Racing help.....

[jackdaniels]

Ok, first of all, i hope im posting this thread in the right place.
Ive seen great ideas in many many posts and threads..
So im looking for your ideas one more time.
I have a friend in Guatemala. He has a 1/4 track for drag racing.
Now hes trying to get more people to get to the raceway and more people to go and race as well as fans.
Everything is business and you guys have great ideas.
Any comments? critics?
thanks.

[ProLogic]

Wait so he owns a racing course and wants people to come to it? He should make deals with sponsors as well as deals with the racing teams. He will need to market it in Guatemala by putting up ads in the newspaper or maybe on T.V.

[jackdaniels]

Wait so he owns a racing course and wants people to come to it? He should make deals with sponsors as well as deals with the racing teams. He will need to market it in Guatemala by putting up ads in the newspaper or maybe on T.V.

Exactly. He spent too much money on building it.
The costs where to high. Now it sounds like easy, but the challege is that the behavior there is not the same as here.
People here loves racing, there is a non so common sport.
Now the idea is to get creative and attract people to race or just to watch.
I already talked to him to look for sponsors and media.

[Franakapan]

Get some well known/famous drag racers (if there are any) and get relevant/beneficial media involved.

[jboydni]

Find the local car mod shops and advertise in them, that would probably be one of the best places to attract your target audiance. Maybe also hand out flyers at the local school or Uni. I dunno what its like over there but there are afew carparks here that the 'boy racers' meet up at every week to go on a cruise or just generally talk about cars so if you knew any spots like that there then thats also someone to hand out flyers.

If you were really creative and bold you could maybe make some kind of pitch to the local Road Safety Governing body and convince them that they could save lives by convining young people to race in a controled safe environment as opposed to the street so maybe they would offer you some support.

I dunno if he runs competitions or not but that might be an idea. Also maybe he could make decals (no bigger than a 12 inch ruler) saying Guatemala Drag strip or sometihng and put one on his car and also offer it free to customers or maybe just to the winners of groups of people who come to race so its sort of a 'boast' to have one because you need to be fast to get one.

Look out of any car events in the area and maybe turn up to them with two busty blondes wearing custom made Guatemala Drag Strip T-shirts and hand out flyers/tell people about the strip.

Look into the costs of a short advert on the local radio. If you wanted to go all out you could even make small flyers and hand them out to people in ques for night clubs in town.

Hope some of that helps.

[jackdaniels]

Find the local car mod shops and advertise in them, that would probably be one of the best places to attract your target audiance. Maybe also hand out flyers at the local school or Uni. I dunno what its like over there but there are afew carparks here that the 'boy racers' meet up at every week to go on a cruise or just generally talk about cars so if you knew any spots like that there then thats also someone to hand out flyers.

If you were really creative and bold you could maybe make some kind of pitch to the local Road Safety Governing body and convince them that they could save lives by convining young people to race in a controled safe environment as opposed to the street so maybe they would offer you some support.

I dunno if he runs competitions or not but that might be an idea. Also maybe he could make decals (no bigger than a 12 inch ruler) saying Guatemala Drag strip or sometihng and put one on his car and also offer it free to customers or maybe just to the winners of groups of people who come to race so its sort of a 'boast' to have one because you need to be fast to get one.

Look out of any car events in the area and maybe turn up to them with two busty blondes wearing custom made Guatemala Drag Strip T-shirts and hand out flyers/tell people about the strip.

Look into the costs of a short advert on the local radio. If you wanted to go all out you could even make small flyers and hand them out to people in ques for night clubs in town.

Hope some of that helps.

Yes, deffinetely helps.
I mentioned a couple of those. I told him to put sants with beautifull women in malls or places where lot of people go.
Car events, but the good one, and i didnt think of thath one is talking to the Governing body.
Thats a good idea.
by the way. This is the website, and pics.

http://www.club-aceleracion.com/raceway.htm
its in spanish, but thanks for your help everyone!

[DJ Samson]

I race go-karts on ovals in America and I have alot of racing background with NASCAR and Indy Car teams. Sponsorship is extremely difficult to achieve without a large amount of fans.

I'm not sure of the racing scene in Guatemala but I'll try share some of the track owners that I know do here in the states.

You're going to need a consistent amount of drag racers each weekend. This means you have to establish a points system. For example, a driver receives 10 points for a win, 8 points for 2nd place, 7 points for 3rd, etc. This will keep the drivers coming back to battle for the championship. Keep in mind, you're going to have to rent out a lobby or hotel meeting area for a banquet. Obviously trophies are required but an extra incentive would be to offer a cash payout.

Now that you have a system for drivers, you can move onto fans. My local tracks dedicate races to a certain group of people. For examplle, on mother's day, the track offers 50% off on tickets for all woman. This creates press and it also attracts racing's minority group. Other special dedication races that offer ticket sales are for: firemen, police, children, elderly, High Schoolers (for graduation) and college students.

As far as press goes, you're going to have to research some newspapers/magazines/radio shows that are either: a) in your area or b) related to drag racing or preferabbly, Guatemalan drag racing. You're going to have to send race results and press releases to these publicaions. I read many racing newspapers that live on the PR sent to them by track officials. Also send out press releases before races to notify readers of the race, but make sure the news is "newsworthy."

Two of the largest drag racing sanctioning bodies in the states are the NHRA (http://www.nhra.com/) and IHRA (http://ihra.com/). I really don't know alot about these series, but if they or any other drag series is looking for venues contact them about sanctioning a race at your track. You'll have to pay the race purse but you'll recieve a portion of the ticket sales and sponsorship sales from the race name. By race name, I mean the business who pays for title sponsorship like "Toyota Grand Prix," "O'Reilly Nationals," etc. And now that I think of it, it may be wise for you to sell the track name. Instead of "Guatemala Drag Way," maybe you can sell it to a local company. Alot of tracks are named "Lowes Motor Speedway" and "Coca Cola Speedway."

A few things you have to take care of: make sure you have a concession stand at the track. A great future venture would be to build a cafe or restaurant at the track in a position so that customers can watch the racing while they eat. Obviously, if you don't have bathrooms porta johns are neccessary. A scoring tower is needed to keep track of each race's winners. Set-up a microphone/loud speaker to announce the action on the track to the fans. You can even call over drivers before/after their race to interview them.

Good luck and keep use updated.

[orangepant]

create days where people can come and drag race, kinda like when people take their own cars to race tracks becasue they cant speed on main roads

[Franakapan]

I think the guy will need a better website too - the current design looks amateurish.

[jackdaniels]

I think the guy will need a better website too - the current design looks amateurish.

yeah...
Ive seen its not updated and the design....
still a lot of improvement..
Hope he knows how to take good advise

[jackdaniels]

You guys are a bunch of grat ideas!!
i emailed my friend telling him about the forum and the ideas you provided.
He said hell look into improving them..
Thanks again and if you guys get another "spark idea" throw it in!!