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Ironically, all this attempt to “get both sides of the story out there” has done is help people (the fans of the sport) pick a side rather than bring everyone together and remediate the issue.
Unfortunately, Glen Helen getting on here to clarify everything after their “tell all” interview is just doing more damage. Trying to change people’s opinions on the internet is an incredibly rookie mistake.
I'll argue about Hangtown being in the shape it's in without the national, Zeb knows how to run and hires the right guys to prep. I don't think that has to do with the pro national. Unless you mean facility-wise, then maybe you have a point. Zeb releases control of the track before and during the national. The draw, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt there.
Exactly. I wasn’t there for the supposed handshake meeting, but obviously something was missed or there was a miscommunication. Davey has a pretty good memory, but there are alot of moving pieces at a national. But not a single Glen Helen staff member seemed to be aware of what Bud wanted or expected.
After we pivoted and came up with a makeshift solution, Bud sat down there for much of the day, by himself to help direct riders on the new track exit plan. No other Glen Helen staff members helped out. But we did have a bunch of extra flaggers and MX sports staffers who were trying to help out.
It was super hot that day and pretty nasty out there in the desert, and riders were gassed after the 30+2’s and in the baking sun. So to add another little loop on track exit was tough, a lot of guys just blew off the waving and direction from mx sports staffers and went back to the trucks using the old path, even though it was bannered off. Every try to stop a rider after he gets off the track? It’s hit or miss! With each rider that skipped the re-routed path, you could sense Bud’s blood pressure getting higher and higher, and it came to a head with the Eli situation two motos later.
And in his rage over Tomac going up on the podium to be interviewed for TV rather than doing the fan hand slap loop that he wanted—he lost his cool. He did manage to scream at Davey (I was there, I heard the whole thing) of “trying to sabotage this race ever since you came back”. He then threatened to have myself arrested for grabbing Eli and sending him back up on the podium. At that point, I went and grabbed the (5) CHP officers that were at the podium and asked them to interviene - and allow us to finish the podium TV interviews, which we did. It was, by all accounts, a fucking mess.
So Bud hurled some pretty angry words towards us - and that were spoken in front the mechanics and crews of the top three, as well as race officials, some journalists, some of the event sponsors and even normal fans who had gotten through the fence from the VIP section. We did our best to keep it as smooth and seamless as possible for both the on-site fans and the people watching at home.
I have kept quiet all these years about this, but that’s what happened, and it was absurd. Mr Info and a few other GH staffers came up after and apologized several times over about Buds behavior, and the fact that none of the GH staff were informed about what he wanted.
In a large, professional sporting event, where there are many, many moving pieces, and inherent saftey risks, you gotta know where to pick your battles. Buds reaction was not professional in any way, shape or form, and it is safe to say that his ego got the best of him, and when he didn’t get what he wanted.
Here are some fun photos from that day. You can see that the “VIP” fan zone was not exactly a packed house. If the riders rode past 40-50 fans, well, that seems like a lot
Ive worked in tv and it is a juggling act at the best if times, many moving parts and deadlines. If you had that experience you would see that with the redirecting of the riders before the podium ordeal, you are over-stepping your mark.
For me its becoming more clear who's the harder to work with and as others have said you've taken your ball and gone home at the expense of the fans.
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GH is literally capitalizing on this whole thing as we speak (for the record, I bought one of these 😂)
Good for them! But it makes it even more clear that they really thought telling “their side” of the story again was going to open up a ground swell of support. I for one sure thought they we be bringing something new to the table.
The folks at Glen Helen seem like amazing people, who care a lot about their track. But they also seem to be the only reason they don’t have a National.
I am guessing they are referring to the will call tickets for industry passes etc.
Not to dig up an old dead horse, but to me it's similar to Taylor putting his side out thinking it was going to gain him favor, but it ended up being a monumental error in judgement.
