My 2 Cents On The Ohio Valley Karting Association

I was talking with one of our customers today (Ray) about the state of our local kart club and the state of Kart Racing in general and that conversation has prompted me to write this post, I realize that it has been a while since my last post but there really hasn't been a whole lot going on that was very interesting.

Don't get me wrong I think that the OVKA is a great organization the competition is amongst the best in the country and the people that race it are some of the nicest people you could ever want to meet, the problem I see is a lack of promotion and the miss appropriation of funds that could be spent in other areas...............Now before anybody starts firing up their phones to start yelling at me hear me out first.

Let me try to break this down so that it will be easy to follow where I am going with this..............the first point I would like to address is the expenditures at the annual Banquet held to celebrate the Champions of the series, there is an insane amount of money spent each and every year at this event and I feel that it is money wasted, for example in 2005 I personally raced in the TaG class at OVKA and achieved the 100% participation award at the Banquet. Now after spending thousands of dollars to race the season I was looking forward to winning a nice prize for my efforts, however after my random drawing for my prize I was awarded a L&T Mini Clutch (Don't get me wrong here the L&T clutches are excellent and well worth the money) which due to the fact that I raced TaG was absolutely useless for me and in a similar situation Victor Hartings who was the Yamaha Light Champion that year won a single disc L&T wet clutch that he still to this day has never used because he has no use for it.

Now I am all for giving people an award or a prize but why not give them something that they can use instead of a dust collector sitting on the shelf, well here is my suggestion instead of the club purchasing a bunch of prizes that people may or may not use or need (A helmet that is 3 sizes too small is one that comes to mind) why not make a list of kart shops and series sponsors that the competitor can chose from and issue them a gift certificate for example

Position Award Breakdown ($values for sake of argument only)
First Place................$400
Second Place............$300
Third Place..............$200
Fourth Place............$100

List of available Sponsors/Shops
Appco
Staffords Racing
Slattery Racing
Yellow Fin/PKP
Comet Kart sales
Liberty Sports Wear
American Power Sports
Russell Karting
so on and so forth..................

Now a competitor that finished in first place in his or her class could choose the shop or supplier or sponsor that they want the certificate for for example say the driver and his or her team really wanted some personalized race apparel then the certificate could be issued to Liberty Sportswear and they would have $400 to spent on some hats or shirts of their choice instead of a prize that they may never use.............sounds simple to me, of course the dollar values and the position pay back that I have given will change due to participation in the class but I think you get the idea.

Rick Coombs (bless his heart) spends hours every year arranging for and ordering all of these prizes that are given out and on top of that has to find a way to get the stuff to the banquet, with a system like I have suggested this could be greatly reduced and could take alot of the burden of planning the banquet away.

The other point of contention that I have is advertising I feel that it is time for OVKA to start promoting itself to the local media, Newspapers, Radio Stations and possibly even Television, if OVKA would allocate 5 to 10 thousand dollars a year to advertising in the local media it could potentially boost the interest in karting tremendously, why not run a half page add in several local news papers one Sunday every month during the season, advertise the races make it sound exciting give detailed directions include a couple of really cool pictures that are eye catching make it seem like the next best thing to sliced bread this would generate interest in Karting from people that may not have ever heard of it and with the popularity of NASCAR there are alot of people out there that might be interested in an affordable substitute.

I hear on Radio stations all the time where they are broadcasting live from a location like a restaurant opening, why not at the race track could you imagine "We are here live at G&J Kartways in Camden Ohio for the annual Mid Season Championship Race, the action is wheel to wheel folks and hey bring the Kids for a free Hot Dog and a Soda" wouldn't that be cool to hear on local radio and even if nobody showed up there would be thousands that would hear it and think hey Go-Kart racing I wonder what that's all about...................Bingo potential new Karter.

I think that with a 5 to 10 thousand dollar budget that all of this is possible and with some 30 to 40 thousand being spent on the Banquet each and every year cut backs could easily free up the funds needed to get this done. Television could also come into play as well all of the time spent by local news talking about local sports yet Karting is never ever mentioned and I think it's mostly because they don't know how big and competitive Karting is, OVKA could arrange a media day at the track and invite all local media over on a VIP package to watch a race offer free meal and refreshments and potentially rides in Karts, I am not guaranteeing that this will work but why not give it a shot there is no harm in trying.

I would love some feedback on this so feel free to post a comment or I would be happy to talk to anybody this weekend at the first race I will see you all there.

Francis