Cycle News

INTERVIEW AMA PRO FLAT TRACK SENIOR DIRECTOR RONNIE JONES P66 ule, but how do we grow the series using the venues that people expect on the sched- ule, but still offer the ameni- ties that will allow corporate partners to come join us? Everybody, I think, just thinks that you can snap your fingers and make this stuff happen if you throw enough money at it; it just doesn't work that way. Any- thing usually that's really good takes a lot of effort and a lot of work. It's a process. We've got a five-year plan that we've been sort of firming up in our minds of what we want to look like in five years and then we're work- ing backwards from that, coming back to what we want to see each year, the progression that it takes to get to where we see ourselves in five years. So those are the things that we'll be look- ing at and changes that we will be making for next year to meet that step-by-step process, to get where we want to be five years from now. For example KRAVE Group over at MotoAmerica, they implemented a policy that they're not going to any race- tracks that you can't race in the rain. Well, with dirt track, again you've got all these legendary venues and they're outdoors, and there's no flat track racing in the rain. Is there any thought of adding some indoor venues? Of course a lot of thought has been given to that. When I started racing we raced in the Houston Astrodome. That kicked off the season every year. It was a big event, a lot of people. We want to go there. Of course those venues, those kinds of stadiums, come with a much higher overhead than most traditional fairgrounds or stock car tracks or whatever. And so that gets back to, before somebody can risk the invest- ment in a venue like that we have to know that we've got a fan fol- lowing that will support that and come out and buy the tickets so that a promoter doesn't lose his shirt. We don't want to have poten- tial partners, promoters that get into the sport and do one race, lose their shirt and don't want to come back. So we have to work to keep those things from happening. As much as we like to have promoters come into the sport and bring us another race and pay a sanction fee, we don't do ourselves any good if we al- low them to do that in a situation that we know they're not going to be able to make it. That comes with the other things we were talking about, building the fan base, building the interest in the sport, getting the OEMs involved where they can get dealer involvement. There're a lot of things they can drive from their end to help promote an event. We'd love to be there. We may find ourselves there sooner rather than later, "SO WE'RE KIND OF IN A NICHE MARKET FOR THE MANUFACTURERS—MIDRANGE, MID-PRICE, TWIN ENGINE—TYPICALLY BIKES WHICH ARE NOT GENERALLY REGARDED AS SUPER PERFORMERS, BUT WE'RE TAKING THOSE BIKES AND MAKING SUPER PERFORMERS OUT OF THEM."

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