We are happy to be joined for this edition of the Turn 2 Blog by Ultimate Super Late Model Series director Kelley Carlton. Mr. Carlton has a long history in the sport of Dirt Late Model racing and is the perfect person to join us this week as his series will be contesting races at both Smoky Mountain Speedway and 411 Motor Speedway this coming weekend.
Richard: East Tennessee is blessed to have so many great tracks and drivers. That, in turn, leads a number of touring series to visit our area. Among these, the Ultimate Super Late Model Series is one of the best of the regional circuits for not only this region, but the entire country.
To me, there are several keys for regional series to make themselves viable alternatives for tracks to consider when scheduling for an upcoming season. Most importantly, the series must be able to attract drivers who will follow the entire schedule. Tracks need to know that when they put up the money for a show, they can advertise to fans that certain competitors will appear.
Offering enough point fund money to make the series worthwhile for drivers, providing a workable schedule along with officiating races consistently and fairly seem to be primary attractions for drivers as I look on from the outside.
What do you see as the keys for a touring series to succeed?
Michael: I think you hit the nail on the head when a series can advertise certain drivers will be there to race. We’ve seen some series in recent years only be able to advertise one or two drivers as regulars. That makes it hard to get a full field of cars, something else fans want to see.
We have seen in the past with some regional touring series races that if it’s uncertain what drivers will be racing, a number of fans will pass and save their money for another race when they know more as to who is certainly racing that night.
I also think fans in our area like to see the local favorites going against some of the top drivers from another area. Any time you have drivers like Randy Weaver, Billy Ogle Jr., Vic Hill and others going against some of the best from another region, that helps a track draw fans as well.
Richard: Kelley, as someone who runs a series, you can obviously offer more insight than we can. What are the keys to success for any touring series, whether it be regional, national or a mini-series?
Kelley: First of all guys, thanks for asking me to join you. I appreciate all that you guys do for racing in the region. I sure enjoy reading IDR and keeping up with everything in the region.
There are a lot of things that go into the success of a regional series, but I think you guys have a pretty good grasp on one of the biggest factors. Having a quality group of regulars has been a real important factor in our success thus far. In addition to giving fans and tracks some names to recognize, it also allows us to have some weekly rivalries develop which always makes for an interesting story. We try to give an expected drivers list on our Facebook page for each event. That has worked well for us and our fans have come to expect it. For our tracks, it allows us to give multiple reminders of the event date and facility on each one.
Another thing that we have found to be important in being successful has been developing strong relationships with our tracks. We look at each event as a partnership and the success of the event is a reflection on both.
You touched on it at the beginning and you guys really are very blessed in East Tennessee with some great facilities. We have enjoyed a fantastic relationship with Casey Moses, Dustin Dunlap and the ownership group at Smoky Mountain. And we are very pleased to be working with Mitch and Tanya McCarter and Rick Brooks at 411. We go to both tracks knowing that we will have a great track to race on and that both will do their part in promoting the event. And that sure makes our job easier.
Richard: Along the line of having good relationships with tracks and drivers, the act of making out a schedule would seem to be a difficult thing. Again, I am on the outside looking in, but it appears as if overcoming the factors involved in filling out a series calendar could be a daunting task.
First, every driver would like to race for $10,000-to-win or more every time they go on the track, but many tracks cannot afford that type of purse. So marrying the track with a purse that will still draw competitors must be a chore.
Second, some promoters do not necessarily like having their races run on back-to-back nights with another track within close proximity. They may feel as if it puts fans in a position of having to choose one or the other. However, drivers no doubt love having back-to-back races in the same area because it cuts down on their travel expenses.
This weekend, the Ultimate Super Late Model Series has that type of scenario with races scheduled at Smoky Mountain and 411. But as Kelley pointed out, those two tracks have often shown the ability to cooperate. I imagine that is not always the case in some areas.
Scheduling and suiting the needs of both race teams and tracks must be the cause of more than a few headaches for series directors.
Michael: I remember 12-15 years ago when a lot of the regional series would only run one race a weekend. The successful ones have adopted the philosophy of the national series and that’s giving drivers a couple of chances to race for some money. Even regional racers are spending close to the same amount on equipment as the national drivers. They need multiple chances to race for money each week.
Scheduling a regional series would seem like a juggling act. They have to compete with other regional series as well as the national series. It would be suicide for a regional series to schedule one of their races when one of the national tours is just an hour up the road. Kelley can elaborate on that more.
