Fan "roundtable" "rehash" Mon May 27

[truckguy]

I personally think that a mini stock/bone stock friday night event would be great. I also thought the V8 stock race last week made a decent show. I would love to see the Eliminator race make a return. One division a week gets the Eliminator race. Cash only, no points. I hope people remember these. I dont think there is any one solution to low attendance or low car counts. Rather a mix of a lot of things. Maybe a 3 day event like Autumn Colours with lots of divisions, maybe common rules with Flamboro, maybe a new division all together. If the fans want to see more racing every friday, then maybe when car counts are below a specified level, everyone runs double heat races.
JOHN, what do you think about bringing back the Eliminator races?

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[Snotrod]

I personally think that a mini stock/bone stock friday night event would be great.

As of right now there are 2 Friday nights that have Bone Stocks on the card. July 5th and August 23rd.

I know Mini-stocks are a different breed altogether, but I just don't think Delaware is the right track for a competitive 4cyl Mini-stock type class. They work better on the smaller tracks.

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[jcrashm2]

well speaking for myself as a fan living in hamilton i can tell ya, the drive to delly from here has to be the most boring drive to any track i go to...boringgggg...not the tracks fault...lol...and since we run ohsweken fridays now we hardly get that way more than 3 times a season but to see what has happened to the classes there, especially my faves the trucks from high 20's to now...i would rather see 20 or 30 minis buzzing around in close racing then 10 or 12 of something else spread all over that big track following each other...we bought the Otts old UGLY CAR for $300 and spent another $500 for repair parts and ex safety stuff, car finished 11th in points at Ohsweken by the way, and i brought it to the pumpkin smash last year and had a blast... havent been on a track as large since cayuga SS days, so i was a bit intimidated when i first got out there...it was a shame the weather was wet, racing in it was crazy and fun as i was crapping anytime i caught a rear wheel drive car, was running top 12 area till i just had to pull off cuz i was soaked and cramping up with just the dirt screen in the car, old guy that iam...and considering the mods could weigh 2500 with a 602 crate rocket in them and most minis weigh close to that and some even more, as long as they have safe cages and all the other safety stuff delly should consider it...

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[John]

In the interest of keeping the conversation going, I’ll add some thoughts on some of the posts.  None of this will have any answers in it to the bigger issues, but might help shine some light into the ongoing conversation:

They (track management) don't answer emails and like the previous owners, they don't talk to the guy at the bottom of the hill (Tony Novotny).

We’re pretty serious about returning e-mail, though admittedly at times our spam filter has been overly aggressive which has caused some e-mails to be lost.  If you had an e-mail that went unreplied, I apologize for that.  In general, if you haven’t heard back for 48 hours, something has gone wrong.  During the on-season the info@delawarespeedway.com address aims for a 24 hour reply time.  During the off-season it is admittedly longer, but during the on-season it’s my job - - if things are getting lost in transit I want to know about it so it can be handled.

Here's my way of thinking, do a 2 for 1 night, promote the he'll out of it on tv and radio. That's bound to get new bodies in the stands.

This was, essentially, the most recent Friday night, except 50% off instead of two-for-one.  Website hits showed we were in for a massive night: but to be truthful the promotion crashed when the weather took a turn.  We still drew a decent crowd, all things considered, but we didn’t win the round.

why delly doesnt have a 4 cylinder mini stock class running every friday is beyond me...

I hear this a lot - - yet, I am quick to remind people that the track does have a four-cylinder series called the Bone Stocks which is based on the simple idea of completely stock four cylinder vehicles that do not have a ton of money in them (typically around $1,000).  It models the most successful grassroots series in speedway history: the Enduro.  Granted, it does not fit the mold of the four-cylinder series going on up north, but the reason why is that we have chosen the four-cylinders as the entry-level platform for new drivers.  This means there are restrictions on setup and customization, which keeps the barrier to entry low.  The series also has rules that let us handicap the fastest drivers, which increases the challenge for them and gives newer drivers a shot.  It’s a series meant to build experience and have fun.  It’s competition-level is significantly less serious than any other program at the track.