I knew that when i asked the question…he was dancing around the subject and tried to make it appear that they were selling tickets to anybody…he avoided the question about them putting a value of $80 per ticket but MXS was selling them at $50 pre-order and $60 at will call so the numbers they show in their response is wrong….I was 60/40 on MXS side prior now I’m 95/5…and seeing the video that gypsy showed and MXnick’s personal account of what happened with Eli on the podium…well it speaks for itself…
Since you stated that the comp'd tickets were a major reason for GH coming off the schedule, I'm a bit confused; in this post you say "MXS can do whatever they want with the tickets that are allotted to them," but your previous posts sound like you (GH) had heartburn with MX Sports selling them at the Industry tent. Which is it? Then you go on to say that "~1500 - 2000 tickets should be plenty," but when MX Sports countered their second number (2500) with 2250, you lowballed them at 1250 – less than the 1500 you said would be reasonable. Why didn't you just say we can't go lower than 2000 and be be done with it? It seems safe to assume that if MX Sports was willing to drop 1250 tickets from their original request, giving up another 250 as a compromise to keep the race wouldn't have been a problem.
I figured you did. GH is dancing around all of it.
The simple truth is they have played all kinds of games, but do not want to be part of the series with the same standards as the other venues. That would be fine, but the victim card crybaby stuff is just silly.
I've come to the conclusion after listening to the DC, and Bud podcast and reading this thread. That as a fan of motocross and racing it's so tiresome how much this great sport is still so dominated by narratives and egos instead of working together to see the big picture and growing the industry.
A lot of negligence from the figureheads and leaders of moto over the years, a lot of which could be rectified with the stroke of a pen. The Peacock deal and the SMX alliance was a major step in the right direction. But man would it be nice if motherfuckers could get over themselves and be more diplomatic for the betterment of motocross.
Yeah my background is franchising and the company I was with had 1200+ franchises (125 when I started with them) and I was in charge of selling franchises, we would not negotiate at all on our agreements. If you wanted to be a part of our system you signed the same agreement as everyone else, I did have people that tried to negotiate the terms and I always said that if you can’t sign the agreement as is then unfortunately you aren’t a fit for our system…GH under it’s current Managment isn’t a good fit for the series unfortunately…
Y’all remember when DC used to post here? lol.
Here is a link to the video with sound.
You can hear how confused Eli is when Bud walks up to him and says “I need you to go take a lap…” and Eli responds back…”I gotta take my bike off the podium…?”
Keep in mind that Eli just went 1-1 on the day and after narrowly losing out on the SX championship just a few weeks before, so it was a very emotional moment for him, and also for the large group of fans that had assembled at the podium to watch what was going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chEjDC6wLgM
1. Our position is that ~1500-2000 tickets should be plenty for a series promoter to take care of riders/mechanics/sponsors etc.
But MXS Counter offer Ticket Alloment of 2250 was disagreed, are those 250 tickets the way to doom?
Source: glenhelen.com
2. By the way, MXS is selling an ALL-DAY pit access ticket at a gate.
Debunked: They are selling tickets inside a tent, only the people who need to be there know you can buy tickets there.
3. Of course, we wanted to take full advantage of the space and layout of GH, so we always pushed to use as much of the back of the track as possible. Can I say that it is odd that you're all for a long track, but don't see the need for more cameramen. If those have a hard card and are local they maybe want to bring a motocross loving nephew and his uncle. That they can pick up a ticket for a little less than whatever the market has decided?
4. GH was only allowed to have 1,000 of those "special" tickets (read sell).
That MXS has 2250 or 3500 tickets including paddock and GH on the normal ticket sale only 1000 seems pretty normal to me. Those tickets going to MXS are mend for people who are there in company with someone who works there or maybe needs to work there... You've worked with YS where everyone from team boss, mechanic, rider, mom, dad, siblings from the rider, girlfriend from the rider, kids from them are having a hard card. Organizers have no idea how many people are having a free lunch on their behave. Is that a system you prefer?
5. They were unwilling to give a contract that went beyond one year. GH was unwilling to sign that deal based upon business decisions.