Kelley: Scheduling can be hard work, but I’m a firm believer that we can all do our homework and be considerate of each other. We try to have our schedule out no later than November now. That way other series and tracks can hopefully look at what we have and try to work around it. We do our best to avoid other series and tracks’ events which would affect our events. When we start out making our new schedule, we usually have the Lucas and WoO schedules in hand – or at least a good idea of where they will be based on their previous schedules. We have also established a good relationship with some of the other regional series and we try to work together with them. I communicate regularly with several of the other series principles when we are building our schedule. Unfortunately we don’t have that line of communication with everyone and that is when it can be really frustrating. That is the idea behind getting our schedule out early. But when a conflict happens we either have to make adjustments or hope for the best. I try to keep on top of anything like that and make sure our promoters are made aware as soon as possible in order to protect their interests.
When we are putting together our schedule, we try to be mindful of everyone involved. We have to look at it from all perspectives, including the drivers. The drivers in a region need to take advantage of every opportunity to race for their sponsors and their budgets. We have to look at the travel involved and if that makes sense for our drivers. We try to keep to a 5 to 6 hour travel to any event. Some of the races we have may be a little farther but those are usually larger purse events or those that are tied to another event. We like being able to put events together because that generally helps out the drivers and the series too. It gives drivers two chances to race with minimal travel which usually leads to drawing a few more cars. And we have the same costs in regards to travel as drivers do, so it helps us pay the bills when we can do two events like that. We have to be careful that we don’t overlap fan bases very much or we can run into that situation of forcing some fans to make a choice. Fortunately in the case of Smoky Mountain and 411, they have worked together before with companion events and been successful so we expect the same this weekend.
Richard: For one final point, I want to veer away from the original topic to take advantage of Kelley’s expertise in another area as the training coordinator for Newberry(SC) County Emergency Medical Services. The last time the Ultimate Super Late Model Series raced at 411, we had a tragic situation in which a driver passed away as the result of a non racing related medical emergency.
In that case, it appeared to this untrained eye as if the Sevier County Rescue Squad responded efficiently and valiantly. Unfortunately, the life of Mini Stock driver Mike Townsend could not be saved.
As someone who works in the emergency response field, do you feel as though most race tracks are prepared for emergency situations such as that seen here a month ago?
Kelley: That was such a terrible turn of events. The guys with Sevier County did a good job and I was glad that my guys were able to offer some assistance. Unfortunately there are many tracks that aren’t as well prepared for that type of situation. We all have been very lucky for many years that something major hasn’t happened which has set our sport back many years and even more importantly cost a lot people their lives. Take for instance the big fiery crash that happened last weekend at Senoia (GA) Speedway. If those guys weren’t prepared that could have gotten a lot worse very quickly. But they responded quickly and got the fire extinguished pretty fast. It would be great if all tracks had their own emergency response team like Track Pro Motorsports and Motorsports Rescue that was around Tennessee a few years ago. But it seems that has been cost prohibitive to track owners in today’s economy. Most tracks have emergency medical and fire response on site and most are very well trained, but there are some facilities that do not. And unfortunately they may have to find out in the worst way how necessary these capabilities are. I am very fortunate in that we actually have paramedics and firefighters on our officiating staff. And it has sure been handy at some tracks we have been to in the past. Unfortunately, the importance of having all the needed response personnel and equipment isn’t thought of until the time it is actually needed and someday that could end up being too late. I urge all tracks to have trained emergency response staff and all the needed equipment on site at each of their events. We actually work with some tracks and their officials in doing some training. We have done classes like CPR, first aid, basic fire fighting principles, and race car construction and extrication at several venues. We want to make sure that tracks and even other series know this is something that is available to them.
Michael: Sadly, I feel there are some tracks that are not prepared enough. I think tracks are getting better at it. But some are still lagging behind. Unfortunately, those don’t get noticed until something bad does happen.
The tragic situation with Mike Townsend would have happened regardless of how many emergency personnel were on hand that night. He had a previous health issue that few knew about prior to that night. But I applaud the tracks that do not take safety lightly.
Richard: Again, we thank Kelley Carlton of the Ultimate Super Late Model Series for joining us. Catch his series on Friday night at Smoky Mountain Speedway and on Saturday evening at 411 Motor Speedway.
