The facilities are newer, require less maintenance and far less PRESSURE and more than likely would have to take a pay cut.

Sam Hafertepe, Sr. - has a son who competes (occasionally @ Knoxville) - same type of issues you'd have with McCarl or Adamcik

Craig Armstrong - would be a GREAT PROMOTOR and would make sure Knoxville got the TV and Radio Exposure it Deserves. However, doesn't have a big background in non-asphault racing and would demand a much higher salary than the fairboard is willing to shell out.

If any of the above are hired, I have no issue with it all.

The BIGGEST issue is that the Fairboard needs to hire someone and get out of the way. There is ZERO reason for ANY of them to ever be in the ticket office, the concession stand, the beer stand, etc.. They hired a General Manager to take care of all those things, however they don't allow them to do the job. They still want to be in charge and the people they are PAYING to do certain jobs aren't doing them or leaving when the Fairboard members arrive on raceday.

I can't count how many times I've heard Fairboard members complaining openly about how they see so many different ticket prices on tickets as people enter the raceway. Their immediate complaint is that EVERY ticket should cost $15 and don't understand why there is a NEED for Group Discount tickets (same as EVERY other sports venue in America does for events), Sponsor discount tickets (the nightly sponsor can have employees purchase tickets at a cheaper rate), or even (GASP) Free tickets for radio giveaways, TV contest giveaways, etc..

MOST of the Fairboard members seem to have NO business sense, yet they THINK they do which makes it that much worse. EVERY business in America does special promotions (rebates on cars, buy one get one 1/2 off, % off discounts, special promotions of $1 admission, $1 drinks, $1 hotdogs (Principal Park in DesMoines). TO GET NEW FANS AND ATTENDEES, YOU HAVE TO GET THEM THERE THE FIRST TIME. CHARGING A FAMILY OF (4) $46 FOR ADMISSION TO SOMETHING THEY'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN WILL NOT GET YOU NEW CUSTOMERS AND LIMITES YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE AS WELL.

More weight, more regulation, more similarity in the 
cars.... that will ensure plenty of thrills for years 
to come.  Only the most average talent behind the 
wheel will be needed with such awesome equipment on 
the track!
minthess 8.28.14

artie, I doubt that would happen but it seems to me he would be a good choice. He knows how to get things done!

 
I LEARNED ESP FROM MY MOM

"PUT YOUR SWEATER ON: DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW WHEN 
YOU'RE COLD?"