The current program seems to be growing at a rate of 2-5 participants per event (it was estimated that with the High School challenge entries today’s race may have started 40 competitors), but more to the point,  the division seems to have some of the happiest and most satisfied competitors at the track running in it.  It is this joy for competition that I would like to see brought back to the weekly divisions.

I also thought the V8 stock race last week made a decent show. I would love to see the Eliminator race make a return. One division a week gets the Eliminator race. Cash only, no points. […] JOHN, what do you think about bringing back the Eliminator races?

The V8 Stocks, indeed, did work well.

The issue with the eliminator races, as you just proposed, is pure economics from a speedway perspective.  You mentioned it’s a cash-only race: where does the cash come from?  In a time of speedway belt-tightening on the regular payout programs do we pull from that?  I would expect the answer from the drivers would be “no”.  The eliminator races had a sponsor on them when they were running.  No sponsor, no eliminator races.  Driver’s were also hesitant to risk their equipment in such events.

On the flip side, however, the eliminators were an awesome and strong way to start the event.

Linkback: https://www.canadianracingonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=17610.msg107673#msg107673

[jcrashm2]

bonestocks, like bombers at ohsweken and purestocks at flammy and i hear varney, great classes for starting out and just have fun...i think if u just keep building on the 4 cylinder invitationals for now down the road u could have your own division and your own rules to keep it affordable...took flammy 3 years and then they had 40 cars running every saturday...

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[truckguy]

JOHN, thanks for the follow up. Can you remember what the eliminator payed to the winner for those 10 laps? Was it $150? Was it just for the trucks, or rotation through the divisions? I cant remember..
Derek Clark

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[John]

JOHN, thanks for the follow up. Can you remember what the eliminator payed to the winner for those 10 laps? Was it $150? Was it just for the trucks, or rotation through the divisions? I cant remember..
Derek Clark

Rotation for all divisions.  It was made up of the top-10 drivers from the most recent feature race, winner starts at the back.

There was a separate points system for it (a points fund) of some kind.  I do not know the amounts that were involved.

Linkback: https://www.canadianracingonline.com/smf/index.php?topic=17610.msg107677#msg107677

[napa55]

If you take the perspective of a person that has never been to the speedway, calling it 2 for 1 instead of 50% off sounds like a better deal and would be more likely to get them out for the night. I realize that the economics are the same, and it's just different wording, but it just sounds better.

Also, I personally didn't have any idea that there was a discount on tickets for Friday's show until I went to the website to check on family pricing for Saturday's show. I watch the local tv station every night for the news and listen to local radio stations for at least 10 hrs a day at work. I know that advertising is very expensive, but if I had no idea about it, how would a brand new potential fan know. So wouldn't that be an investment worth making?

I believe that a serious effort needs to be made to get brand new people in the stands, not only to get the front gate numbers up, but it also has the potential to increase the back gate numbers as well. Just think of all the small businesses owners in the area that don't have huge advertising budgets, but could justify a one or two thousand dollar sponsorship on one of the cars. I have mentioned sponsoring our return to the track to about a dozen of the business owners that I know personally, the main response that I have gotten is, "Delaware Speedway, where is that?" and I am talking about the Woodstock and Tillsonburg areas.

Another possible promotion would be to have a "staff appreciation" night and do something like 5 adults for $50. This could entice some of the small business owners to bring their staff out to the track. They would have a blast and possibly decide that their logos would look great on a car speeding around the track. Not only have we gained fans,but also more money to keep cars showing up.

I know that getting people to spend what little money that they do have at Delaware Speedway, is a very difficult task. These are just ideas that I have had that I believe would get some of the people that I know, that have never been, out to the track. That, in my opinion is what needs to be done first, fill the stands. Just run the program that exists now, promote to the people who have NEVER been to the track, then tweak the program to make it stronger. Not that quality of the racing is lacking, but the car counts.


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[Dougy109]

The track did a good job whipping that 50% off deal up in a hurry. I know I was pushing it from my shop, and people were going to head there....... until Mother Nature took a crap on us. My wife and I still went, and saw some good racing. If we all keep sharing info, and keep it forward.... it will come. Hopefully John can throw the idea out to re-try thet 2for1 deal next weekend, or %50 off.. whichever you call it. I will agree, 2for1 sounds good, and half off family pass??

