Marketing RallyCross (or other motorsports)

ProDarwin said:

Don't forget there is also a main WDCR SCCA region page which has a calendar for "all events", but the Rallyx events do not appear on the calendar.  

Its needs to be crystal berkeleying clear where to look for this kind of info.  What you currently have is a mess to someone who is just checking to see what events are upcoming.

 

The types of people who are casually interested, even in spectating, aren't going to do a research project just to find out when the next event is.  Especially those who don't used facebook that much.

 

Its not unique to DC region sadly.

It's not unique to rallycross either. So many regions scca pages and official websites are useless or were last updated in 2013.

dps214 said:

irish44j said:

 It's almost all national. Stories about rallycross generally reference nationals. Stories about setup generally reference car(s) or driver(s) that were at nationals. But let's face it, only a small percentage of rallycrosser go to (or really care about) nationals. Like politics, almost all racing is local. Hyping nationals in Iowa does virtually nothing for local turnout or interest. Most locals just want to have a good time, not follow Brianne's or Warren's or Evan's personal racing careers ;)  So a few things SCCA itself could do on that end:

I absolutely get what you're saying and I think more local attention would be great, but to be fair if I'm looking for setup advice I want it to come from someone with a known track record. And while I know there's plenty of rallycrossers out there that only aren't national champions because they haven't gone to nationals, national results are the easiest way to identify that someone's advice is actually worth taking. Also FWIW the last rallycross article in Sportscar from a month or two ago was just two local Detroit/Ohio guys talking about their setup experiences...they just happen to have three national championships between them as well :). Also my claim to SCCA fame now is that that's me driving in the headline photo with the article.

For sure: and you just made my point. You simply assume that if someone goes to nats, their advice is worth following (right or wrong). Now -  Highlighting regional competitors will actually allow people like you to KNOW what their track record is, even if they're not people going to nats. . If I said "Adam Kimmett" you've probably never heard of him because he doesn't want to drive 20 hours to Iowa/Nebraska.. But if SCCA did a highlight piece then you'd know he's a 5-6 time regional M4 champion, won several divisional events and probably 50+ rallycrosses in a strong region, and wins a bunch of stage rallies as well, And then you'd probably say "damn, maybe I should check out HIS setup" The point of the local highlights is to build a broader pool of known talent, or simply make local competitors feel like they're *something notable* even if not going to nationals. 

ProDarwin said:

Don't forget there is also a main WDCR SCCA region page which has a calendar for "all events", but the Rallyx events do not appear on the calendar.  

Its needs to be crystal berkeleying clear where to look for this kind of info.  What you currently have is a mess to someone who is just checking to see what events are upcoming.

 

The types of people who are casually interested, even in spectating, aren't going to do a research project just to find out when the next event is.  Especially those who don't used facebook that much.

 

Its not unique to DC region sadly.

Preaching to the choir, trust me. And that's all part of the marketing/promoting I'm talking about. Trying to get different page admins update stuff, improve the pages, etc is a big job - especially when none of these people is getting paid for it or does it for a living, or have different levels of skill with regard to programming, web posting, etc. 

And yeah, I've seen some rallycross groups that have almost no information out there. Ours could use some improvement as well, of course. 

ProDarwin said:

Pet peeve of mine (the local region here is 1000x worse), but... how many events do you run a year?  None of them are planned now?  Did you only have one championship event last year?  Where does one find the results?

 

This. I just found out about the first event locally. The events show up in Facebook groups and on MotorsportsReg, but the future planning isn't great. A lot of that has to do with getting venues in advance, but it doesn't help anybody trying to plan ahead.

The autocross group and rallycross groups have also run novice schools, where the format is Saturday is a day long instruction and driving clinic, then Sunday is the actual event. I think the seat time and one to one instruction has gotten more people interested in coming out than any other single thing that's been done. 

MrChaos said:

It's not unique to rallycross either. So many regions scca pages and official websites are useless or were last updated in 2013.

 

irish44j said:

Preaching to the choir, trust me. And that's all part of the marketing/promoting I'm talking about. Trying to get different page admins update stuff, improve the pages, etc is a big job - especially when none of these people is getting paid for it or does it for a living, or have different levels of skill with regard to programming, web posting, etc. 

