Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

-IN R IE Roy Janson- Directoro TE V W fSupercross for SRO and PACE · - - - - Ing supercross - - -_--=:.::::.......- By Davey Coombs oy Janson, the f ormer AMA race director, now the Director of Supercross Operations f or SR O Motorsports and PACE Supersports; the promoting groupfor the AMA Supercross Series, has been in the business of motocross and superCToss since 1964. More than once, Janson has found himsel in the f middle of controversy and on the receiving end of many pointing fi ngers. But through it all, Janson has endured the scrutiny and continues his endeavor to make the sport of eupercross the bes t it can be. Recently, we caught up to Janson and chatted with him about supercross and the upcoming season which gets under way in a few days. Why do n 't you start out b y tellin g us ab out the ch an ge s o n the 1996 Su percross sch edule. . There are a few new events and some other changes. One of the mo st exciting is th e move to Charlotte Motor Speedw ay for that round of the series. Ch arlotte Mo tor Speedway is recognized as one of the premiere racing faciliti es in the world . To run a supe rcross on their front lawn by the grands tands simi lar to the Da ytona event will be a huge boost, 'an d so will th e tie-in to an im po rta n t N ASCA R faci lity. It will help draw attention to us with other sponso rs as a top-line motorsp orts act ivity that is worth y of their spons orship. We are als o p lanning on go ing into the new Tran sWorld Dome in St. Louis, the newest building to ope n up in th e United States. We think th at any tim e we can tak e super cross into these new and exciting buildings it's good for the sport. We've proved that by going into Minneapolis' Metrodome an d th e RCA Dome in Indianapolis. We try to update the venues as best as we can each year and tak e ad vantage of these new build ing s op ening u p. Doe ~ NASCAR have any involvement in the Charlotte event? NASCAR is not, but th e owners of Ch arlotte Motor Spe edway will be ou r partners in that event. They brin g to the equ atio n a ve ry hi ghl y respected p romotion history . We th ink the combination o f PACE /Su p er sp o rt s a n d the Speedway peopl e is go ing to make for a reall y good even t. We're go ing to be anno uncing a number of exciting thin gs that will run in conjunction with th at even t to tr y to brin g m or e sp ecta to rs out, becau se we think that it's going to be a pr etty exciting Saturday night. There was a lot of pressure from the manufacturers and other in terest ed parties in starti ng th e series in Anah eim, California, rather than Orlan do, Flori da. Why didn't that change h ap pen? . We weren't able to change it tliis year becau se we had commitments that came ahead of our desi re to meet the expe ctations of the manufacturers. We h ave, th ough, been involved in dis cu ssions with the AMA wher e it is our intention to start the season at Anaheim if we can get the dates that w e need to kick off the season there. T h e conflic t ov er scheduling has b een an on going thing, hasn't it? It has been a topic for several years and the difficulty rela tes to the number of events that are in Anaheim. There are three mo torsports events that traditiona ll y run there and trying to get th e events in there while they (the stadium) R 20 tri es to w ork in th eir soccer program m ak es things cro wded a t tha t tim e of year. We're do ing the best th at we can to come up w ith a sc hed u le th a t is ac ceptable to ev eryo ne and s till take supercross to th e best facili ties in th e country. Doesn't supercross have more juice than a so ccer match that's going to have three or fo ur thousand people at it? Well, not necessa rily . The re's a lot of other asp ects that go into the schedu ling o f even ts , like commitments a n d th e local market . Super cross isn' t eve n th e biggest dirt eve nt that ru ns at Anahe im Stadium. The mon ster truck sho w th at SRO Motorsports promotes in Anaheim has had a stronger ga te the past coup le o f ye ars than su percross, so th ey've . m ov ed to the top in pri ori ty. It' s ou r understandin g that there will also be an off -ro ad grand prix simi la r to the one th at Mickey Thomp s on u s e d t o run there, so three dirt eve nts trying to run the same month makes thi ngs crowded . . Let me ask you thi s : If y o u h a d twice as many spectators at the San Jose SX as you did in Cle ve land last year, why would you elect to go back to Cleveland and no t San Jose in 1996? We're tr ying to. get a geo graph ica l distribution of supe rcross