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[Racechaser]

JOHN, thanks for the follow up. Can you remember what the eliminator payed to the winner for those 10 laps? Was it $150? Was it just for the trucks, or rotation through the divisions? I cant remember..
Derek Clark

Derek:
I believe it was a rotation through divisions for $150. Back in Novotny's day it was just for the CASCAR LM's only - $200 to win with a $300 bonus it you won from 10th place.

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[mike32]

I've been appreciative of how the kart tracks at various facilities have developed a very good pool of stock car drivers---I'm thinking Merrittville, Ransomville, Flamboro for example----and wondering if it's not too late for a kart track to be built at Delaware? I guess it begs the question that did going the mini truck/mini car (J car) route years ago not get the results expected?
 Still think the island rules are hurting-the lm's should have identical rules with other tracks. At the end of the season, we have to lock the promoters in a room and not let them out until they come up with a common rule book. And in Delaware's case, remember the Windsor area guys who have been lost to Toledo.                                                                                                                                          Points I do agree with-someone in the llm world has to move to an alternate day. As pointed out, Sunset and Barrie, Mosport and Peterboro, Varney and Sauble  each pairing 30 - 40 minutes apart run the same night. So far, the culling of the herd (Kawartha's closing) didn't seem to help. No body had the daring to move to Friday with the opening.
 I agree with the thoughts on Sunset-the crowd would look lost in Flamboro's huge stands. As far as full fields, 15-17 in the top two divisions is not a full field. Maybe the double heat bit gives the illusion of more racing than actually happens.
-other thoughts. It is getting harder and harder traffic wise for the the fans to get to many of these facilities. I agree with Crash re the 403 being boring but for me the first 20 miles on the QEW-403 is pure hell. Sunset is strictly back roads at the height of the cottage country traffic on Saturdays. Fridays to Ohsweken takes twice as long to get there as to come home. The Red Hill Creek Parkway in Hamilton has created new traffic jams on Saturdays where the highway enters the QEW at Stoney Creek making travels to the peninsula tracks aggravating.
-some folks mentioned the Hoosier 980 lm tire-in NY state, that's a super stock tire
-speaking of NY, the late models there have disappeared weekly with the exception of the extremely limited LAMOT class at Holland. Re the teams that are left, I can't seem to get it in their heads that it would be do-able to race the occasional special at Delaware or Flamboro rather than travel all the way to Motordrome south of Pittsburgh. It's only 70 miles from Buffalo to Flammy but I can't seem to get that in their heads. We sure have lost the international aspect in local racing
ps-Crash-kudos to a good looking 22 mini

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[John]

A few more thoughts.  I don’t mean to make it look like I’m cutting into people’s posts, just trying to break them down into bite-sized sections for discussion.  The speedway takes any fan feedback it can get seriously and I’d like to discuss a few of these points deeper:

If you take the perspective of a person that has never been to the speedway, calling it 2 for 1 instead of 50% off sounds like a better deal and would be more likely to get them out for the night. I realize that the economics are the same, and it's just different wording, but it just sounds better.

The speedway did wide circulation of two-for-ones a few seasons back (with that wording).  It may be hard to believe, but that coupon caused issues with spectators not understanding what they were getting in the offer.  It was decided to go with the percentage, since it makes it very clear you will be saving half on what you would normally spend.

I watch the local tv station every night for the news and listen to local radio stations for at least 10 hrs a day at work. I know that advertising is very expensive, but if I had no idea about it, how would a brand new potential fan know.

Successful advertising is a difficult bull’s eye to hit.  The immediate question is, which station are you listening to?  For the ad to work you’d have to be on the station, hear the ad, and listen to its content (and find its content appealing).  I spoke to someone yesterday who listens to one of the stations we advertise heavy on, but is not a motorsports fan.  They were suggesting they advertise on the station (that we already advertise on).  It is, in fact, likely “heard” the ad, but it didn’t catch their attention or they didn’t have their radio turned up.  You may have the radio on for 10 hours at work: but how much of that time are you <truly> listening to it, and how much of it is white noise music in the background?

