Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

and most aftermarket firms annually. I think the success that I have had with contingency ha s more to do with me understanding my customers than it does with me being their best friend. I do have some good friends in the industry, and people I talk to once a year on the telephone discussing this program. When I first got involved in the AMA's contingency program they had, I think, a half a dozen sponsors. None of the factories were participating be cause it wasn't a user-friendly program. It was punitive. When I first got involved as a staff membe r, I got them (the AMA) to see that , and they agreed to make some changes. After I became PM Communications I contin ued that same philosophy and it was working, so they kept giving me free reign . I basically was free to do whatever I wanted to the continge ncy program within certain boundaries. The only time that I got any input from AMA was this past year when they asked me to build in a multilevelsystem, so th ey wo uld no t have to give full benefits to every sponsor, trying to get back into that punitive-style program. You either get on your knees, or we are not going to give you the whole piece of pie. Surprisingly, I was still able to - because of some of my con tacts, maybe - ma intain most of th e spo nsor-level. But th e programs tha t I am putting together in 1995 for both AIR (American International Racing) and NASB (No rth American Superbike) are no t going to be punitive. They will go back to user-friendly. These things are there for the sponsors, the riders benefit bu t they are sponsor programs. How many diffe re nt sports marketin g admin istra ti ons were in effect in your period with the AMA ? Why, i n your opi nion, did every one of the m fail to succeed? (Murp hy) I worked for five vice-presidents. When I was origi nally h ir ed , Wayne Molton was in h is final months, he was followed by Bill Amick, Ron Zimmerman, Dick Maxwell and now Tom Mueller. I don't know th a t an i of those individuals could have succeeded. I don't know that yo u can say these were five or four or three faulty people with bad ide thi nk that th e structure of AMA Pro Racing is at fault. The AMA is an amateur o rga nization. And that is not a negative. An amateur organization that has 220,000 members who are just people who just like to ri de mot or cycles . So the scope of the AMA is to do things for 200,000 people who just like to ride bikes. And they do that pretty well. But you can't take that mentality into professio nal motorsports, not into the compe titive field that it is. That, basically, is the problem. It req uires a different vision, it requires a much grea ter ability to take a risk, and it ta kes yo ur orientation to be that the bu siness people are my custo mers - not my 200,000 fans . The 200,000 fans are going to come because it is good entertainment, bu t I've got to pay for it. I've got to ensure that my competitors can afford to do this, to make a living at it. I've got to be sure that the people who are risking as much as a million dollars on an event minimize their risk through good management. That's the core of the problem. Roger, your tum... . (Ed mondson) I think we have to recognize that the three vice-presi den ts that I worke d w ith most closely were Bill A mick, Ro n Z im m erman a nd Dick Maxw ell. All of them h ad different ideas on what need ed to be do ne, all of the m ap plied thei r bes t efforts in getting those things done, and all of them contributed to things in the sport. But, unfortuna tely, every time they would find tha t the p rob lems of satisfying AMA's management were overwhelming, they would be fired, and a new gu y brought in after some period of time. So we would go through these periods of having to go through the honeymoon w ith every new vice-president. 'An d whether he was right or wrong, he was the vice-presi dent, he was free to make the same mistak es that the guy before h im had al ready mad e . And 0 we would always have this one step for ward two step back thing and I frankl y think that the most progress was mad e in those months when we did not have a vice- p re si de nt . when we had to go out and do it, an the people in the field who were doing the business were allowed to do the business. I have to tell you tha t I am proud of what we accomplished in all these years, but I'm frustrated by what could have been accomplished. You don' t have enough pages in Cycle News to cover the lost opportunities , yo u don 't have enough time to deal with all the hours I spent thinking about what we could ha ve d one. Things tha t needed to be done. But I have to tell you, we created a lot. And that is exactly what Pat and I have done toget her; we have worked together as a team to create things . Yeah, I've made a good living off this business but I have given iny life to it. We created money for people. The money we created is exactl y th at - it came out of nowhere. When Supersport was created it became a pla ce to put a dv er tlsl d ollars . These classes became places where people could spend money - with our riders - to sell product. We created two Sup ers p o r t cla sses an d an endurance series that we we re paying for right ou t of our own CCS treasury, and we turned that into a promotab le event that the promoters have taken a liking to and are now putting money in riders' pockets. We have large contingency programs and we created the Harley-Davidson class, one that brought a who le new group of spectators to racing events here in the States. With all due re spect to HarleyDavidson and their success in the marketplace - the y had no reason for the Harley to come to our races. Now they do . And in spite of the fact that the top speeds are slow and th e average lap speeds are fairl y slow, the margins of ~ 0\ 0\ rl C'l~ rl I-< Q) ..0 o ..... u o 27

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