Actual costs vs. fees

[Scott Siegel]

Even I have posted the (always expensive) breakdown of what a race weekend costs; entry, tires, fuel, motel, etc.

But I've been doing some thinking about all the discussion of LTN being SOOO expensive. When it really comes down to it, lets figure out what they make:

Entry: $200
** well, this entry included 5 gallons of gas and oil. At best they pay $5 per gallon (mixed), so $25 of that goes straight to the gas guy. So we actually give SKUSA $175 per person. At LTN there were 7 S2's. 7x175=1125. The pay out was at least $300, $200, $100. So 1125-600= $525. So the S2 class paid SKUSA $525 TOTAL.

There is always the pit spot, $75. Which I know SKUSA does not pay Talladega for the spot, BUT Talladega obviously charges SKUSA for RENTING THE TRACK FOR 3 days (I bet it's a lot of money too.) Divide the $75 per person into the 3 days, and we basically paid $25 per day per person. I know there are many of us that happily pay $100 per person per day to rent Talladega, just for testing. By comparison, $25 a day to race is pheneomenal.

So if you consider the $75 going to pay for the track, I bet with a small crowd this DOESN'T EVEN PAY FOR THE TRACK ITSELF.

So while SKUSA is NOT paying for the spot, I bet they are having to pull from the $175 entry IN ADDITION to the $75 for renting Talladega.

If you wanted to ride for 3 days, you'd be hard pressed not to burn at least 2 sets of tires, and 5+ gallons of gas. And you always have to eat and sleep somehwere, these costs can not be "put on" SKUSA.

I guess my point here is just that everybody complains about how expensive SKUSA is. But what SKUSA charges is the least of the expenses. There's nothing they can do about the tires, fuel, motel, etc. The only thing they do for expenses is the entry. I finished 2nd, got $200 dollars, and my whole entry was paid for. IN fact my entry AND FUEL was paid for. So, if you really look at it, SKUSA paid me 5 gallons of gas to come play at Talladega for the weekend.

Writing this was highly enlightening for me. I feel much better now. I hope everybody can see that SKUSA is obviously not in it for the money, and they do a pretty good job of putting on a race. Now, if we could only figure out what took so long to post a schedule...


Scott
<><
Siegel Racing

[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: Scott Siegel ]

[John Denman]

The cost of racing escalates from a consortium of costs, and entry fee is just a small part. I agree the cost to rent Talladega is pretty big, especially when its split between just a few people.

We compete in a SKUSA Regional Series that is run absolutely first class. But the entry fee has nothing to do with this quality. As a result we pay 3 times the price of other regional series (IKF & KART) per entry, and thats for two of us.

There are other expenses we didn't anticipate such as a bottom end rebuild every 3 races, but thats not due to SKUSA. Its just that with the inflated enty fees we could have paid for these expenses and more.

What would make more money for an organization;

20 entries at $275 each, or 125 entries at $75, and sell fuel seperately.

I get the impression that whoever is setting the entry fees feels that if the racers have enough money left over for a custom helmet paint job, they aren't paying enough money to race. Somehow, I don't think I am alone on this....

[Marc Miller]

I will go back over and over reading Scott's post as many times as I can, but in the end I always ask.

"What do I care what they make?"

A promoters job is to promote an event to the point where they can afford to facilitate a race at a fair price for the competitors and with a good amount of media attention (in short words)

The cost of the entry fees was a small part of it. In addition to the WAYYYY late notice of rule postings (spec tires, spec fuel, class structure), there was also LITTLE to NO promotion of this event except for a date.

I also made sure since I had my tire program set for the year that the tire rule was open (I asked twice) and was assured it wouldn't change from the previous years (where it had been open). The fact that I would need to purchase nearly $500 in tires didn't sit well as this was something that came up only weeks before the event.

The fuel you received was 5 gallons, and knowing that I ALWAYS go through a minumum of 7 gallons at a road race venue, I would have to purchase additional fuel (at a cost which is over double what my normal fuel/oil is).

These costs are DIRECTLY related to decisions that the promoters made to be able to pay for this race, making me UNABLE to pay.

If the promoters would have provided "pre-media", early notification of the rules and "spec info", as well as sought out some race or class sponsors for this event, then maybe, just maybe the costs of going to this event (and the cost for the promoter to pay for the track) would have been much less while possibly giving the opportunity for some racers to adapt their budget accordingly in advance (not a few weeks).

Glad you feel better Scott... but I don't *grin*

MM

[ August 14, 2001: Message edited by: Marc Miller ]

[Charlie Tackett]

Everyone realizes the promotor has to make enough to cover the expenses and I would also hope, enough to make some profit. I agree with most of what Mark said, especially on the tire thing. Virutally every RR series in the country runs open tires. We have a tire sponsorship and are very loyal to them. Having to purchase a competitors tires at full retial would have meant going out and purchasing, like Marc said another $500+ in tires. An unplanned adn undesired expense and money that would have paid for the drive and motels!!

The other thing is what was alluded to in another thread. It has becoem obvious with the last two years that this event is not as some may view it, the long track nationals for RR125s. What this is is a one-off chance for SKUSA sprint racers to go race on a long track, period. At this point and time, IMHO, the closest thing there is to a RR125 National Championship event is the Road America SuperNationals. You have entrants in that class from almost every major RR organization/series. Even an occassional top SKUSA driver. Let's face it, at this point and time, the ProMoto and SKUSA is a sprint based organization. That's their focus and their strength. It is what they shold concentrate on. Maybe in the future they can expand more into long track racing, but that is a ways off, IMHO.

A National long track series/championship is more likely to come thru efforts independent of any national organization. Effort's such as JRs or Zalud's.