If you were looking for it on television, you would not see it (television advertising has become cost-prohibitive at this time).  The amount required for a proper television branding campaign at this time is not possible to reach.  The dollars involved in all of this are staggering and I think would provide a shocker about how much resources are put into advertising by the track.

The speedway devotes massive resources to advertising each season - - however in an age of information saturation it’s admittedly tough to get noticed.  Advertising is somewhat of a chicken or the egg thing.  To reach the fans you have to advertise, but to be able to afford to advertise you have to have the resources to do it and my feeling is that the drivers are not up for another pay cut.

I believe that a serious effort needs to be made to get brand new people in the stands, not only to get the front gate numbers up, but it also has the potential to increase the back gate numbers as well.

This serious effort is already in progress, the recent fan forums and 180,000 coupon program is evidence of this.  My feeling is the serious effort needs to come from across the board: drivers & fans included.  There are some drivers and fans who are seriously helping out on this front, and making a difference.  I know of at least one late model driver who has his car out at a Canadian Tire today with a whack of schedules.  There are others who are no help at all, which is within their right, but is not going to help get us all to our goal.

If you’re a racer and the only time your car sees the light of day is on race day, you may need to rethink how much you’re helping your home track and more to the point, how much you’re helping your own sponsors.  I’m not trying to preach at the drivers, but it’s a fact:  Race cars sitting in garages do nothing to help anyone’s cause.

Another possible promotion would be to have a "staff appreciation" night and do something like 5 adults for $50. This could entice some of the small business owners to bring their staff out to the track.

The speedway offers aggressive group discount programs for corporations.  Depending on numbers it’s been between $8-12 per person.  We’ve had a hard time getting it to catch on.  Might be time for a refreshed campaign on this front.  I will look into this further to see if there’s a better way of presenting these programs.

I know that getting people to spend what little money that they do have at Delaware Speedway, is a very difficult task.

And yet: at other entertainment venues it appears to be a very easy task.  Hockey tickets even on the local level are significantly more expensive than Delaware’s (and when you factor in paying for parking, the case is even stronger).  Movie theatres are <<packed>> on Friday nights.  Netflix is big business.  People will spend on entertainment, but not necessarily on entertainment they haven’t experienced before.

The experience that all of these offer is very “comfortable” to people.  They’ve experienced it before, they know what to expect.  At Delaware, this is not the case.  We have to work our tail off for every new fan through that gate to overcome a series of objections to coming out.  In no particular order these usually are:
- Delaware Speedway, what’s that?
- Too far away.
- Too expensive.
- Racing is too dirty.
- It might rain / it’s too hot / it’s too cold.
- Racing is boring.

Again, this is not an answer, but may provide food for more discussion.

The track did a good job whipping that 50% off deal up in a hurry. I know I was pushing it from my shop, and people were going to head there....... until Mother Nature took a crap on us.

The web metrics about Friday are the surest indicator that we just got beat by weather on Friday.  Page visits to the homepage were up massively.  In fact, the web hits on Friday were well over double normal and were comparable to the Nascar Canadian Tire Series & Summer Showdown events.  If that event had not been weather affected, we expect the crowd would have been exceptional.

I guess it begs the question that did going the mini truck/mini car (J car) route years ago not get the results expected?

The Junior Racing League is (arguably) one of the more successful programs at the track right now and has fulfilled its role of a feeder series to Friday nights.  Of the 14 active super stock drivers, 5 of them were Junior Racing League / Cascar Junior competitors.  It’s working.  On paper it’s also one of the largest divisions.

Still think the island rules are hurting-the lm's should have identical rules with other tracks. At the end of the season, we have to lock the promoters in a room and not let them out until they come up with a common rule book. And in Delaware's case, remember the Windsor area guys who have been lost to Toledo.

Technical policy is a bit beyond the scope of promotions - - but suffice to say, all things are connected.

I’ll be getting in touch with our volunteer group this week about some grassroots-type things that we would like to attempt over the next two weeks.  If you’re interested in being on that mailing / contact list, drop me an e-mail: john@delawarespeedway.com.

Keep the discussion going.  It’s interesting reading.

