The AMSOIL Championship Off-Road Series fosters a partnership among its tracks in a number of ways, including monthly calls with track representatives. “To be successful we all had to be on the same page,” said Frank DeAngelo. “We work very hard and very closely with those groups to make sure everybody’s sharing in success.”

An improved experience can be had by all when race promoters work together to unify rulebooks and stagger events and programs.

We have written plenty about the negative effects that the pandemic and its aftermath have had on racing in America. Those very effects, though, may be doing something positive when it comes to the relationships between local race tracks.

“Because of our current situation, with gas shortages, tire shortages, supply chain shortages, you name it, we’re starting to see tracks working together,” said Larry Boos, whose promotional efforts encompass the Montpelier Motor Speedway in Montpelier, Indiana, and the Gas City I-69 Speedway in Gas City, Indiana. “Short tracks in America are beginning to suffer, and this is probably one of most challenging years that a short-track operator is going to face. Now it’s really a matter of finding the way to survive.”

Boos made it clear that he had “no answers” to this situation, “but I do have suggestions” as to how tracks could be successful by cooperating, he added.

Scheduling: The practice of booking against another race track’s major event is disappearing, according to Boos. “More tracks are saying, ‘You stay off my special event and I’ll stay off yours,’ so everybody can get that payday they need to remain in business.”

Tracks that limit racing to a special event, or racing just once a month, “are doing much better, because they’ve induced a supply-and-demand thing,” he added. “There’s a demand for racing, but racing every week can diminish that demand.” Ideally, he said, “if there are three or four tracks within a 100- to 150-mile radius that all run on a Saturday night, they could agree that one takes the first Saturday of the month, another takes the second Saturday, and so on. That way race fans know if it’s the third Saturday of the month, they’re going to XYZ Speedway.”

Class specifications: “Promoters want to make rules specific to themselves, so their superstars stay at their track,” said Boos. Making the rules more common so racers can race at multiple tracks helps to keep car counts up, “so we’re trying to do away with the 14-page spec sheet that would require cars to race only at our facilities. We’ve taken the best of the rules from tracks within a 75- to 100-mile radius and tried to come up with a common set that would allow drivers to go from track to track.”

Cross-promotion: “The old-school way of thinking was you ignored the track down the road because it was your enemy,” Boos said. “Now it’s your ally. Saturday night at Montpelier we’re announcing all the Friday night races coming up at Gas City, Limaland over in Ohio, Shady Hill down the road, or Kokomo. Race fans are going to find out, so why hide it from them?”

Cross-promoting will also “amp up your game,” Boos contended. “You’ll notice pretty quickly if you’re promoting the track down the road and you see your car count or attendance going down. You’d better see what they’re doing that you’re not, so you can keep race fans at both places.”

Implementing these or other ideas would take a roundtable discussion, Boos said, with interested parties in one room and a “reputable moderator” there to make sure the “little track operators don’t feel like it won’t do them any good because all that’s going to be there are the big dogs, and they won’t listen to the little dogs.

“It’s going to take us all working together,” he added. “Some are going to have to give, some are going to have to take. But hopefully at the end of the year the bottom line is rosier for all.”

Where It’s Working

“Two and a half years ago, off-road closed-course racing was dying,” admitted Frank DeAngelo of the AMSOIL Championship Off-Road series, based in Albertville, Minnesota. The track owners in the upper Midwest came together in search of a sanctioning body and contacted the International Series of Champions (ISOC). “They do snowmobile racing,” DeAngelo explained, “and about 10 years ago turned that series around when it was ready to go under as well.”

In creating the AMSOIL Championship Off-Road series, ISOC built a business model that’s “kind of unique,” DeAngelo said. For each race on the tour, “we’re responsible for everything that involves running the races and the coverage of them. The tracks are responsible for promoting their event and maintaining the track while we’re there. They pay a sanctioning fee to us, and they keep all the funds from the gate, concessions, food, and the vendor area.

“We taught them how to work together and have been up front with roles and responsibilities and how we can help one another,” he added.

DeAngelo pointed to two key practices that help make this work for all concerned. One is what he called the “sacred date.”

“In most cases, the event they have with us is probably one of the larger, if not the largest, in their area. This year, instead of signing a one-year deal, we signed a three-year deal with the tracks. This was good for the stability of the series, but it also enabled the tracks to say, ‘On this date, every year for the next three years, this race is coming here.’ That has helped them and allowed other tracks close to them to plan around their schedule.”

ISOC also instituted monthly track calls, where “a representative from each track gets on the phone with us, and we talk about anything that’s new with us or on their end,” DeAngelo said. “I felt in order to be successful we all had to be on the same page, and the only way to be on the same page was to treat everyone the same, treat them fairly. The best way to demonstrate that was having these monthly track calls.

“We’re partners with the tracks, the racers, and the sponsors,” De Angelo added. “We work very hard and very closely with those groups to make sure everybody’s sharing in success. That seems to have worked extremely well.”

SOURCES

AMSOIL Championship Off-Road
champoffroad.com

Gas City I-69 Speedway
gascityi69speedway.com

Montpelier Motor Speedway
racemontpelier.com