And yeah, I've seen some rallycross groups that have almost no information out there. Ours could use some improvement as well, of course. 

So I guess maybe what I am suggesting here is:  What group does have the best site?  Can that be emulated?  Can all groups, or a large portion of them agree on an approach?  Even best practices for a facebook site might be good to share.  It really feels like most groups are doing a mediocre-at-best job of reinventing their own version of the wheel, but if there were some collaboration it might work out pretty well.

Brett_Murphy said:

ProDarwin said:

Pet peeve of mine (the local region here is 1000x worse), but... how many events do you run a year?  None of them are planned now?  Did you only have one championship event last year?  Where does one find the results?

 

This. I just found out about the first event locally. The events show up in Facebook groups and on MotorsportsReg

And there is no link to the Motorsports Reg page from the Rallyx event on Facebook.  So again, picture newcomers sitting there scratching there heads.  Actually there is effectively zero information whatsoever other than a place, time, and date.

I think the point here is: SCCA is all volunteers. Especially at the local level. 

Better marketing, or schedules, or websites can be helped by locals helping. Maybe the guy who runs the rallycross for your region is 60 years old and doesn't know how to use facebook. Someone else should step in and help. I'm going to try to do my part, but I'm no web programmer either!

We can bitch about it, or we can try to help make changes ourselves with our own effort.

This is just my thought, because we've lost 2 venues locally and as far as my not on Facebook self knows aren't having a season this year, but maybe they could put together an information packet to give to potential sites so they don't think are just showing up and wrecking the place. 

And show that SCCA rally cross is different from the wheel to wheel rally cross that gets shown on tv. 

irish44j said:

dps214 said:

irish44j said:

 It's almost all national. Stories about rallycross generally reference nationals. Stories about setup generally reference car(s) or driver(s) that were at nationals. But let's face it, only a small percentage of rallycrosser go to (or really care about) nationals. Like politics, almost all racing is local. Hyping nationals in Iowa does virtually nothing for local turnout or interest. Most locals just want to have a good time, not follow Brianne's or Warren's or Evan's personal racing careers ;)  So a few things SCCA itself could do on that end:

I absolutely get what you're saying and I think more local attention would be great, but to be fair if I'm looking for setup advice I want it to come from someone with a known track record. And while I know there's plenty of rallycrossers out there that only aren't national champions because they haven't gone to nationals, national results are the easiest way to identify that someone's advice is actually worth taking. Also FWIW the last rallycross article in Sportscar from a month or two ago was just two local Detroit/Ohio guys talking about their setup experiences...they just happen to have three national championships between them as well :). Also my claim to SCCA fame now is that that's me driving in the headline photo with the article.

For sure: and you just made my point. You simply assume that if someone goes to nats, their advice is worth following (right or wrong). Now -  Highlighting regional competitors will actually allow people like you to KNOW what their track record is, even if they're not people going to nats. . If I said "Adam Kimmett" you've probably never heard of him because he doesn't want to drive 20 hours to Iowa/Nebraska.. But if SCCA did a highlight piece then you'd know he's a 5-6 time regional M4 champion, won several divisional events and probably 50+ rallycrosses in a strong region, and wins a bunch of stage rallies as well, And then you'd probably say "damn, maybe I should check out HIS setup" The point of the local highlights is to build a broader pool of known talent, or simply make local competitors feel like they're *something notable* even if not going to nationals. 

You're not wrong. But what I'm getting at is that if you want to do profiles of local competitors that's fine, but if you have to do a full competitor profile article just to set up for the setup advice article...my guess is that you'll have lost most people's attention by then. But maybe I'm off base in that assumption. My experience has been that most rallycrossers are generally laid back and just out there to have fun, even a lot of people at the national level. I'm honestly not sure how useful setup advice artices are at all, other than to have that information out there for the handful of  people out there who are actually intersted in it and haven't already figured it out for themselves.

