New Smyrna Speedway will hold a “Bring a Friend Night” on Saturday September 17th… It will basically be a Buy One Get One Free Night and although we realize that some will see this as an opportunity just to get in free, the spirit of this promotion is to expose someone new to Short-Track Racing…
We are asking all of our fans to bring someone who either has never been to a race before, never been to our track before, or maybe just hasn’t been in a long time…
This should be a great opportunity to try and expand our fanbase and maybe even make some new fans and we would like to thank everyone in advance for honoring the spirit of this promotion.
What’s on the program that night? Too many times, these types of promotions are held on a night with strictly “entry-level” divisions. That is NOT a good way to try to get a newbie involved. It has to be an exciting night, with decent fields and plenty of variety.
Crappy shows won’t even bring the regulars… you can’t expect rookies to get excited. You’re defeating your own purpose. Presenting a shitty show to a raw rookie will chase them off forever, not entice them to come next week.
I don’t mean to insinuate that this program IS set up that way, but think about the show you are putting on. Would it excite you as a fan? If not, it won’t excite the ‘totally-new-to-this’ person either.
I make it a point, when taking someone new to a track, that it has potential to be a really good show. If it’s not, then I may have turned them off forever…
Please don’t take this as ‘track bashing’… in fact, just the opposite. The track should do everything in it’s power to make it an entertaining evening, from the moment they walk in, to the time they head for the car. Keep some kind of action on-track virtually all the time. Have that PA system pumping out information nearly non-stop from when the gates open (not music, but track facts, driver info, past history, even throw in a little Nascar Trivia or something… silence will put these people to sleep).
Getting the fans to help bring in new people is a great idea… but the track has to do its part also…