UtahBMX.com

I have a question to pose to all of you. This may turn into a long post, but I’ll try to stay to the point.

Sometime back the Cook’s asked us all what could be done to improve racing at their track. Well, I believe in my email to them, I may have went beyond what they were looking for. As I was going over things that could be done to improve racing, a few inescapable things kept coming into my head. Yea, a nice track is important, decent music is nice, pit bike racing is fun, etc, etc……but to me, racing BMX is about RACING. The first and foremost thing that makes it great is the racing…which means competition. So, what do you do to foster more competition, and varied competition? I really only have two sources for reference, me and my son Spencer, so I asked both of these highly intelligent individual for some input. Spencer happened to come up with the obvious answer first….get more riders out to the tracks. “It sucks when you race the same guys over and over, or when you show up and you don’t have a class”, Spencer’s word’s, not mine. So I posed a few follow-up questions to him……..”what do you do to get more kids out there?”.........”I don’t know”…………. ”can you talk to more kids about racing?”…… ”I talk about it all the time, but hardly anyone even knows what BMX racing is, and if they do know, they don’t know that you can race here, that there is a track right down the street from them.” OK, so as I suspected, it’s not the fact that the music needs to be changed, or that kids want to race pit bikes (all of which I have no problem with, by the way. Improvements at the tracks are good, too). This type of thing just is not going to drive up memberships and attendance. What is? I know it is too obvious, and has been said sooooo many times before, but we have to get the word out to a target age group. My opinion is between the ages of 8 and 14 are prime targets to focus on. I fume every time I drive past 6200 south and 2700 west and see 5 or more banners hung on fences for sports programs……skiing, soccer, football, baseball, basketball, lacross for gods sake, even art classes……….but do you think there is one for BMX….NO!!! My kids bring home flyers from school all the time for programs…jr. jazz, wrestling, football camps, baseball camps, lacross for gods sake, and even art classes…no BMX. It just seems to me that we are all missing the obvious way to advertise, and the more obvious way of getting more kids (not to mention their dads) out to try BMX. A little flyer sitting on the corner of a bike shop counter just is not going to get the word out to the masses. So, what can I do to help? I’m not one for just pointing out the obvious and then sitting back and expecting others to do the work. I have a difficult time getting to the tracks to help with grooming and whatnot, but maybe I can help in advertising. Does anyone have any suggestions to help formulate a plan to present to the TO’s? Or if the TOs are reading this, what do you think?

Now, onto something that I already have the ball rolling. You may remember last year at the end of the outdoor season, I did a little give-away of a redline bike and a supercross frame. Well, I thought it would be fun to continue this in some way, so I have started contacting a few companies to get donations. I may be counting my chickens, as they say, but I think I have a good line on a couple of frames and bars from a major manufacturer that happens to sponsor a local pro. I intend to add at least one complete bike to this from other sources, if all works out like I plan. But, instead of just giving the stuff away, I thought it would be good to tie it into attendance, a membership drive, and racing at multiple tracks. This is what I come up with, and please give me input as to what you think of it. Honest input would be good. If it is just stupid, or you think it wont help, or you come up with a better way to accomplish what I want, then let me have it.

1) It’s based on a punch card system. There will be cards at various local tracks (to be determined later), the rider picks one up when he/she races and gets it punched. It takes five punches to fill a card. But, to have the card be valid, it will have to be validated by at least two tracks. You cant just race Rad Canyon and get a valid card. You have to go to Rad and Tooele, or Tooele and Ogden, or whatever combo you want, but you have to race 2 tracks in the 5 races you attend.

2) If you bring in a new member, you get a fully valid card when they sign up.

3) a new member will get a fully valid card when he/she signs up

4) each participating track will get one event (race) that all riders will get a fully valid card.This can be a RFL, DBL points, open house, or just sometime that the TO feels a decent turnout would be good.

Now, each time you get a fully valid card, you can drop it in the box labeled for the item that you want to win. The more cards you get, the more entries you have to increase your odds. You can decide that you really really want the red frame, and put all of your cards in that box, or you can spread them out a little in each….a couple in the bars box, a couple in each frame box, and allot in the complete bike box……however you decide to play it.

It would run for maybe two months or so, and then the drawing would be held. Of course you have to be present to win. Or maybe not….I don’t know about that point.

I think that the prizes would have to be substantial in order to make it work. Everyone would really have to want the bike in order to give them the motivation to work for it.