I'm not honestly sure how this would be accomplished, or if you could even do it at all within the structure of the SCCA, but I think what would really help would be turning nationals into an event that people actually want to go to, and then keep going back to. Attendance numbers have been up lately, but aside from the handful of perennial competitors, it's a lot of turnover and a lot of people going once, deciding they like their regional events better, and not going back.

RevRico said:

This is just my thought, because we've lost 2 venues locally and as far as my not on Facebook self knows aren't having a season this year, but maybe they could put together an information packet to give to potential sites so they don't think are just showing up and wrecking the place. 

And show that SCCA rally cross is different from the wheel to wheel rally cross that gets shown on tv. 

IDK if you've seen it, but there actually IS a pretty slick information packet that SCCA gives to the regions for such a purpose (with its own glossy folder and glossy inserts). It pretty extensively explains what rallycross is, what the insurance coverage covers, and other details.; It's actually one of the best things "Big SCCA" provides to local rallycross, in my opinion. If your regional leaders don't have it, tell them to touch base with the national office and get some. There may be a few people on this forum that have access to them, IDK.

I think losing (and finding) venues is one of the things that will never get much easier  - often because of neighbors to the site, or local ordinances, s much as the owners. The venue we lost had owners who were all-in on rallycross (they were stage rally drivers), but external reasons resulted in them having to stop hosting the events (read: neighbors and local government). Unless your site is entirely in the boondocks (which is a long way from many big metro areas), there's always that possibility. 

I mean, autocross, drifters, etc....all have those same issues to some degree. It's just harder to find big open fields in many areas than it is to find big open parking lots :)

In reply to irish44j :

Plus rallycross events are a little more impactful to the neighbors because they tend to generate dust clouds that migrate around.  It's been a while, but I think that was the primary reason that one of the WOR sites and the Indy golf course site were lost.

Iirc the venue that ETR runs at is owned by one of the rallycrossers and is in the middle of nowhere in an agricultural area. As long as they are quiet before 8am and after 6pm and dont bother the cows the neighbors are fine. 

But I know that is a big region dependent thing. Just like Central Florida running at the FIRM.

In reply to irish44j :

I have not seen it, I was just given a list of counties that Pittsburgh region isn't involved in to look for places at. Because apparently Pittsburgh region and their autocrossers are more important than any other local region and they'd rather stand around a parking lot than a field, for whatever stupid reason. 

I honestly don't even know if my region is still active since they lost their autocross venue as well. 

dps214 said:

irish44j said:

dps214 said:

irish44j said:

 It's almost all national. Stories about rallycross generally reference nationals. Stories about setup generally reference car(s) or driver(s) that were at nationals. But let's face it, only a small percentage of rallycrosser go to (or really care about) nationals. Like politics, almost all racing is local. Hyping nationals in Iowa does virtually nothing for local turnout or interest. Most locals just want to have a good time, not follow Brianne's or Warren's or Evan's personal racing careers ;)  So a few things SCCA itself could do on that end:

I absolutely get what you're saying and I think more local attention would be great, but to be fair if I'm looking for setup advice I want it to come from someone with a known track record. And while I know there's plenty of rallycrossers out there that only aren't national champions because they haven't gone to nationals, national results are the easiest way to identify that someone's advice is actually worth taking. Also FWIW the last rallycross article in Sportscar from a month or two ago was just two local Detroit/Ohio guys talking about their setup experiences...they just happen to have three national championships between them as well :). Also my claim to SCCA fame now is that that's me driving in the headline photo with the article.

For sure: and you just made my point. You simply assume that if someone goes to nats, their advice is worth following (right or wrong). Now -  Highlighting regional competitors will actually allow people like you to KNOW what their track record is, even if they're not people going to nats. . If I said "Adam Kimmett" you've probably never heard of him because he doesn't want to drive 20 hours to Iowa/Nebraska.. But if SCCA did a highlight piece then you'd know he's a 5-6 time regional M4 champion, won several divisional events and probably 50+ rallycrosses in a strong region, and wins a bunch of stage rallies as well, And then you'd probably say "damn, maybe I should check out HIS setup" The point of the local highlights is to build a broader pool of known talent, or simply make local competitors feel like they're *something notable* even if not going to nationals. 

