Pay Out Super's Florida State Confused

[x90 John Sarppraicone]

Guys I am on the look out for old cabbage patch dolls,if anyone would like to donate them to Desoto I came up with an idea,can anyone think what I am going to do with them,its real funny.Thanks John

[colonelc]

OK folks! I have read the whole thread and I have to say that I am John's 6th friend, and I have to offer my take on the whole discussion. There are obviously many different issues being considered here. Here are my thoughts on what I think is the main issue at hand.

WHEN ARE THE RACERS GOING TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN ACTIONS?

John owns a (business) a racetrack and he has invested a large sum of money over the years in order to keep that business functioning (someone has to pay the insurance, taxes, electric bill, phone bill, etc) I don't see anyone discussing these items and complaining about the fact that he pays these items so that the racers have a place to come to on Saturday night and then on Sunday they can bitch about how badly they got hosed. Well guess what, that costs moneyJohn's business is based upon the sale of a product, and that is YOU! Well if there are no racers then he has no product to sell. But guess what come Monday the phone, insurance, and power companies, don't care that John didn't have a good income on Saturday. They still expect their money. Quit complaining and think about it, many of you own your own businesses it's NO Different!

You all complain that the payouts are low, well think about it, if John had 15-20 cars in each class each night his weekly income would be better and he would be more than happy to share the wealth with the people who are helping him. Namely the drivers! Quit bitching about the payouts because the people responsible for that is YOU, get out and get your friends to bring their cars out and race, and in a few weeks just watch what happens to the payouts.

Everybody complains about John and the way he deals with people. I will be the first one to admit that John can get upset (excited) about some things, but that is John's personality, it is who he is. Trust me from experience I can tell you from personal experience that Rex Guy, Bobbie Diehl, Leroy Davidson and all the other owners and promoters react the same way on these types of occassions. If there are questions or issues regarding calls, tech issues etc. then Gene Davis and Johnny are the guys to talk to. They have been given this responsibility and the authority to make these decisions, but if it something that have to be dealt with by John then they will take the issueto John on your behalf during the week. With all that is going on on race night it is not the time to speak directly with John. The one thing that I can assure you and the thing that racers need to know. What you see is what you get with John. John is "old school" he recognizes and believes in honesty and respect. If you are up front and honest with, and respectful of him, he will return it in kind.
There have to be rules and sometimes judgment calls have to be made. With that said sometimes you are the dog and sometimes you are the bone, but things in racing always have a way of evening themselves out. Lets just quit fighting amongst ourselves and work together to put racing and DeSoto back on the right track, that way we will can all have a good time doing what we enjoy most "RACING".

Its all about having a good time and being able to have enough funding to do what we all love which is racing. If we quit bitching and start working together John and DeSoto will pack em in and you will get the payouts you want and have a great time racing with 15-20 cars each night, and who knows what will happen after that!!!!!!!!!

Dust em Off and get out and lets go racing

[Tim]

Well said...

[Bigbuck]

Quit Bitching???

I personally know nothing about John and/or Desoto. I will say I enjoy reading his posts, my opinion of that is at least he's trying to put the name "Desoto Speedway" out here and its free to do so on this forum. People have complained about PGS being on here a lot, its only being smart on the part of their management, like I said, its free. No the vacationer from Maine may not go on KARNAC, but I do, lots of people do. These tracks don't care wether a dollar comes from Edgewater or Maine. No form of advertisement reaches everyone. You try this, you try that, but if its free I want to know about it, I'll use it, guaranteed. And if someone asks me a simple question concerning my business like "How much is your senior discount" I'm not going to get smart mouthed about it. Anyhow, Desoto and PGS have been on here enough that My wife and I may very well go out some weekend and check them out, and we live 20 mins from another track. So yes, being on here does have an impact. But I've heard this way to many times, its bad business,
"Quit bitching about the payouts because the people responsible for that is YOU, get out and get your friends to bring their cars out and race, and in a few weeks just watch what happens to the payouts."
That would be like me telling my customers "Quit bitching about the price, get all your neighbors to go with me and you will see a decrease in your price", exactly the same thing. While customer referals are one of the best advertisements its not the only way to increase business. Why is it so good, its FREE, but you don't give your customers the ultimatum to grow your business for you.
How do I know this, because I have been doing service for the same price or less than the same service was 5 yrs ago, and I was the low price leader in the area then. Am I making as much now as then? No, is anyone? Half a glass is better than an empty glass. If I can retain a pest customer and he gets Termites, guess who he's gonna call? But I'm still in business and 25% of small companies in my business have gone out of business in FL in the last TWO years, so race tracks aren't the only ones with this problem. I happen to be going on 2 leads today that very well could gross my company over $1000, these both were referals, thats great, but I guarantee if I told my customers to "Quit bitching and get me more customers" these referals would not have come in. OR, more important, if I kicked someone in the ass that was supporting me and helping bring in more customers it wouldn't be long before he'd stop helping me.
I do not understand that while referals is great, and in the case of race tracks, car owners bringing in more race cars, the worse thing you can do is to basically tell them "quit bitching and bring in more". Ask yourself, this has been said for a couple yrs now, has it worked???? NO!!! So Tim, I respectfully have to disagree with you. While you should be grateful, maybe give a referral gift, like maybe a couple gallons of gas or something, I personally give 5% discount on your next service, you do NOT demand referrals.