One sticking point that I have with this is, I really would like it to be waited towards the novice and intermediates somehow. It seems that most experts already are committed enough to racing allot, and travel to various tracks. I don’t want to leave the experts out, but it’s not the same if you already are racing allot and going to all the tracks, and you already have the fully loaded bike model of your choice.

OK, see I told you it would be long. Everyone please let me know what you think of what I have down here. Suggestions, comments, whatever.

Greg

P.S. I have written this after not having sleep for?????….I cant even remember the last time I slept…so if it somewhat incoherent or confusing, please forgive me.

Great post greg. I'll have a better response tonite when I'm not at work. I've got a few ideas

The Tooele $1 open series we are going to put on starting next week is a start. I don't want to get into details until after the national it's an idea to get the racers more fired up about racing than just for a trophy & points. Bigtime prizes to be had.
We also have a few other ideas brewing.

b.

I think we need to get huge banners made and put up at the skate/bike parks. How would we go about getting a billboard put up? I'll call the local papers and see if the want to do feature stories which include all the info. Even the TV stations might be interested. They could present it as a family a great family activity!

That would be awesome if we could get say Fox13 to come out in the morning to do an onsite report about BMX. I'd be willing to get up at the buttcrack of dawn to get the uniform on and put down a couple laps for the camera. Of course we'd have to get the TO's on board.

I haven't been back around BMX long, so I can't speak from experience as to what the Utah BMX scene was compared to what it is now. But in my humble opinion, here's a couple things I think might help.

Giveaways
While giveaways are good, and definitely generate alot of interest, it seems that some of the time they end up in the hands of those that really don't need it. And it sounds like you kind of address that in trying to make it more weighted toward novices and intermediates. I'd like to see giveaways given only to registered racers for that specific race.

Another way to get more people out to the track could be to hold more RFL type races where non-ABA members can race. We need more than 1 race per year (per track) to attract new riders to try BMX. And once the new riders come out to try it, especially the younger kids, we need to have more interaction with them than the "new rider clinic" 5 minutes before the motos start. I wonder if it would be possible to assign each new rider (or 2 or 3) to a more experienced rider, kind of like a "mentor" type program. This increased interaction might help the new rider feel more at ease and increase the amount of encouragement they receive about their riding. Most kids have a competitive spirit, and most of them get beat their first time riding. Losing doesn't encourage them to come back and keep trying, but positive reinforcement from a "mentor" just might get them back again and again.

One of the reasons I started this site was to increase awareness of Utah BMX and to have an easy place to get information. One plan I have is to include a complete new rider section. I want to include as much information as possible so new riders can use it as a reference to get started. Another thing I want to include on the website (which I've already started) is as many pictures of every rider humanly possible. All kids (and their parents) love to see pictures of themselves. And being on a website is even better. This website will always be about the riders.

Another long, long term project I would love to do is a monthly Utah BMX magazine. It would be very similar to the ABA publication the BMXer. It would include news, race reports, and TONS of pictures. Alot of things would have to come together for this to happen, but I can dream can't I?

Anyway, I think we are all on the same page, so collectively we should be able to increase awareness which will increase rider count to improve the BMX scene in Utah. I'm proud to be playing a small role

See you at the track!

Greg & All, (sorry in advance for the long post)

Diana Cook here, I posted this on vbmx because I saw this post from Greg there first.

Now before you continue on to what I have here, I want to say that the tracks in Utah are working together right now to get things going again, we have some series happening and the ABA has also started a new promo to get new riders recruited by you, the riders.

I know some of you are frustrated with the moto counts at the tracks right now, remember so are the TO's I can tell you that we are all working over time on this issue right now, and have been all year,
I am hearing and seeing a lot of things right now about Banners and Billboards going up as advertising, if someone can come up with the money call me!!


Greg & All, (sorry in advance for the long post)
I wrote you back at the end of last year, and thanked you for your input, but I don't think I ever got back to you with what we did about things, so I want to take a min here and let you and everyone else know, but first your punch card Idea is great, I agree with bnd, lets talk!

ok onto what we have done here in Tooele, as you may or may not know, we now have a sign above our starting gate that sometime this week will not only have our name but also a race information number along with our sponcors advertisements, and we we have posted our schedule and events up in any grocery store that will let us, I also now have a business card that we have placed around town, we are putting adds in the local news paper and the local electronic sign in town will start letting people know about our race days.

As for getting banners put up in different locations, let me say this, it is a good idea but one that takes a lot of money, something that most tracks dont have a lot of, so for us at least we are working on other things for now and that will have to wait till some money comes in.

