Commentary by: Langley Austin ~ [email protected]

Copper Hill, VA(November 12, 2012) — The Pro All Stars Series, or PASS as most of you know it, sent out a press release earlier today, which we posted to RACE22.com. The release was titled “PASS Addresses Social Media Concerns” and addressed a large portion of people, who are upset about a lack of live type coverage from their events.

Since, RACE22.com doesn’t typically cover PASS races live anyways; I thought that I would take their article for a spin. They addressed concerns over tracks and the series losing revenue due to entities covering every heartbeat of their events. RACE22.com offers LIVE Coverage of races throughout the year, but even before the imposed ban from the PASS Series, we didn’t offer their events live regularly.

I think their press release raised some good questions and offered some reasonable concerns. So I thought ok maybe I can play Devil’s Advocate for a moment. I mean there is always two sides to every coin… right? And, most of you who know me, know that I don’t mind voicing an opinion on anything. So even though this isn’t my battle, I will offer my thoughts…

First, the PASS Series said in their statement, “The vast majority of those facilities do not want to allow any entity to do live updates.”

I’m obviously not privy to conversations had between PASS President, Tom Mayberry and the track owners and managers. However, I have been in some of those same types of conversations with the people in charge of the race tracks that they have buying their races. Actually, almost all of the same tracks that host their shows here in the South. We offer updates from almost all of those same venues with permission from the track owners or managers.

In fact, most of those same venue operators call or contact RACE22.com in some way shape or form to ask us to come cover their events. Most of these venues want media attention. They want their tracks name out there as much as possible and by us or another entity being there to provide that coverage, it generates interest.

For example Kingsport Speedway General Manager, Robert Pressley has told us that from our coverage from his events he has seen an increase in the number of hits generated by the tracks website. He also has seen the interest from outside of the Tri-Cities region go up due to our coverage of his events. Last, but certainly not least, the track also boasted their biggest crowd under his tenure in this year’s season finale, despite the fact that we had done nearly every race there over the course of the last two thirds of the season.

That’s just one example of how live coverage has worked for tracks. I could ramble on for hours, but the bottom line is, it works for some and for others it hasn’t worked to the advantage that they thought it might. Motor Mile Speedway has allowed us to do updates at their venue before, but has a ban on live updates, because they’re concerned over how it might affect their crowd. We believe that it would help, but they don’t see it that way and we don’t have an issue with that. We still support the track and cover more races there than almost any other weekly track in the region.

I know that there’s good and bad out there to the live coverage and I stand behind the PASS series’ right to refuse to allow updates of their events. I agree that in some cases, people might stay at home from an event if the weather is iffy or cash is low or whatever the reason might be. But, they were staying at home to start with and not because they can read a bunch of words describing the race.
I don’t know of any fan that would stay at home versus going to the race in favor of reading messages. I mean, yeah I believe that we do a fantastic job of covering the races for people who are far away or couldn’t make it. But, is there any way that’s a substitute for going to a race? I just can’t see it, but hey maybe I’m wrong.

Another item that was discussed in the release was the item of sponsorship for the live coverage to which the PASS release carried this statement, “Many entities who present live updates have sponsors that allow them to do their coverage, but PASS nor the facilities we race at share in those profits.”

Profits? I must be doing this all wrong. RACE22.com is one of those entities that sell advertising for our live events. Though, we often have only one or two companies to support a live event, we do sometimes have 10-12. While I know that looks like a profitable deal to some, I can assure you that we don’t make a dime. By the time you account for travel expenses, sometimes hotel rooms, feeding the guys covering the races and etc., it’s all gone, most of the time more than gone.

Profits from our live events would be awesome. We have a great sponsor in Five Star Race Car Bodies that supports every event we want to do live throughout the year. We couldn’t ask for a better supporter, but we also can’t ask them or anyone else to pay what it actually costs us to cover the events. We sometimes break even and sometimes we take money out from selling websites or hero cards to help pay the bills, just to try and promote the races and series.

People don’t get the whole story. You see an ad and you assume it’s paying all the bills, but that’s not the case. This is short track racing; this isn’t big time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing. We’re dealing mostly with small businesses that work as hard as or harder than we do just to get by. They extend themselves to help us and help the fans get more coverage than they’ve ever got before. They’re not big corporations with seemingly unlimited budgets.

One other thing I noticed was this statement by the PASS Series, “In years past, PASS became involved with a company to do live updates and streaming video of its events. That company did not fulfill the obligation they agreed to with PASS and we now choose to no longer associate with them. PASS respectfully declined their request to do live updates at subsequent events and they chose to do them on their own through other means without the permission of PASS. The sanctioning body was forced to protect its race tracks and sponsors and does not allow this, or other entities, to do live updates without the express written permission of the series.”

I won’t dare dive into the “he said, she said” side of that. Why punish everyone including your drivers because you’re not happy with one entity? What’s between PASS and that entity should stay between them. Just like you have the power to ban all media from posting “live” updates, you have the power and ability to ban them if you so choose.

If you don’t want to take the chance of someone else getting a dollar or two to cover the races for you, do it yourself. Hire a guy to do the live updates, buy CoverItLive and take care of all the expenses and reap the “profits” yourself from selling advertising.

In fact, if you do that, RACE22.com will provide you and any other series with free links to your coverage. Posts on our growing Facebook page, twitter account and more. Change in the way media covers racing and life has changed and you have to try and keep up with it or you will get left behind. I find it funny that the series that I think is the most proactive on the side of making their racing better is the least proactive in promoting themselves off the race track.

With all of that said. This isn’t a slam of the PASS Series, but rather an observation from a guy looking in. We have never had an issue with the PASS Series and don’t ever expect to (unless they take this opinion the wrong way). They have issued us credentials time after time and we’ve done, I believe only ONE of those races live. It’s not about what you don’t offer, but rather your reasons behind it.

Think outside the box and don’t let an issue with one company keep you from being promoted by many others. We haven’t changed our coverage of the PASS Series and don’t intend to because of the imposed ban on live updates for “media”. RACE22.com stands behind the PASS Series. We will continue to cover them as much as possible through our website. We would be happy to help them more and all they have to do is ask.

Alright, I’m off my soapbox and ready to head to Myrtle Beach for the Myrtle Beach 400. Hopefully this doesn’t offend anyone, but someone needs to set the record straight.