so that we can bri ng eve nts to all parts of the country . We still have not met our goa l of getting supercross backin the No rth eas t for reasons that continue to exist an d have prevented us from going back to the Meadowla n ds (New Jer se y ) or Fo xboro (Massachusetts). We would like to place an event in the true North east o f th e U.S ., but we h av en ' t b ee n a b le to achieve that. Clevelan d is abo ut as close as we can get. We have a strong interest in Syracuse (New York), and we've visited there a couple oftimes to mee t with th o se folk s . M a ybe so m e th in g w ill chan ge in the fu tu re and we can cross over int o New York state. We think that would be a strong supercross event. What are some of the elemen ts that make it ha rd to get into th e Northeast? Is it th e labor situati on ? Is it the window of op p o r tu n ity b eca u se of the weather? The pro teams? It' s a ll th ose thi ngs an d m ore. Th e weather keep s you out of the Nor theast .until lat e Ap ril or earl y Ma y, bu t wi th the d esir e to tr y to shorten the supercross season in Ma y rathe r than going int o Jun e as w e tradition ally have limits our op portu ni ties to ge t Nort heastern eve nts. You also ha ve th e cost of produ cing the even ts because so me facilities just make it impossible to take an event in there. But brin ging an event to the No rtheast reg ion fans is at the top of our list. Why is Las Vegas out as a supercross city? Las Vegas has not been a particular ly stro ng eve nt in th e past. We looked at Las Vegas but it sim p ly didn' t make the cut . We felt th at the new buil d in gs we had we re of a high er priority than going back to Las Vegas . Let's talk abou t that Las Vegas th ing of last year. When the lights went out and then the top riders decided no t to come to the gate last year, what were you thinking? Our primary concern was abou t how the crowd would react. There were a lot o f folk s who had b een sitti ng in th e grandstands for a lon g per iod of tim e. We were concerned that if we were not ab le to complete the program that night th at we might be faced with a di fficult sit u ation with u nrul y sp ecta tors w ho fe lt th a t th ey were be in g se n t h om e without seeing a qua lity sh ow . We also had co m m itmen ts th at p revented u s from being able to reschedu le the event the next day becau se th e fac ili ty h ad been re nted to H onda for th e production of the latest Jer em y McGrath commercial. It was a very costly production for them and not some thing that could be ea si ly resched uled. They h ad TV tru cks and light tru cks an d abo u t 50 staff pe op le tha t w er e th ere in various capaci ties. We didn't have the lu xury of sim p ly saying, "Folks, hold on to yo u r tickets and come back tomorro w." T h ere's some kind of cruel irony there that Jeremy McGrath did ride at Las Veg as, but unfortunately it was on Sunday in an empty stadium. (Laughs) Yes, it is. It' s one of those thing s that, wh e n you loo k back, it appears a bit mo re funny n ow th an it did then, the fact that top Honda rid ers ro de around on Sunday w he n n o one else was ou t there. .. Everyone ha s heard the theories and reasons why those guys didn't ride, that there were a lot of things wrong with s u p e rcr os s that needed fixed. What do y o u th i n k some of tho s e th ings m ight be? I think that m ost of th e difficu lties that we ha d last yea r were the residual of the late start that we got. There were prolonged nego tia tions b etw een the supercross producers and the AMA that dragged out a lot of the planning until just before the sta rt of the season. The loss of MTEG midway through the yea r meant th at we also had to pick up th e pieces .o f tha t sha tte re d program. We inherited the las t tw o events (San Jose and Las Vegas) and that ad ded to an already busy and somewha t difficult situati on . Looki ng back, I do n't think th at the problems were as significan t as they were identified to be at the tim e, and I th ink that we our on track to find solutions to the problem s that were brought to our att ention. It se em ed like everyone from the fa ns to th e riders to the media were b lam in g the promoters for the sport's woe s . Do you feel that they were wrong or were they right? First of all, I don 't think that the p rogram is brok en or that it nee ds a great deal of fixing. I don 't know that focusing att enti on on the promoters who di d eve rything that they said they would do is very fair. Promoter s schedule eve nts, th e y post a p urse, and th ey co n tract w ith the AMA t o co me and run