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In motocross because it is a small sport the industry needs to make some adjustments so that the real top level PRO riders race against each other more. Make the 250 class the support class (no purse money and is stock) and make the 450 class the PRO open class and that is the real money.
Feld also needs to move ArenaCross to the fall so that more riders can earn money throughout the year. The sport will never be that large but small things can help.
The Shop
If someone else can do it better, I'd love to see them try.
I was at Hangtown media day and there wasn't another guy hustling around that track more than DC. Sweating balls and he was there handling business. Putting stakes in, making some changes to the track and a lot of other things.
I don't give a shit what anyone says, DC deserves all he has and more. He earned it.
Its a business at the end of the day and he runs it very well.
I for one love a hard pack track. Grew up riding those type of trackstuff. Never did very good in soft dirt but never really know if I could since it just wasn't around.
Threre is nothing in this sport that is better for business than the privateer my friend.
Also let absolutely not take into account any expenses the Series or the track owner incurs, because according to you it's 100% profit going into DC's pocket right?
And BTW I do realize the 40th place rider is extremely talented and they all possess incredibly skills. I just think a promoter should not go broke paying these guys more than they are worth to the sport
Pit Row
I never understood "octopus" as an insult, because to me it was much more of a compliment: I have worked hard at every thing I have ever done, all through grade school, high school and college, and that work discipline allowed me to do more than one job at a time, be it as ESPN reporter and Cycle News journalist at the same race, or program sales and garbage collection at the same racea. There are a lot of people in this industry who work very hard at one job, or two jobs, or even three, and they do it because they want to work in moto, but these jobs are neither easy or readily available, and they don't pay well...
In my case, I started my own newspaper in the early nineties while working for other publications after my own racing career didn't work out, and then I did some TV as well as event programs before Racer X Illustrated became a magazine, and then I was on my way. Fortunately (in hindsight) no one invested in my idea to turn a newspaper into a periodical, so I had to self-finance. With help from my mom and dad, they helped me turn Racer X Newspaper into what it's become.
But then my dad died in August of '98. We were three issues into Racer X magazine and I suddenly had to not only try to keep it afloat but also help out with my parents' business, as did my sister Carrie, who quit her own law firm to help out, and my brother Tim, who managed the local races. My sister ran the GNCC Series with her husband Jeff Russell, and we all helped out at High Point, Steel City and Loretta Lynn's (and now Daytona RCSX). We went to work at the tracks, just as we grew up doing.
In 2007 the AMA decided to sell the AMA Motocross Championship,which was a shock, and rather than see it go to some foreign entity who wanted to break it up and absorb it into another series, my family bid to run it all. And lost. The Daytona Motorsports Group won the bid, and then reached out to us to run the motocross series for them. Steve was on my side then and encouraging my added involvement. That became my second job, though by then TFS had switched horses and thought it would be better to bring another entity in and not the ones who had been around since Day 1.
No matter, we all went to work, and I like to think the series has grown a lot since 2008 with the help of a bunch of hard-working promoters who also have more than one job (like the Martins, for example) and fans and sponsors and industry friends and of course athletes on every team, the privateers -- and of course Cooper Webb and his family and friends.
At no point in the years since the AMA got out of the business of pro motocross did I stop working on my own dream job, which was to establish a motocross magazine just like MXA, or Dirt Rider, Inside Motocross or even Cycle News. I accepted and relished the added responsibilities that came with keeping the AMA Motocross Series in the hands of the people who built it, and not let it get swallowed up by some other entity.
So, in the end, that's why I have more than one job, and I work very hard at both. I would have been just fine with the one I wanted in the first place, as publisher of a magazine, but then the AMA Motocross Championship were in jeopardy, and I somehow became "the octopus" because I worked hard at both jobs, and both have gone well...
Like every motocross track promoter's kid, including then Ritchies, the Robinsons, the Huffmans, the Martins and more, I grew up picking trash, rocks, water hoses, caution-flagging, announcing, whatever was needed... I just happened to develop other skills (not in homeschool) in photography, writing, editing. publishing, and whatever else was needed to start and keep running Racer X. I still do all of those jobs every day, and I relish getting up in the morning to go to what others might consider "work."
I'm still not sure why Steve Bruhn thought good, hard work, at multiple tasks, made "the octopus" an insult here but I accept the reference to hard work, if not the implied indignity. I work hard at everything I do, and Guy B, will tell you guys I don't live in a castle, I don't drive luxury cars and I wish to hell I had less work to do so I could focus on a certain 14-year-old named Vance and a little girl named Sloane,
I don't know which job the critics would prefer I quit, but if you're interested, and in this for the long haul, ready to work some long and sometimes ugly hours, I would be glad for the help. Applicants should be ready to work hard, and at some shite jobs, but that's just a day in this life... DC@mxsports.com
Sorry for the reverse rant, been a great summer so far.
