H
HardScrabble
Guest
Another excellent writing from Andy Belmont of the ARCA series.
Headed to a meeting, by Andy Belmont...
Meetings in the off-season are a part of life for our team. This particular meeting is one that should be of interest to all racer's.
The Eastern Motorsports Press Association was formed some thirty years ago with the expressed intention of making the business of reporting our sport better. Quality coverage of the sport that could easily find it's way into the mainstream. The sport and how it is covered has evolved to levels that most find hard to comprehend. Still, there is room for improvement.
Whether it is the EMPA, the National Motorsports Press Association or another of the fine groups that are out there, these are organizations that race teams should support. Radio, TV, print media, photographers and so on. There are lot's of folks out there who are part of our machine. They are also a part of what makes our deal work.
Media coverage is an odd area of our sport. It is filled with folks who are fans and wannabe's and this is their way of connecting, their adrenaline rush is much like a driver or mechanic. But there are also the beat writers who are assigned to this area, who would rather be fighting about issues at the Masters or the Notre Dame/Michigan football game. This is where the problem lies. No matter how hard we work at getting our sport out into the mainstream, there are those disinterested people who have to write or talk about us without having all the information. As much as we think we have arrived, we have a long way to go.
My suggestion for teams at every level, from the go-karts and quarter midgets up to the top NHRA, IndyCar and NASCAR levels, is to be better at getting quality information into the writer's hands. Make their job a little easier. You might see more print about a given team than the other, mainly because they offer more to folks who need material.
Lot's of folks have full time PR people that scramble around and make sure that the cookie cutter media information is in the media center, we really don't think that justifies a paycheck. It's not too tough to do and not very useful. The real useful stuff is what makes it out of the trade publications and makes it to your daily papers. Makes the local stick and ball guy step up and take notice. Most of us have reasons to talk to a writer, we just don't know it.
That is where it is our responsibility to think and provide better information. Everyone has a story within the story. The weekend warrior who is a bank president at his regular job, the tire specialist who actually spends all week as a butcher at the meat market, the trophy shop guy who gasses the car on the weekends, the government missile systems guy who works the computer on the war wagon. Good information exists with every team. Just seems to me that the "guru's" over in la-la land have you convinced that this sport is all about the superstar drivers and their respective "issues." Well, I am here to tell you that is pretty boring stuff and after a while, it just isn't a story worth speaking to anymore. We wouldn't be a team without the guys we just mentioned.
So the moral of the story is: Seek out your local beat writer. Find out what organizations they belong to. See how you can support them. Put your thinking cap on and figure out all the little things that we seem to take for granted about our help, how and why they are there...and you just might find the story in a paper somewhere. Clip it, copy it and use it in your next presentation. You and your team members are newsworthy. It's one of the first rules in sponsorship.
Headed to a meeting, by Andy Belmont...
Meetings in the off-season are a part of life for our team. This particular meeting is one that should be of interest to all racer's.
The Eastern Motorsports Press Association was formed some thirty years ago with the expressed intention of making the business of reporting our sport better. Quality coverage of the sport that could easily find it's way into the mainstream. The sport and how it is covered has evolved to levels that most find hard to comprehend. Still, there is room for improvement.
Whether it is the EMPA, the National Motorsports Press Association or another of the fine groups that are out there, these are organizations that race teams should support. Radio, TV, print media, photographers and so on. There are lot's of folks out there who are part of our machine. They are also a part of what makes our deal work.
Media coverage is an odd area of our sport. It is filled with folks who are fans and wannabe's and this is their way of connecting, their adrenaline rush is much like a driver or mechanic. But there are also the beat writers who are assigned to this area, who would rather be fighting about issues at the Masters or the Notre Dame/Michigan football game. This is where the problem lies. No matter how hard we work at getting our sport out into the mainstream, there are those disinterested people who have to write or talk about us without having all the information. As much as we think we have arrived, we have a long way to go.
My suggestion for teams at every level, from the go-karts and quarter midgets up to the top NHRA, IndyCar and NASCAR levels, is to be better at getting quality information into the writer's hands. Make their job a little easier. You might see more print about a given team than the other, mainly because they offer more to folks who need material.
Lot's of folks have full time PR people that scramble around and make sure that the cookie cutter media information is in the media center, we really don't think that justifies a paycheck. It's not too tough to do and not very useful. The real useful stuff is what makes it out of the trade publications and makes it to your daily papers. Makes the local stick and ball guy step up and take notice. Most of us have reasons to talk to a writer, we just don't know it.
That is where it is our responsibility to think and provide better information. Everyone has a story within the story. The weekend warrior who is a bank president at his regular job, the tire specialist who actually spends all week as a butcher at the meat market, the trophy shop guy who gasses the car on the weekends, the government missile systems guy who works the computer on the war wagon. Good information exists with every team. Just seems to me that the "guru's" over in la-la land have you convinced that this sport is all about the superstar drivers and their respective "issues." Well, I am here to tell you that is pretty boring stuff and after a while, it just isn't a story worth speaking to anymore. We wouldn't be a team without the guys we just mentioned.
So the moral of the story is: Seek out your local beat writer. Find out what organizations they belong to. See how you can support them. Put your thinking cap on and figure out all the little things that we seem to take for granted about our help, how and why they are there...and you just might find the story in a paper somewhere. Clip it, copy it and use it in your next presentation. You and your team members are newsworthy. It's one of the first rules in sponsorship.