[Bigbuck]

Guys I am on the look out for old cabbage patch dolls,if anyone would like to donate them to Desoto I came up with an idea,can anyone think what I am going to do with them,its real funny.Thanks John

O'k John, I'll bite. I'd like to read something funny on here for a change.

[gene davis]

Thanks guys. No racing is not cheap, but neither is running a racetrack. It takes a lot of effort on everybody's part to make this work. Thanks to all the drivers and racetrack owners for sticking this thing out.

[BVS40FL]

I agree

Gotta go with the Tunaman on this one. A referal comes from a customer who was treated well and is happy about doing business with a company/track. Bitching comes from a customer who is ,in his mind, treated poorly. If I was racing at a track that I enjoyed going to I would be more than happy to encourage my friends to bring their cars out and race too.
I will say that racers are a fickle bunch and can be quick to percieve mistreatment but.... all a track owner can do is try and make the people that he has coming to his track happy and they will do some recruitment for him.

[colonelc]

Hey guys let me clarify what I was trying to get to, when I said "quit bitching".
The problem is that from what I have observed lately John has does a great job trying to do what he can for the racers who come to his track, but as you know in business he can't give away the farm as sooner or later he would have to close the doors. Take a look at what happened at PGS under Bobby Deihl, he is the nicest guy in the world and tried to bend over backwards and do everything that he was asked to do by the racers, but in the end too many promotions, give aways, comps, large purses etc. did not help him save his business and everybody that gets on this site knows what the eventual outcome was for him. All I was trying to say was that I have heard drivers complain and complain about low payouts and low car counts. The only people that can solve these issues are the racers themselves. John can't pay a $1000.00 or $3000.00 (only an example) to win on races that only attracts 3 or 4 cars, when that happens you as business people know that it is a negative cash flow situation and any business can only sustain that for so long before they fold. The reality is that if drivers can get their friends and other racers to come out to race and there is a field of say 15-20 cars on a regular basis then John could afford to pay the higher payouts without eventually going out of business. Desoto is a geat track to race at, its fast and there is truly a second race groove to work with unlike any other track in the south Florida area. As for Tuna who speaks of how "nice" PGS looks Desoto Speedway is also nice although there are a few things cosmetically that could be done, but when you have only a certain amount of funds to work with you have to do what is most important which is keep the lights on and keep the track running again, if the racers come the fans will come and then there could be additional funds to do some of the cosmetic things. As of now Johns main focus is to have a great track for the racers to race at, again if each driver would bring one friend to race that would double the car count and then if they each brought one friend.......... Think about where Desoto would be every Saturday night as far as fields go and how the payouts would get better. Its all about the product for sale and that is the "RACERS".

[Bigbuck]

First of all colonel Tuna did not say how nice Ponte Gorda looks, I have never been there so I not know. If all of my customers brought in one more I too would be very well off. But if I tell my customers it's their responsibility to do this, they would tell me to jump in a lake.
Actually I said I do not know John or Ponta Gorde but they are smart business people to post and promote on here, it's free. I did say I disagreed with you and Tim for saying it's the drivers responsibility to bring more competitors. Sorry, it's the track owners and promoters responsibility. How? I don't know exactly, I do not own a race track but I guarantee if I did I wouldn't blame low car count and fan count on the fans and drivers. I would ask myself, what am I doing wrong? how do I intice more fans and competitors here. I would ask the drivers and fans what is wrong. I would pass out queationares asking "What is wrong, what can I o to make it better?" I guarantee I would not tolerate tech allowing some to cheat and others not to. And I would NOT rely on one person to control tech, I would personally be there. Or if someone was helping promote my track I would fire anyone that treated that person unfairly. And most important, I would KNOW exactly what was going on at my track and not give all authority to a couple people without even knowing what was going on. And just to make myself very clear, I am NOT talking about John or Ponta Gorde. Again I say, it has been said at a local track that it's a privilege to the fans and drivers to have a place to ace and it's up to them to bring in more people. Has it worked??? NO!