th e races for them . The promoters ran all of the events tha t they sai d the y would run and paid all of the p urses tha t they said th ey would p ay . Eve ryt hi ng th at was expected or requ ired of the com p an ies . th at prod uce AMA Su percross Series was done. I do n't know that it's appropri ate to lay blam e on them for all of the problems. On e bi g problem was the lack of a poin ts fund, but that' s been rectified, h asn't it? It wa s a big problem in '95 but all of the riders knew abou t that. I persona lly told all of the riders at Orland o that we h ad lost our sponsor from the previou s year and tha t we now h ad a situation w here w e did n ot h a ve a s ponsored points fund to pay out. We're stilltrying to find someone to fill that role for the ' 96 series, but wheth er w e find th at sponso r or not we have mad e a commitm ent as the p roducer s of the series to p ay $100,000 ou rselves so that ther e is a bit of ligh t at the end of the tunnel for the rid ers. We have also made a commitmen t to ra ise th e purse m on e y, a n d we h ave reins tate d gu est passes for participants . We are doing our best to try to kee p up w ith the expectations of the ride rs . How did the whole conflict between the promoters and the AMA get resolved? What was the clincher to get this thing going again? I think the clincher wa s the recogni tion fro m a ll p arties associated with supercross that if we were go ing to be su ccessful in the very complicated field of modem motor sports, we had to have th e st ro nges t team w e cou ld h ave . I think that the combination of the expertise of the AMA in running and officiating eve nts and the exp ertise of companies lik e SRO Motor sports an d PACE .Su perspo rts in producing even ts makes for an awfully strong team. Th at w as re all y w h a t b rought th e whole thing back togeth er. We n eeded to ha ve a coord inated effort with everyone doing what they did best. With SR O and PACE Supersports' expertise in producing events, who do you have out there pounding th e pavement trying to pick up sp on sor s for supercross? Withi n both com panies there are staff p eople who' s so le job it is to look for sponsorshi ps , se nd ou t p ropo sals an d kee p turning th ose roc ks over looking for oppo rtunities. It's a professional staff of people who h ave been doing this for a numb er of years. I'm confide nt that we will soon be able to turn a corner and find some sponsorship. Hey, you know who's pretty good at stuff like that is Jeff Glass, the former racer. He wa s a legend at finding great sponsors and he knows how to talk about this business. I mean, the series draws about 35,000 per race from the 16-34 yea r-o ld male crowd, which is supposed to be very attractive to marketing typ es but difficult to explain. Maybe what you need is just someone who can explain to them what the sport's all about. . You 're right. Jeff's always been successful at securing quality ou tside sp onsorship, like when he sig ned Su rf Detergent. And yes, we have b een ta lk in g w it h him abou t so me op portu n it ies. Motorcycling in ge neral is a bit m or e com p licated to sell to the general p ubl ic tha n other au to mob ile sp orts , but th e d e mograp hics are very s t ro ng . Th e proble m is that th ey tell u s, "Yes, it looks good, bu t we alrea dy bou ght them a t N ASCAR or N H RA o r SCCA or IMSA." It's hard to conv ince com panies tha t what we deliver is a rat her unique g ro u p . O ne of th e th in gs that we d o know is that our au dience is very loyal and th ey w ill su pport com panies th at are involve d in sponsoring su percross. No w th at the p rogram is stabilized and refo cused, we will be more attractive to • spo nsors in the futu re. We have a lon gterm deal sig ne d with th e AMA that lends itself to a more inviting oppo rtu nity for sponsors and we thin k that we wi ll bring some com panies in soo n. It ' s also im porta nt to m en tion th at while we haven't yet found a title spo nsor for the '96 series, we do enjoy tremendo us su pport from wi thin the indus try . In 1995 the 25 com panies that participated in our contin gency program paid out almos t $400,000 to riders. The best part of that is th at most of th at money went to no n-factory riders who rea lly need ed it, especially in the 125 class, where a ride r could w in $2000 in purse m oney and then ano ther $5000 in contingency pri zes, meaning he takes h ome $7000 for winning a 125cc regional race. I don't know of any other non-national program that has that sort of payday. .

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