Getting into schools may seam like an easy task, however, Spencer hit it right on the head when he said that no one knows what BMX is, we have made it into a few schools here in Tooele, and getting past the district is not a problem, the problem come in where the district leaves the final decision up to each princiable, so all I can do is leave the flyer if they choose not to pass it out I have done all I can.

This year we have found a way around it and have done it in one school and are working at getting into the rest soon, that is an Bicycle Safety assembly that we have put together, for now all we have is the presentation, but in the next few months we hope to have coloring books to give each child to take home as well as a Take Home Bicycle Rodeo, all of this is presented by Deseret Peak BMX and has info about our track and BMX
we also hope to be able to get our coloring book into restaurants so that they can pass them out to the kids, so that they have something to do while they wait, for dinner.
the last thing we have started doing, is a program we are using with the crossing guards here in town, when they see a child wearing a helmet they recieve a coupon for ice cream, fries, or something from a local company, as a thank you from Deseret Peak BMX for wearing a helmet, again all of our information is listed on the "award"

I know it is hard waiting for things to pick up, especially out here where we have almost zero local riderbase, but considering what we went though last year losing our indoor to the horse riders, and our budget being big enough to almost pay for trophies, I think we have done alot, and want to let you and the other riders know that we are committed to this track and will continue to do as much as we can to get new riders out. We still need help we have flyers that need to be taken out, I need schools to take my program into and we need to find business that would be willing to put up some or all of the money for printing our coloring books and take home rodeos, if anyone is intrested please let me know, email me!
Greg we would love to take part in your program, and help you get it off the ground, just let me know what needs to be done.

Diana
Deseret Peak BMX

J Gallo said

"Another way to get more people out to the track could be to hold more RFL type races where non-ABA members can race. We need more than 1 race per year (per track) to attract new riders to try BMX."

I would like to address this, while it is a great Idea, there is one major flaw here that I would like to explain, an ABA sanctioned track has insurance through the ABA that covers you if you get hurt while riding/racing because of this each track is bound by the ABA rules, one of which is that only card holding members of the ABA are allowed to ride on the track.
The RACE FOR LIFE is the only race the ABA approves of that allows non aba members to be on a sanctioned track.

The individual TO's hands are tied in this situation even though we would love to do this, the fact is we just can't

Jenni suggested getting the T.V. Stations out to the races,
I sent in this year and last year information about events and races,
that we have at Deseret Peak BMX but have yet to catch there attention.

I am waiting to hear back from a few of them about our open house on the 22nd, and our Race for Life that same night but everything I have been told is to not count on it but if they can come they will let me know.

If any of you can get anywhere with them or radio stations I am very accepting of help.

Diana

I definitely know TO's hands are tied. I think this is an issue obviously the ABA would need to address. Think of how good the RFL turnouts are at every track. Now what if we could do that 2 or 3 times per year at each track? I'll have to see if I can send an email to the ABA about this and see where they stand.

You guys are doing a great job in Tooele, Thanks!!!!!!

Diana,
I hope that my suggestions aren't taken the wrong way. i know that you and the other TOs are busting their butts to run the tracks and get the riders you need to make them viable. I'm definately not saying that you are dong a bad job, infact I am very impressed with everything you do. I am just trying to get more of us thinking about how to help. I have found that allot of times money is not imposible to raise if you just put the time and effort into it. And allot of times, there are ways around even having to get money. Sometimes, poeple and business are a bit more free with materials and labor then they are with money. You just have to find them. Ask 1000 business for something, and you may get only 10, but those ten may be enough (or at least a start). I don't think its enough to just ask either. Like we all know, BMX is not really widely known, so we have to be able to sell it, to talk it up, to make it seem like it's BIG, not just some underground unknown sport.

Anyway, I have tons of ideas running through my head, and I don't want to overdo it here.

The point I am trying to make with all of this is I think there should be more unity between tracks to get new members. Like I said, you guys are doing great, and I don't want to add to the work load, but someone should do it.

greg

Please know that none of your suggestions came across badley.

I saw yor post yesterday and relized that after I had asked for the suggestions I had never gotten back to you about what we were doing.

You were about the only person who did get back to me on my requests and I felt it was important to let you all know what was being done on our end, as well as to let everyone know why some of the suggestion made have not been done even though they have been thought about and checked into many many times, either money is not available, or people do not understand or know about this sport so they say no, (or in our case, in this small town, being a part of Deseret Peak works against us sometime) at this point we have come to the conclusion that advertising alone is not enough, education about this sport is what is going to get people interested.

And to let you know that we are very intrested in your idea and would love to be involved with it.