John had made a mention during the general get together about people promoting the track within the community. This seems to be a reasonable request but how far will it be taken?
I had made several suggestions and quite frankly I thought they were good ones, how ever the reception was not a good one.
If you ask for involvement then you might want to be prepared to accept it or at least sit down with people and genuinely discuss ideas.
I had made the suggestion of a connection between the speedway and a local charity namely the London Food Bank. The formula was a simple one: invite the fine people from the food bank to send a truck and ask for people to bring a couple of items to donate to the cause. Pretty simple I should think. This gives us a real sense of a tie with the community. I know people who use the food bank might not be able to afford to become regular fans but hey the track could even spiff off some tickets to be given out at the food bank to some lucky kid who might dare to dream to break the chains of poverty and one day drive a race car at Delaware Speedway.
The food bank is currently very low on food and I can't help but feel that my suggestion might have worked to some degree to help out.
There are a great many partners in the food banks and they do become some what of a hub for allot of companies, individuals, organizations, etc. This involvement may not amount to anything tangible but then again some people might get fed in the process.
I also asked a while back for tickets to distribute to people at work ( we have over 500 employees). Why? well if you hand out fifty and say 5 becomes fans I think you might generate some interest. empty seats don't generate revenue like the sales of hotdogs and fries and hell maybe beer!
The biggest free promoter is the 401 everybody reads the trucks and trailers and to some degree bumpers stickers!! how about if you pay your membership you get a nice sticker for your trailer (or car ) that says " follow me to Delaware Speedway" or some thing to that effect. Hey just a couple of ideas.
And Visit us on CRO.
CRO would like to get involved and support a Charity as well.
Charities are awesome, and I threw one out at the first meeting. To elaborate on that, have contingency stickers (charities, Make-A-Wish/Cancer/Duschesne's whatever) and sponsor those as a Per lap/win deal over the season. A penny a lap, nickel whatever makes sense over the entire season and mail a cheque to each. This doesn't have to be an extravagant amount, but the end result shows them you care. Investing in new people to come watch makes a big deal. Families affected by these different ailments/issues get a two for one night, and the seriously ill get in free.
I don't know but something along these lines are always good.
I like the Food Banks because they usually do an excellent job of doing what they say and not eating up too much of the funding with administrative cost. The charity helps people in the community and that's a direct connection. Also if you think about it it's probably allot easier to coerce a box of KD or something simular out of somebody than 5 bucks. We can bring along a box or a couple of cans of soup, beans, or spaghetti. PLUS we can use local high school kids to man the project and they get those much needed community service hours required to graduate. Jeff Gordon's big sponsor is a charity AARP. Why? because the charities have to pay for advertising. Anchoring themselves to a NASCAR icon has probably generated a huge return on investment for them.
It's amazing how many people use that food bank, I left home at 15 and ended up there a few times. Those people actually care for who they are helping, and were always nice. I never thought of that one Jimmy, good one.