You're not wrong. But what I'm getting at is that if you want to do profiles of local competitors that's fine, but if you have to do a full competitor profile article just to set up for the setup advice article...my guess is that you'll have lost most people's attention by then. But maybe I'm off base in that assumption. My experience has been that most rallycrossers are generally laid back and just out there to have fun, even a lot of people at the national level. I'm honestly not sure how useful setup advice artices are at all, other than to have that information out there for the handful of  people out there who are actually intersted in it and haven't already figured it out for themselves.

The "Setup" article is just an example of sorts. There are plenty of ways to to more detailed focus articles about rallycross, that's just one part ...driver profile, car profiles, venue profiles,, whatever someone wants to write about that others may find interesting or entertaining. IDK, seing neat things other people do with their cars is inspiring to people in their own builds. A lot of stuff I've done to my own car was because I saw it in someone else's build thread or an article, or a photos someplace. 

I mean, the other option is to say "berkeley it, people are just doing this to have fun and don't care about competition so let's not bother doing anything," IDK what else to do. 

I'm not honestly sure how this would be accomplished, or if you could even do it at all within the structure of the SCCA, but I think what would really help would be turning nationals into an event that people actually want to go to, and then keep going back to. Attendance numbers have been up lately, but aside from the handful of perennial competitors, it's a lot of turnover and a lot of people going once, deciding they like their regional events better, and not going back.

People don't go to nationals because nationals is a long way away from most of the country for minimal seat time.  IDK that it's "the experience" that's a problem (at least to the people I know). it's just about distance and cost. If Nationals was 3 or 5 hours from me, I'd go every year.  But I'm not driving 22 hours to get 8 rallycross runs. And neither are almost any of the top east coast drivers I know. Most ralllycrossers won't even go 6-7 hours to do a divisional event.  The perrenials are the ones who either a) live fairly close or b) have the available multiple days of time and plenty of cash to actually make the trip. Most of nationals turnout is people who are in the general geographical region. Move Nats to New England and I bet you don't see the 50+ entries from the midwest  that currently show up. Move it to California and few or no east coast folks show up. It's a big country, costs a lot to get across, and at its core rallycross is a "budget motorsport." IDK if there's any way around it, honestly. 

 In any case, you note that most people are in it for the fun or for competition amongst their friends....not with an intent to be a national champion. Hence why I think focusing on local competitors is key. More local turnout/more local interest is the only way to get national/divisional level events to grow. 

RevRico said:

In reply to irish44j :

I have not seen it, I was just given a list of counties that Pittsburgh region isn't involved in to look for places at. Because apparently Pittsburgh region and their autocrossers are more important than any other local region and they'd rather stand around a parking lot than a field, for whatever stupid reason. 

I honestly don't even know if my region is still active since they lost their autocross venue as well. 

Check in with Blue Mountain region (BMR). Not far from Pittsburgh (they run out toward the far western panhandle of Maryland ) and they've been working pretty hard to revive their program that they started a few years ago (and then lost most of their equipment in a flood). I know there were a number of Pittsburgh-area folks that ran with them because it was only an hour or two away.

In reply to irish44j's OP :

More regional exposure in SportsCar is a nice carrot for existing competitors.  And I've long been annoyed that only one or two regions had their season schedule posted in the back of the magazine.  (LOL region, IIRC)

BUT - The only people who read SportsCar are already SCCA members.  The exposure might get people out who are only autocrossers, or club racers, or road rallyists (like, all three of them?) but it won't reach new people.

I had decent accidental luck years back by just making sure that any pictures people took got posted to local sites like centralohiosubarus.com (now dead), ohiorotaries.com (now dead), and trackaddicts.net (also now dead).  There was also a local forum for various autocross clubs like OVR and WOR and I'd cross-pollinate pictures there.  That got a good number of people to ask questions, come out and observe, ride along, and more often than not get hooked.  But did you notice the trend about the existence of local forums?  (I also posted a bunch to rx7club.com, and believe it or not it has generated interest across the country)

Another thing that generates interest is making a showing at local car shows.  One winter, WOR had a table at an indoor show and we had a car set up, fliers available, and we had a small screen set up with footage from various events.  Go to Cars and Coffee near one of your sites, show up with a tastefully done Mod car AND a nice clean Stock car, do them up with their numbers and such, and bring a media kit.

