$250 to start A feature

No, it's not a real race...yet?

When I worked for Eagle Raceway, whenever a big show would come along the two questions most racers asked was: how much to win and more often…how much to start the A feature?

I was reading through the April 2008 issue of Motorsport magazine and came across an idea forwarded by the FIA’s Max Mosely. While not running the governing body of Formula One (and doing odd things of late – you google it…), Moseley put up the idea of increasing pay, but to the BACK of the field.

The reasoning was that since the Ferraris and McLarens got 95% of the TV exposure, the smaller teams needed the extra boost they couldn’t get in sponsor revenue. His reasoning was that those small teams can’t run on just 5% of the budget of the larger teams, so why not give them a larger share of the pie? The big teams made the money in sponsors, the small teams would be subsidized to a greater extent by Formula One (all teams get a share of the contract revenue already).

With that in mind I thought of a similar idea. With the skyrocketing costs of racing, why not bump up the pay – but at the back of a weekly field. I took a look at the Eagle Raceway Sprint purse (from their website). The A feature pays 1000 to win, and $150 to start. What if you ran for $250 to start? The old argument that the A doesn’t pay for the tire and fuel is now gone, or at least a lot more manageable.

BUT, it comes at a price…let’s look. For the example, I used the payout for the sprints at Eagle since it was readily available and it’s a very unique division in that nobody runs Sprints in Nebraska weekly.

Current A feature payoff at Eagle Raceway – Sprint Division – total payout of $5,505.

1 $1,000
2 $600
3 $400
4 $350
5 $325
6 $300
7 $275
8 $250
9 $225
10 $200
11 $185
12 $175
13 $170
14 $150
15 $150
16 $150
17 $150
18 $150
19 $150
20 $150

Now…with $250 to start, same total payout

1 $500
2 $400
3 $330
4 $275
5 $250
6 $250
7 $250
8 $250
9 $250
10 $250
11 $250
12 $250
13 $250
14 $250
15 $250
16 $250
17 $250
18 $250
19 $250
20 $250

So, everyone from 9th on down gets a raise. More than half the field. 8th is unchanged.

Granted, the top 5 take a hit…6th & 7th’s deduction is minor.

“We can’t race on $1000 to win!” is a common statement. Well, for all but 9 teams, they found a way. And consider that three of those winners, Jack Dover (1 weekly race), Jason Danley (4) and Chad Meinholdt (1) all raced just a handful of weekly shows – combined it was less than half the season, that means all but 6 teams raced most of the races if not all at Eagle for less than a $1000 payoff each night.

So the question is: do you race for the trophy or the check? The winner still takes home more than anyone else, just only twice as much as the last place guy instead of eight times as much. I’m not talking about some sort of racing “communism,” I’m talking about sustaining your show, which is proving to be tough for some tracks, especially a one-track class. And perhaps, if the guy winning every week weren’t taking all the cash, maybe the little teams could catch up.

To be honest, while on paper it's a logical response to those who say the starting pay isn’t enough to cover basic expenses, I’m thinking this won't gain any traction. Here’s why:

1. While it’s proven unattainable for many, the advertising value of “Big Money to Win!!!” is just too much to overcome. And, I would even in my proposal say this applies only to your weekly show. The draw of the big money is what gets the hot dogs to the track.

2. People who know me know I’m a free-market kind of guy. To the victor go the spoils. Hard work should be rewarded. It’s a lot to ask people who’ve played by the rules, earned their stripes, to take such a hit for others. Plus, my idea of the purse and the effects of helping the back-runners get faster through money is a very “perfect-world” type of scenario and doesn't take a lot of other things into account.

3. Would the extra money make enough of a difference anyway? We may be too far gone to think that this kind of kick to the back of the field will do much good in the long run. As in most cases, this is a band-aid to a larger problem which requires things like radical rules changes, and perhaps other ways to raise the payout.

As I said, it’s just an idea – but with the fact that sanctions don’t seem to want to reduce costs through rules changes, racers won't cut their spending, nor promoters want to pay more in purse, it’s one way I saw to sustain the field, at least in the short term while other influences outside the sport (economy, gas, etc.) are putting pressure on racing.

If you have any thoughts, send them to me (my email’s in the upper right corner)

-Jason