its still hard to believe that everyone is charged a fee for tech, by a can-am sponsored racer also racing in the same class. i know everyone is silent about it but i know everyone secretly wonders in their heads "where does that money go" i am sure it pays his way thru the races and his hotel fees and such. it doesnt appear that he lobbies for more sponsors or tried to draw in and influence and help increase the size of the sport. with sponsors in the series adding to the payouts these races could actually be worth winning. i thought it was a sham at the payouts these races have with the incredible amount of money going into the classes. of all the race series i follow from mud racing to rock racing to cross country racing, it seems that the desert classes have without a doubt as much or more factory support in the UTV classes than any other form of racing and with these ever increasing numbers of racers showing up at every race i wonder why the payouts are so low. alot of the other series i follow have better payouts with less factory involvement and fewer turn outs. these rock races, sponsors and donors put together some overwhelming payouts. these guys race up 2 or 3 hills a total of 60 seconds of race time total for a $15,000 purse and a few bounty hills this year have exceeded $5,000 payouts for climbing 1 hill. you run the risk of damaging your machine but the hill killers rarely ever destroy a machine. this desert racing DOES destroy a machine. you gotta rebuild the whole machine every race if you even remotely plan on being competetive. the cost VS reward in this desert racing seems awfully upside down, you must just have to really want to do it because gosh its expensive and the winning pot is so little you cant even cover your fuel bill.
if it was my baby to handle, i would be lobbying for more sponsors like Coca-Cola BFGoodrich and Redbull and Monster heck even car dealerships. These sponsors give sponsorship in some forms to individual racers but what if you were able to get them to sponsor the whole series like General Tire does. like Tecate was doing with the Score races. i think the individual racers want to gain sponsorships for themselves to help offset the costs. What about lobbying to these sponsors to give to the whole series. make the whole series gain more publicity and start drawing in more big name sponsors. I know when Mad Media is planning the World Championship and Mint400 they call in to Monster to try to gain sponsorships. They try and market the publicity that these big events will bring in to sell a "spot" to monster and other big name companies. I get the same packet every year with vendor and sponsorship packages. you would be absolutely amazed at what some of these big companies are paying just for the publicity packages to be set up at these two big races. the only real problem is, these two big races and the publicity it brings is a result of Mad Media and UTVUG, all that money from big sponsors goes in Mad Medias pocket and not back to the series or payouts for racers. BIG money, sponsors lay down big money for the publicity. Mad Media has done an amazing job at making those two big races big. Polaris stepping up and giving the winners a brand new RZR and sponsorship packages ect. this kinda support from sponsors and vendors wouldnt happen without someone working behind the scenes to draw in the big sponsors and big vendors. yes i understand Mad Media does a tremendous amount of leg work putting these events together and it makes them big and draws a big crowd. but all it takes is an idea and someone thats willing to work at it and you can make the whole BITD series as big as those individual races. and rather than pulling in 7figures worth of sponsorship money for publicity on one race, have the sponsors putting that into race payouts. with big race payouts you will draw a crowd thats double what it is now.
a few years back there was this wealthy guy who wanted to impress his friends with a party at his house. he paid for a nice band to come set up in his back yard. he decided he wanted to hold some mud races in his back yard (large acreage) and so he contacted the mud race series and told the promoter "i wanna have a race at my place whatever your typical payouts are i will double them i want a huge event" the race promoter put the call out and flyers out. the typical mud races brought 4 classes and about 30-40 racers total. this race, with just double the money that it normally has, brought out over 200 racers. folks coming out of the woodworks from maryland and canada all the way down to alabama. a promoter who made some calls and had double the payouts to work with, quadrupled the turn out of their normal races.
i think if you could get a few big name sponsors to jump on board with BITD and really promote it you could draw crowds that would overwhelm what you can imagine now. you would need a real set of rules, folks to hold those rules, and turn BITD into a serious race series that is bigger than you can imagine from what you have seen in the past. some folks love racing, desert racing is awesome, and there are tons of folks i bet that have raced in the past and got out of it because of bickering or money got slim or there are cross country racers that havent stepped into desert racing because of the cost and little payouts arent going to draw them in. you get some big name sponsors in with money going to payouts and you will draw in droves of folks, past racers, new racers, and have every races as big as the Mint400