I do think that it is important that people don't think they have to do a large expenditure to just come out and have fun.   I've always tried to "sell" it as more of a get together than a capital-E Race Event, but OTOH that's also how Ohio rolls anyway so it's not off the mark either 

BTW - when I got started, I heard about it while looking up 240Z information in 2003 or so.  That led me to hit a site called chasinracin that was a list of all motorsports venues, and a lookup of all SCCA chapters in my general area and checked out their websites to see who did rallycross.  WOR was the only one, and that's why it's still my home region even though I live in NEOhio and have to drive through Ohio Valley Region to get there...

mazdeuce - Seth said:

spacecadet said:

You might want to reach out to Phil at sportscar and offer to do some of this write-up stuff, you obviously have the experience and ideas. 

The magazine would need someone to write it up because the magazine is far beyond the definition of a skeleton crew. 

I don't think your ideas are bad by any means. 

 

 

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but they need to do SOMETHING about the magazine. Maybe Irish can breathe some life into it? I'm in favor of that. 

As far as promotion, work of mouth/facebook/instagram is the way we get new people in Texas. Seems to work. 

I mean this in the worst possible way. That magazine goes straight from mailbox to recycling. I would much rather my dues be $5-10 cheaper per year.

But more rally-cross coverage, articles, builds, etc. would get me to open the cover...

Our local chapter does an excellent job of maintaining the Facebook page, Motorsports Reg events page, and has frequent emails if you sign up for an event.  Like you mentioned it takes effort by volunteers to make this happen.

Detroit Region also has an abundant supply of car nuts, so our events usually fully book within days of being posted.  Additional marketing may not really help our region in terms of exposure and attendance, but it may help make the case for more support in other ways (better event venues, etc.).

rothwem said:

 It seems like if it were to get really popular, you'd end up with factory backed guys out there in 100k cars going 100 mph around some farmer's field dirt track.  The fun of rallycross seems to be the grassroots nature of it, with junk cars going sideways around a race course.  

Spending money will not make you faster, 90% of your speed comes from course reading, car control, and adaptability, because like you never cross the same river twice, you never drive the same course twice thanks to degradation and other factors.  (And I guar-an-damn-tee you nobody will ever be hitting 100 on a course that meets the rules)

There's nothing to prevent you from spending money, of course, but it won't get you very far.

Autocross is over 10x larger, and there are no "factory backed teams".

There's no money in it, there's no sponsorships, no audience to market to.  The best we can hope for is to win contingency money that might be almost enough to cover fuel costs.

In reply to engiekev :

If Detroit Region had more sites, they probably could set up a second crew to run a second event every month, like having events up north and down south.  They cover something crazy like 200mi of vertical span!

That IS one thing they do have in spades:  organization!  They have a dedicated crew of people who are non competitors, volunteering every event to run things.  

Knurled. said:

In reply to irish44j's OP :

 

More regional exposure in SportsCar is a nice carrot for existing competitors.  And I've long been annoyed that only one or two regions had their season schedule posted in the back of the magazine.  (LOL region, IIRC)

 

BUT - The only people who read SportsCar are already SCCA members.  The exposure might get people out who are only autocrossers, or club racers, or road rallyists (like, all three of them?) but it won't reach new people.

This is what I was thinking... but along those lines:

• Maybe you could convince GRM to do some regional coverage once in a while (even digitally, not in print)
• Could you host a 'press day' and invite some people from the community to come co-drive a few of the more solid cars?
• ^ Do the same but invite Youtube car personalities to come co-drive a car or two? 

That said, make sure you do this in a well organized region, because otherwise it might do more harm than good.

engiekev said:

Our local chapter does an excellent job of maintaining the Facebook page, Motorsports Reg events page, and has frequent emails if you sign up for an event.  Like you mentioned it takes effort by volunteers to make this happen.