When the relationship is already clouded, starting with an one year deal seems like a good business decision.
For #5 it seems to be well documented that MXSports was offering them the same timeframe they had in the contract with DMG. They couldn’t sign a longer one even if they wanted to.
Unbelievable…not being able to see the forest through the trees comes to mind thinking that high fiving a few fans is more important than tv…I’m assuming you were the guy that confronted him and sent Eli back to the podium?
Pit Row
Oh wow. For those of you who don't usually click on video links (I'm usually that guy), this is one worth watching to get some context on how Bud feels about himself and his "high five" plan.
Who TF has the balls to pull Eli Tomac off a live TV feed to see some fans? Man I wish he would have tried that with a rider not as polite as Eli...
Thanks Gypsy! Well done!!! Flushed it out…
Please tell me there is more. This can't be the only video.
Every national track has huge events outside of the MX pro race. Most get an area and/or a consistent regional LL qualifier. Some host huge GNCC or GP races. Others have huge vet events.
And a lot of them are open for their local racers routinely:
The only weird outlier is probably Unadilla.
The rest of the tracks stay pretty paid even outside of the national.
But I’m sure they like the national money and prestige that come with it
Agree. However, both of the parties stepping up to get their story out says something to me. They both want the national back
After reading through everything so far, hearing bits and pieces from gypsy and pulp etc i get the feeling Bud is the common denominator here?
If he doesn't like the terms and conditions and they don't NEED the nationals he's free to do what he wants. But acting like the victim in all this is abit weird? But hey, if he is genuinely that "difficult person" maybe isn't that weird?
So the tickets we are speaking of. Just to help anyone reading this follow my train of thought, I assume that the number of tickets given to MX Sports will reduce the total number of tickets that are sold for spectators? Given that assumption, is GH, or any other track for that matter, selling out completely to capacity? I can understand the frustration losing revenue from x amount of tickets, but are that many being sold in the first place? I question the true dollar figure being "lost" in the ticket debacle.
The tickets that are given out at Will Call go to mechanics, single event media, industry/sponsors, and family/guests. Fairly certain that family/guests are the only ones that actually have to pay. Not all mechanics or media have hard cards and those people would fall under the allotment of tickets given to MXS. The "selling Hard Cards" statement I saw earlier in this thread, is a pretty bizarre statement.
Do the workers/flaggers etc. also get those passes? I do not really know that answer and have never paid close enough attention to see if a flagger has a wrist band on. Assuming they do, they would be lumped into that total number of passes for MXS and I do not believe those people should have to pay. So again, I question the total "loss" of revenue from tickets.
There are no limits on tickets sold to spectators the tracks can sell as many tickets as they can...there is nothing lost Bud just wants a piece MXS income...probably because he's still bitter about the DMG deal that happened in 2009....
Some serious “I want to be the boss” vibes from Bud throughout all of this stuff but this video really shows it on full display. He was borderline shoving Eli before that AMA official stepped in 😂
WOW.
I'm sorry Bud, but your ego is your doom. That's embarrassing.
after all said and done.......this is just a beef between two grown man, acting childish, trying to see witch has a bigger one....
ok, there was this deal, one made the most of it for himself, the other felt left out and betrayed, so from 2009 on, they will always be trying to find a way to blame the other....
each has its own personality, each has its own reasons, and specially they don't need each other....
Jace did hit the nail in the head....either they take the higher road, doing it for the fans, has they so much announce being their will....or glen helen will just keep giving "world titles" to one off races........
i hope Lori can put some ice in this heat, and we start by having the 2025 mxdn in glen helen........
Bud has ‘fuck you’ money from a chain of medical practices, it’s safe to say that 99.999% of the time, he is the boss. That video shows the .001% of the time he’s not .
I’ll be the dickhead who says it….despite @GlenHelen’s attempts to say otherwise, Bud’s not being taken advantage of in the GH not having a national scenario.
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