By Jonathon Masters

After looking at the cost of running a national series from a racer's perspective and the time and cost of holding one of these events from a promoter's point of view, we are now going to look into what is essentially the lifeblood of dirt late model racing: the regional series.

The major national series only have room in their schedule to run any given track once or twice a season. The races we consider most accessible to the so-called weekend warriors are the ones operated by a plethora of regional series throughout the country. These are the events that typically stay within a 200-300-mile circle of a given area. Some are smaller and some larger, but most of them operate under the same restrictions and set of rules.

Like track promoters, these are men and women who are putting countless hours into creating events for everyone to enjoy in the sport they love. Unlike track promoters, these groups gain no revenue from attendance numbers. The regional sanctioning body depends purely on sponsorship, sanctioning fees, and car entry fees to support their businesses.

Over the past decade, Ray Cook has built his name as one of the premier regional series providers in the United States with his Spring and Southern Nationals brands. The Southern Nationals is off and rolling this month, and Cook and his team do their best to work with the tracks and teams to provide a great product.

"We have a great group of tracks that we work with, and we do our best to work with the other series as well," Cook said. "We are all essentially competing for cars and the crossover is around 40-50 percent."

The tracks are key to making a regional series work.

It's a symbiotic relationship that requires all parties to be successful in order to continue. In general, most regional series charge between a $1,000-1,500 sanctioning fee to the tracks. Some may be higher or lower depending on the region.

The series also collects an entry fee from the competitors, often around $100. In today's racing environment, most regional sanctioned races will get around 26-30 cars. So that's an extra $2,600. Unlike a track that profits from butts in the seats, this is where the revenue stream ends for a lot of regional series. It's true there may be some sponsorship money coming in, but let's not factor that unknown variable in right now.

The cost behind operating these series may vary wildly, but we can estimate based on numbers provided by several regional series. Payroll for each night of a regional series runs at around $1,000. Add travel in with motels, gas, and food and it totals around $1,500.

There goes that sanctioning fee.



The points fund is where a lot of the cost in running a regional series goes. We are going to put a regional sanctioning body point purse at $18,000. So we need to run at least eight successful events to make the points purse happen. It's a feat that sounds simple until you factor in two things: the fact that's most regional series do not run as many events as nationals series and the ever-present obstacle… rain.

"The biggest battle for us is always the weather," Cook said. "It's hard to reschedule races for a series because you are not working with a blank slate. You are subject to other series' and tracks' schedules." 

Just like a race promoter, rain can turn a good year into a terrible one for a regional sanctioning body promoter.

You need to keep the tracks happy because without their support you do not have the venues to run your series. That brings us to another large expense in running regional series. Marketing costs can total around $15,000 or more a season.

You want the track promoters to fill their pits and their stands. You have to do your part to make sure these guys have a good event so they will want you back for years to come. The one way to help with that is advertising. Digital media and print can be costly but necessary for any regional racing series.        

Where does that put us?

I know what you are thinking… Jonathon that is insane. Nobody would put that much work in for so little. Your math has gone wrong somewhere.

Let me break it down for you. We have already determined that the sanctioning fee is at a breakeven point after we pay help and travel. But, we can figure in at least $39,000 in entry fees if we average 26 cars at 15 events. We have decided marketing and the points' purse is around $33,000. That leaves us with an additional $6,000.

Now we can massage those numbers up or down. Maybe we get more or fewer races in--maybe we average fewer or more cars. The point is that it's not making millionaires out of the people involved.

Consider the Southern Nationals that runs 11 races in 14 days and is then done. It has even less dates to work with and the odds of rain in the South this time of year are decent. These numbers are a reality for many series.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with hardworking people that come to town to put on a great event for little reward. They bring you the stars and action even when the big money national series are halfway across the country.

It leaves us with the most important staple of American short track racing.

What about the regional promoters? What should they take away from this? They should look at the actions of these individuals and realize that the easiest thing they could do to make themselves a few more dollars is cut the points, cut the purses, cut the marketing, spike the entry fees, or just not bother doing it all together. They could make racing a much less rewarding and costly endeavor for the driver, but they don't.

Racers may complain when the entry fee goes up a little or about some of the payouts, but in the end the margins are all minimal compared to what it could or even should be. These guys aren't in it to get rich, most of the time the increases are just to get back to a break even proposition.

The bright spot in all this for the regional series is there does exist another form of revenue to help them survive. The one thing that keeps this sports running: sponsorship.

That topic is for another time.

- Jonathon Masters has a lifelong connection with dirt racing. His family has owned and operated MasterSbilt Race Cars manufacturing dirt late model chassis for 35 years. He attended college in North Carolina for motor sports management and has wrote for various industry publications. Jonathon was an account executive at The International Motorsports Industry Show, founder of the Heartland Auto Racing Show, and has been a racing industry professional for over a decade. 

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