The Show is the important part
I have announced boat races throughout the country for the Nor Cal clubs as well as for the USTS the last 15 to 20 years. I have watched with interest as we put on great races and the only ones who see them are the racers and their families.
Yet, when we go to Depue for the Nationals the local and Peoria papers estimate that we have about 50K for the weekend of racing. Why are the nationals able to draw, yet when we race at Depue on Fathers Day weekend and the stocks race the next weekend we can not draw flies. Why I ask? Then I look at my own kids. Not one of them is interested in motorsports and in fact wonder how Dad became so enamored. They are into the computers, baseball and other sports, not that it makes them bad, but they have other choices. TV, video games, and other things keep them from looking at other sports.
I think if you had a course where you could race 5-6 times a year you could build up a fan base. Promote the heck out of it, radio, tv, newspaper, parades interviews, get the drivers inneraction with the fans going, give them someone to cheer for.
The other area would be to do what USTS has done and put about a 4 hour program with full fields. Last thing a fan, or me the announcer wants to see is a 4 boat parade. Limit the number of classes. What did that heritic say, yes I did say limit the number of classes. I know in some areas the 25 classes are needed to accomplish getting the entry money to pay the insurance and sanctions. But, think about what that 10am to 6 pm schedule does to you, the fan, and the guy who gets to run only one heat becasue we ran out of time before his second heat gets to run.
I do not have the anwers to all of this, but I do not believe we can go back to what I and all of us thought were the "good ole days." I think we need to make these the "days", by figuring out what the fan wants and give it them.
I know some areas of the country have stock, Mod, Pro, Inboard, and OPC all running on the same program and I do not argue for purity and I think neither does the fan. They want to see a well run program, little down time, other things to do, while there and we can do it.
Ray