DC
How do you define the line between the simple folk who have no aspiration of any wealth and the indecent people (aka slave owners) ? Is it only those that wish to acquire more wealth than you. I mean what is the threshold where you give up common decency.
Unfortunately some people feel better about their own circumstance if they can tear down someone else they feel got a bigger piece of the pie.
I wanted to come say thank you and shake your hand but you were hustling so much I felt like I would have been a bother!
But, thank you for all you do and the dedication to this sport. Until some see just a glimpse of what you do first hand, I don't think they can truly appreciate it.
MXA interview quotes.
DID THE NATIONAL PROMOTERS GROUP DO GOOD WORK?
Yes. The NPG did great things. It, under the executive guidance to Dave Coombs’ family, negotiated with the AMA to ensure that the Supercross series did not encroach on our dates. It not only found sponsors for the AMA Nationals, but it negotiated agreements with the AMA under which they shared series sponsorship money with every National track (ie. including Chevy and Parts Unlimited).
THEN WHAT HAPPENED?
The NPG, under the executive guidance of the Coombs family (because they had two AMA National tracks), was so successful that the AMA formed a for-profit arm called Paradama (which later became AMA Pro Racing) to compete against us. I have to say that this move by the AMA threatened the National tracks and the NPG because we were sanctioned by the AMA, yet they went into competition against us in the search for sponsors. Again, the NPG prevailed, and got all 12 promoters a uniform contract for four years with the AMA.
DIDN’T THAT CHANGE WHEN THE AMA SOLD THE RIGHTS TO PRO RACING TO DMG?
Yes and no. When we heard that the AMA was going to sell off motocross, road racing, dirt track and Supermoto, all of the NPG tracks banned together and pledged a fund to buy the series from the AMA. It was, to the best of my recollection, about $2 million. When the AMA decided to sell everything as a package to DMG, I assumed the NPG executive team approached them about buying the rights to motocross. It only made sense; we were the 12 promoters most invested in the series and felt that we could run it ourselves. Since the Coombs family held the executive positions with the NPG they did the negotiating with DMG.
BUT, DMG DIDN’T SELL THE RIGHTS TO MOTOCROSS TO THE NPG.
Surprise. Lo and behold, at the midnight hour we got a call from the Coombs saying that sadly the NPG didn’t get the rights, but, happily, the Coombs family’s MX Sport organization did. This was unbelievable to me. The 12 NPG tracks were represented at the DMG offering by the Coombs family, but our bid was beat out by the Coombs family. I was shocked by the lack of allegiance to the group that they went to represent.
THEN WHAT HAPPENED WHEN MX SPORTS TOOK CONTROL?
All the hard work of the NPG tracks and Dave Coombs Sr., was undone. The things that we fought for; a share of the series sponsor money, back gate income sharing, access to sponsorship deals, and control of our own vending, were wiped out. MX Sports took all the series sponsorship money and our individual sponsorships were limited to the title sponsor of the event. They even installed their own T-shirt vendors. This money, per MX Sports, was going to TV rights for the AMA Nationals. Also the MX Sports charged us an additional fee (what they called a “rights fee”). By my way of looking at it, the racetracks were reduced to ticket takers. All decisions impacting the fan experience were effectively stripped away from the tracks. because that was the only money MX Sports left us.
The problem is that most of what Bud said in that interview was wrong and just ill-informed. The NPG was never a business, it was a collective of individual promoters who agreed to all work together in order to make series more appealing for the riders, the race teams, the fans and the sponsors. There was no business that the NPG (which my dad founded) could use to "buy" the series, but we made a bid anyway, as well as one from MX Sports Pro Racing which would manage the day-to-day, year-round work related to such a big series. DMG won the bid, not MX Sports (which I represented, and John Ayers represented the NPG) and then DMG invited MX Sports) to take over the motocross property. It's worked really well. We have live TV, online streaming, bigger sponsors than ever, and so far this year more fans at every round. The NPG was not equipped with the resources or personnel to run an entire series, and Bud certainly knew that. Also, the $2 million number Bud gave in the interviews was five times smaller than what the AMA was asking for, and what DMG paid.
I get that Bud and everyone at Glen Helen like to do things their own way, and we try to work through every difference. I wish MXA would delete this interview from popping up, so I don't have to explain how far off it was every time someone posts it here. Bud was bitter about having given up his national, and not long after this was posted we started talking again to get Glen Helen back on the schedule as part of the series.
DC
As for Webbs comments you need a motorhome or trailer to call the riders into that shoot their mouths off ala Nascar and have a conversation with them in Big Bill France fashion. "Cooper all I have to say is that this sport don't NEED you but you do NEED it"
and for the record I'm a huge CWebb fan!
I do know that Steve changed over time, and whether it was health issues, or the med therapy he was taking in an effort to lose some weight, he was substantially different person than the eternally cheery guy he was when I first met him.
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