Editorial: Survival Through Quality

"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." - Thomas Sowell

We're in an age of the "lowest common denominator" in racing. Instead of finding ways to help people obtain the means, or even the desire for the type of racing they want to compete in, promoters, sanctioning bodies and even racers instead continue to lower the bar for under the silly notion they're helping the sport.

Just like Chinese toys, what price is being paid for this trend? Maybe we're seeing a dumbed-down program or at its worst, an unsafe one.

I will never fault anyone trying their hardest, even if all they can manage is a go-cart ride in the backyard. However, they're in the minority. There are far more talkers than doers and they're cheapening the ranks.

People worry about the ending of tracks, about the end of certain classes. People clamor for rules changes, purse increases, class creation...all things that require no work of themselves.

While there is some responsibility of the promoters and sanctioning bodies, how much has the racer tried on their own? How many low-cost ways have the racers tried to gain sponsorship, make connections, network?

There's no meeting in the middle!

One person presented an opportunity for people to find the means to compete. Gary Dominguez put on a sponsorship seminar last season to teach and guide racers on how to obtain sponsors. It seemed to pay off for Jay Russell's bunch. This year Gary offered the sponsorship seminar again, but canceled due to lack of interest.

He was offering this for little but their time and an email. That's it. Few takers.

But there's no shortage of people sitting with beer in hand and keyboard in front of them for bitching and typing more than what it would have taken to attend the seminar. Instead, they hope someone else will take care of the problem. The promoter should pay more, or add more classes, the sanctioning body should cut costs or add another class and so on and so on.

Maybe someone could attend a FREE seminar. But no...instead we have to create yet another class that is slower, more boring, and likely more dangerous than the last one.

Instead of working to provide a path to improvement, tracks and sanctions keep lowering the bar, sure to get the back-gate revenues and license fees. It doesn't matter. They still think they can "make it up in volume." As I said before, there isn't enough back gate money to be made to pay for modern tracks and what it takes to compete in today's entertainment business.

Entry level racing is just that - entry level. Sooner or later one would think that a person would want to move up and ahead. Otherwise it gets boring and you know what, as much as pee-wee football is fun to watch if your kid or relative is playing, nobody's filling up 50,000 seat stadiums to see it.

Nobody's there to see the opening act, the Junior Varsity game, the entry-level class. What puts butts in the seats - what grows the track to allow for more purses and more fans and more races is quality, regardless of what class that may be.

It's been said that we have to grow the sport and make it more appealing to fans. So why do promoters keep rolling out hamburger and telling fans it's steak? And why does the racing public gladly eat it?

Let the entry-level be the raw ingredients - they're the salt and pepper, the flour and butter - absolutely necessary but not enough on their own. The final recipe demands effort and willingness to accept that it's not going to come fast. Would you go to a nice restaurant and accept a Swanson TV dinner?

Instead of setting goals higher, they ask promoters to put on shows paying ridiculous purses...purses higher than most premier classes see all year. We enable the entry-level to be content, if not prosper at the expense of the overall program which will die when they lose fan interest. It's like Welfare for racing.

Maybe it's time to demand some reform.

Who really benefits here by letting people languish in entry-level classes? I've grown tired of the watching the politics and game playing between promoters, the cries of "elitism" against people who aren't satisfied and have the stones to say something. I'm tired of the ridiculous notion that people who aren't content with the state of the sport are hurting it. I'm tired of the gladhanding politician/promoter telling us we should be glad to have what we do. Are we content to pay while they just try to drink as much as they can from a drying well? Why not find another source of water?

Nobody wants racing to die. Nobody is trying to kill it. But if we accept the poor product, we aren't saving the sport, we're just delaying the inevitable. It will die. All we do is prolong the suffering and disgust people so much that nobody will be sorry when it's gone, nor be in any hurry to bring it back.

-Jason