[bubba]

The best analogy I have heard is one that compares the Track owner to the owner of a whorehouse..
They need both working women and clients. Without either one they fail. They are stuck in the middle and need a balance of both.

If the ladies aren't plentiful enough or of good enough quality - only the die hard addicts will show up. If he has plenty of ladies and nobody knows about it or realizes it, they still wont make money.

[Bigbuck]

The best analogy I have heard is one that compares the Track owner to the owner of a whorehouse..
They need both working women and clients. Without either one they fail. They are stuck in the middle and need a balance of both.

If the ladies aren't plentiful enough or of good enough quality - only the die hard addicts will show up. If he has plenty of ladies and nobody knows about it or realizes it, they still wont make money.

Ok, but whose's job is it to brting in more whores or clients??

[83earnhardt]

Quote from Colonel C

All I was trying to say was that I have heard drivers complain and complain about low payouts and low car counts. The only people that can solve these issues are the racers themselves. John can't pay a $1000.00 or $3000.00 (only an example) to win on races that only attracts 3 or 4 cars, when that happens you as business people know that it is a negative cash flow situation and any business can only sustain that for so long before they fold.

Lets remember what started this topic
This is my opinon on this weekends test for the Supers and I don't want to put a bad name on things in this state but this weekend tells a tail.

Can anyone ans me this we all race for money right that's what everyone says so why in the hell would you go to a race Paying $2200.00 and pass by a track Paying $3000.00 for the same laps? doesn't make any sense.

You just ans my question I think we should all pay $2200.00 to win now so we are not out of line with PGS and you can thank them for setting the pace.You just proved the point in black and white 24 car's at PGS and 17 at Aubandale thats great so the lesson here is pay less and the track owner makes more money, I like that, how about all of the other tracks doing the same thing, thanks PGS you know how to make it happen and when the drivers complain now about the pay-out you can thank PGS and their way of thinking and please don't forget the driver's who went to PGS they made us see the light that we are doing the wrong thing.

This was Johns original post. Again if you were a racer, be it, late model, street stock, Mini, or modified, what would your opinion be regarding the statement above?

John states that based on what he has observed money is not the issue. My post which was the first on after he posted this statement said that if I was a promoter I would be concerned if they were bypassing my track and going to another track that pays less. What surprises me is after 4 pages of messages a lot of people still don't get it. It's not about how nice a track is, be it Punta Gorda, Desoto, Auburndale, New Smyrna, Orlando and Citrus. It's about how they are treated!!!!!. Again I state you don't have any complaints about Citrus, NSS, OSW or PG, however you do here about Desoto and Auburndale. And every complaint is primarily do to the treatment they have received from the promoters in one form or another. Telling the racers to bring more racers in to support the track which they have a problem with is ludicrous. Thats like me telling my customers that if they bring in more customers to my business I will increase the quality of service to them!!

Get real. Where is the common sense here.

[luvracin2]

The question was raised, "why in the hell would you go to a race Paying $2200.00 and pass by a track Paying $3000.00 for the same laps?" You're saying that it's because drivers are treated better??? Cmon, get real. So I guess the drivers sit around each week and think ,well which track owner kisses our ass the most?, and then they go there. Talk about not having common sense. Drivers complain about the purses but then they go race for less money. Go figure. A promoter once said, "They'll race for trophies", and that's true. If they were so concerned about the money they'd go to the track that pays the most. Obviously by their actions they aren't concerned about the money. Considering the recent actions of these late model drivers, owners/promoters should pay less since they'll get more cars.

[bubba]

Ok, but whose's job is it to brting in more whores or clients??

At the end of the day, it is the track owners deal to attract BOTH! Now they can scheme ways to have each group help, but it is their deal.

[Bigbuck]

At the end of the day, it is the track owners deal to attract BOTH! Now they can scheme ways to have each group help, but it is their deal.

I have tried but I couldn't say it better myself!! Thank You