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WOOD: Treating the Tuner World Like A Business
Written by: Bill Wood
SPEEDtv.com   http://www.speedtv.com
01/08/2008
Las Vegas, Nev.
 

The tuner world is alive and vibrant and 2008. But, depending on your language, alive and vibrant can be translated into change – and change can be difficult or worse for a business. Chris Blair, Vice President of Racing Operations at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, is tasked with the job of mapping change in the motorsports world. It's his job to know where the tuner world is going – even if the tuner world itself is unsure about the trip! Like most things on an executive's desk, the thing getting Blair's attention now is tuner drag racing and the merger between NOPI and the NHRA. It caught Blair by surprise at SEMA in late October.

"It was a mess," he told me the other day. "I only had a 45-minute notice of what was going on."
The visceral attractions of the tuner world have proven difficult to convert into a sustainable business model. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

After a couple months, though, the landscape isn't as barren. "Now I'm kind of taking a wait and see attitude to see what will happen," he says.

I agree with Blair, that NOPI was strong in its branding and presentations on site and on television. "That's been the biggest thing that was lacking on the NHRA side of things," he said. "Now that we don't have these guys chasing each other and butting heads, maybe we'll have something decent come out of this. It looks like they're taking a little better reasoning in some of the scheduling. I think it might be more affordable and more people might be able to support the program."

That seems to be at the core of everything tuner in the U.S. There are several nationally based series in drag racing, drifting and rallying, but finding enough teams and sponsors to support the national aspects of the racing has proven to be problematic. Drag racing suffered, was on life support and may be coming back if you believe the above. It was frustrating for promoters like Blair who booked the shows and wondered who'd be in the pits or in the grandstands once the date arrived.

"The biggest thing that frustrated me was that we never were able to build brand-name drivers," he told me this week. "Shaun Carlson was here with all the colorful stuff he was doing. Then he moved up to (NHRA) Pro Stock for a short time. Everyone would come and go but no one really stuck around. Marty Ladwig (a several-time national champion and the first in NOPI and the NHRA to cross the 200mph barrier in a FWD car) was probably the only one who stuck around to see things out."

To me, this is the heart of any motorsports promotion argument: Do people come to see the technology and the speed or to cheer for the heroes pushing the speed envelope?

"The bottom line is people come to see the cars and to see them go fast," Blair said. "But I think what we needed to do was to build some heroes to identify a particular driver with a particular type of car, and I don't think that ever happened."

Chris said he'd meet with his promotional people to start a marketing campaign and they'd talk about drivers he couldn't remember from the year before. He said the guys featured on the posters couldn't be found in the magazines. The tuner world is such a peer-to-peer universe that getting wired into its reality is difficult for even the professionals like Blair.

Rallying has muddled through since the '70s. But with the appearance of Travis Pastrana – and Dave Mirra this year – coupled with the X Games television exposure, the sport has a platform that can be attractive to sponsors and, therefore, resourced teams. One man working in the background with Travis is Ken Block, one of the founders of DC Shoes, an iconic tuner brand. Block brought in Mirra this year and Travis is working to find a ride for his motocross/Supercross buddy Chad Reed who's told me more than once he'd like to be in a rally car sooner than later. Other action sports heroes are out there also beating the bushes for rides – names such as skateboarder Bucky Lasik come to mind – indicating a strong future for rallying – IF it can survive the next
couple seasons.
Blair: keeping his fingers on the pulse - and his eyes on the grandstands. (photo courtesy LVMS) ยป More Photos

I've talked many times here at SpeedTV.com about the reasoned building of drifting in America. Formula Drift has emerged as the leader domestically and, perhaps, internationally with its intelligent design of a national championship. The Japanese-based D1GP has fallen on hard times in the U.S., leaving Formula D to carry the torch into the future, or so it would appear.

Rallying and drifting, however, have avoided one mistake that slammed drag racing. They're building the heroes that Blair wants to promote. And those heroes show up at every event because one major national championship has grown from each discipline. Others have tried to capitalize but have fallen by the wayside or failed to make the major leagues of contemporary attention on the Internet. In drifting and rallying, you don't have the heroes chasing the spotlight every weekend spending money better used for the technology that will make the cars faster or better looking.

"Take a look at drifting," Blair continued. "Look at the events that have packed the stands at Irwindale. The emphasis was on competition – close, tight racing that people stood up and cheered about. That was one of the things that sport compact drag racing missed the boat on. They couldn't get two cars to go down the track side-by-side. That was a huge problem. There had to be a better way of putting a better product out there."

So, again, is racing the speed or the competition? It would appear that Blair is asking it a different way. Is racing the technology or the heroes?

"A lot of times, the kid who was interested in sport compact drag racing one year had zero interest the next. It could be that the kid who spent his money on turbos or nitrous one year, the next year he decides he's going to spend his money on stereos. That's kind of the way it works."

Understanding the audience is crucial for everyone in the tuner world, whether they're the promoters, the sponsors or the sanctioning bodies. Blair put it best: an 18- to 24-year-old at a Springsteen or Justin Timberlake concert is different than an 18- to 24-year-old at a DMX or Mary J. Blige concert.

"Some things you think would work, but they bomb miserably. We never could get it to the point where there was just one strong unit that really worked from start to finish. There was always something different in every town. What worked in Englishtown (New Jersey) wouldn't work here in Las Vegas."

If the merger between NOPI and the NHRA can succeed, perhaps this will get corrected. We may know something in the spring. The first NOPI event is March 29-30 in Atlanta. But the published calendar hasn't proven to be truly national. The closest it comes to the West Coast is West Valley City, Utah at Rocky Mountain Raceway in the southwest suburbs of Salt Lake City in July.

Blair admitted that the smaller, regional events such as the Battle of the Imports may prove to be the saving grace for tuner drag racing. He's noticed growth in the sportsmen and all-motor categories, meaning the interest is there for the sport – but the money to explode the sport into space isn't. That might be just as well.

"I think what Formula Drift is doing now is probably the one to keep the eye on," Blair said. He thought that Formula Drift's partnership with the international media company IMG is the future.

"The thing I really like about those guys is they have a plan. They seem to be precise in what they're doing, where with some other groups it's kind of shoot from the hip. They're really treating it like a business."

Certainly the sponsors, promoters, teams and fans appreciate that commitment and outlook!

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SpeedTV.com, FOX, NewsCorp, SPEED Channel, or Haymarket Worldwide.