Detroit Region also has an abundant supply of car nuts, so our events usually fully book within days of being posted.  Additional marketing may not really help our region in terms of exposure and attendance, but it may help make the case for more support in other ways (better event venues, etc.).

 

I'm in agreement there. And I dont' think this is targeted toward the big regions like you guys, us, NER, etc. While the locals certainly do a lot of work to find venues, etc - our issues (and yours) aren't from a lack of competitors. 

This is more of a way to help out the (many) small/struggling regions out there that are on again/off again (like our own neighbors in BMR, for instance and newer rallycross regions like Susquehanna, which has really picked up steam due to good marketing). 

irish44j said:

People don't go to nationals because nationals is a long way away from most of the country for minimal seat time.  IDK that it's "the experience" that's a problem (at least to the people I know). it's just about distance and cost. If Nationals was 3 or 5 hours from me, I'd go every year.  But I'm not driving 22 hours to get 8 rallycross runs. And neither are almost any of the top east coast drivers I know. Most ralllycrossers won't even go 6-7 hours to do a divisional event.  The perrenials are the ones who either a) live fairly close or b) have the available multiple days of time and plenty of cash to actually make the trip. Most of nationals turnout is people who are in the general geographical region. Move Nats to New England and I bet you don't see the 50+ entries from the midwest  that currently show up. Move it to California and few or no east coast folks show up. It's a big country, costs a lot to get across, and at its core rallycross is a "budget motorsport." IDK if there's any way around it, honestly. 

 In any case, you note that most people are in it for the fun or for competition amongst their friends....not with an intent to be a national champion. Hence why I think focusing on local competitors is key. More local turnout/more local interest is the only way to get national/divisional level events to grow. 

I guess I consider number of runs to be part of the experience. But I know a lot of people, myself included, that went and didn't enjoy it enough to go back. I was actually kinda excited to compete against people from all over the country, only to find out the the only real class competition was the same people we compete against at home, and the courses were so painfully slow and tight that we were basically just driving cone to cone and not avoiding hitting stuff at all costs. Then there was the weather and the safety people insisting on changing the course every 30 seconds over issues that as far as I could tell only existed in their minds and in the process directly changing the utcome of one of the championships. I could have gotten an hour of seat time on those courses and I wouldn't have enjoyed it any more. To loosely quote another local competitor when asked if they were returning to defend their championship: "that was the worst rallycross event I've been to, I'm glad I won so I never have to go back." I do think they're moving in the right direction by moving the event earlier in the year and moving it to a more central location. If I still had a rallycross car I'd probably go back this year. I do agree that improving local events is the way to provide an audience for national events to pull from, but you still need to make national events something that appeals to people at the divisional level for them to actually grow.

Knurled. said:

rothwem said:

 It seems like if it were to get really popular, you'd end up with factory backed guys out there in 100k cars going 100 mph around some farmer's field dirt track.  The fun of rallycross seems to be the grassroots nature of it, with junk cars going sideways around a race course.  

Spending money will not make you faster, 90% of your speed comes from course reading, car control, and adaptability, because like you never cross the same river twice, you never drive the same course twice thanks to degradation and other factors.  (And I guar-an-damn-tee you nobody will ever be hitting 100 on a course that meets the rules)

There's nothing to prevent you from spending money, of course, but it won't get you very far.

 

Autocross is over 10x larger, and there are no "factory backed teams".

 

There's no money in it, there's no sponsorships, no audience to market to.  The best we can hope for is to win contingency money that might be almost enough to cover fuel costs.

What he said, nobody has factory backed rallycross teams just like nobody has factory backed autocros teams. It's not a feeder for anything and there's no money in it. The handful of "factory" teams I have seen out running/testing their rally cars have performed mediocre at best.

Trying something  new for the first time can be pretty intimidating. Before my first event I was terrified I would make a fool of myself. Maybe a video for people that are about to participate in their first event to watch on YouTube or a few articles to read would be helpful. Just a quick explanation on classing, tech inspection, understanding what the cones mean, how to work the course, etc. so that they don't feel so clueless when they show up to the first event. Rallyx for dummies basically.