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[napa55]

The promotion aspect of running a race track has got to be one of the most difficult jobs at the track, I commend you John for taking it on. You are absolutely correct, it is not totally the tracks job. It is just as much the responsibility of the competitors, team members, track staff, and the family members of all those people to promote the show. Just think, if every one of those people I have mentioned were to commit to get just one new person out to a show each week, how many tickets sales that would be.

I realize that makes it sound like a simple task. But maybe it is just that, simple. Instead of a handful of people spending tons of money and time to get 1000 people out, how about everyone spend a bit of time to get one or two people out. It's not a quick fix, but that's not what we should be going for, build a loyal fan base.

Another thing that may work is to figure out how to get people think that they are missing out on something spectacular if the choose to go see yet another fast and furious, or vampire movie, instead of experience a live motorsports event.

This is where everyone comes in. When at work on Monday morning and the regular chit chat that goes on, like what did you do this weekend? Instead of just saying that "I went to Delaware and man was it hot!" we should say something like "wow, you should have been there, you missed it, it was amazing, there was a 3 way battle for the lead 4 laps to go, and so and so pulled off the bump and run passed the leaders and went from 3rd to win the race, it was great, sparks flying on the track, fists flying in the pits, and wow those beers went down great. Do you want to come out next week cause those same 3 drivers will be back at it again, and I know that there's some bad blood there,what do you say,pick you up at your place, I can drive, cause I'm not going to miss a thing!"

How can they say no to that?

One of the main objections I hear is, "I have tried to watch stock car racing on tv, but man is it boring!" how do we argue that, cause in my opinion, they are right. How can we convince them that going to a live, local event is totally different than what's on the tube.

Radio and tv:

I know that tv commercial time is waaay too expensive, but what does it take to get the race results reported on during the sportscast on the 11 o'clock news? I will be honest right now, I don't stay to watch the sportscast, I'm done watching as soon as the weather is is over, and I have a feeling that alot of others do the same. Does it cost anything? Or is it solely up to the reporter as to what is reported on?

Now onto radio. What station does the track advertise on? Has any thought gone into the small stations, like the two in Tillsonburg, or Woodstock for example. I know that tillsonburg does the weather, news, marine forecasts, obituaries,(may want to stay away from that one) even missing pet reports. The are all "presented by".

It would sound like "today's weather is presented by Delaware Speedway, with short track stock car racing every Friday night. Located just minutes west of London off the 402. Racing starts at 7 pm with special ticket discounts for families and groups. Visit www.delawarespeedway.com for more information!"

They do the news and weather reports every half hour. I'm not sure the costs, but I have heard very small companies use it, even a single real estate agent will do it from time to time. I know it's very small market, so the costs should be small, one would think anyway. But advertising on 2 or 3 smaller markets may get you a better bang for your buck.

 I don't know, I may be way off. Just throwing some ideas out there.

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[notingtolose]

Delaware has a v6-4cyl division not a stright 4 cyl div. I agree 100% delaware needs a true week to week mini stock division for those who fell runnning a bone stock dosent work for them on saturdays but dont wanna jump right into a ss. Mini stocks have worked at EVERY track in ontario and if delaware doesnt see a reason to have a weekly mini stock division theyve screwed up cause theres guys that wanna run mini stock and they will goto flammy to do it.(that includes me) also if the track is to big for a weekly mini stick division it must be to big for bone stocks to right !!!!

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[Snotrod]

also if the track is to big for a weekly mini stick division it must be to big for bone stocks to right !!!!

Don, I feel that Delaware is too big for a competitive Mini-stock class because it would be like watching Nascar Sprint Cup cars race around Talladega, but in single file. The only reason why the 4cyl invitationals work is because you get cars from all walks of life showing up. It would be difficult to entice guys from other tracks to run their Dirt Mods or Mustangs at Delaware on a regular basis. That's why the invitational races work, because it's only a couple times a year.

Mini-stocks succeed at "EVERY other track in Ontario" because they are smaller tracks. Put small cars on a small track and it doesn't seem so disproportionate - the action is more condensed. The reason why a division like the bonestocks will succeed is because it's run as a cheap, entry-level Enduro format. Get 40-80 cars all running together and you've got yourself a show.

But if you think a Mini-stock class will work, than prove me wrong. I don't want to be negative towards a possible new division, but sometimes we have to be realistic.

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