“YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR MARKETING A LITTLE BIT
AND CHANGE YOUR WAY OF THINKING, BUT REGARDLESS
OF WHAT IT IS, I THINK THE MAIN THING IS PEOPLE
COME TO THE TRACK TO HAVE A GOOD TIME AND THEY’RE
PAYING YOU HARD-EARNED MONEY TO DO THAT.”
track because they want to get away from their
normal day-to-day duties. Whether they come to
a Wednesday night race at Sonoma or they come
to the Spring Fling Million, I think the thing you
really have to keep in perspective is they’re trying
to get away from their day-to-day lives. They’re
coming to the track to have a good time, relax
and not worry about their job or their home life
or whatever. That’s the similarity.
The difference is, with the Wednesday night
program or even the bracket race program, a lot
of the racers are solely focused on what happens
at Sonoma. They don’t know what happens at the
Spring Fling. They don’t know what happens at
the Winternationals. They’re solely laser-focused
on Sonoma. It took me a while to realize that.
You have to change your marketing a little bit
and change your way of thinking, but regardless
of what it is, I think the main thing is people come
to the track to have a good time and they’re paying
you hard-earned money to do that. I think that’s
the biggest thing I keep in mind. I try to manage
the smoothest running events. I don’t want them
to worry about the small things. I want them to
just go out and race their car and have a good time.
You’re celebrating 10 years of the Fling this year. Did
you ever imagine it would turn into what it’s turned into
when you started out?
Not at all. Peter and I were just talking about
this. I just got home from his house a few days
ago. Typically I fly to New York the Friday be-
fore the event and we’ll take a couple days to
drive to the track, then we have the five days of
racing, then we’ll take a couple days to get home.
We talked about this quite a bit. In our wildest
dreams, we never would’ve thought we would be
where we’re at now.
Ten years ago, we were vacationing together
when we came up with this plan. We’re both very
passionate about bracket racing. That’s my back-
ground and that’s his background too, watching
his father race his whole life, and me watching
my mom and dad, for that matter. We were both
very passionate about bracket racing. We both
had thoughts of this before we brought it up to
each other, but we thought the big-dollar bracket
races weren’t as much fun as they used to be. We
wanted to put on a race at Bristol that would pay
good money, but most importantly try to bring
the fun back to these events, bring them to a
premier facility and try to allow the racers to
have the most fun possible.
But back to the original question, no, we never
would’ve guessed that we’d get to this point. At
the time, I was working for Helmet City. I wasn’t
super-happy and I truly think one of the reasons
we put on these events is that Peter, being my
best friend, he wanted me to enjoy life a little bit
more and be able to have some income with these
bracket races and not have to rely on Helmet City
for my sole income. With that being said, we
never would’ve guessed we’d be in the position
we’re in now. Races selling out in minutes’ time
June 2019
DragIllustrated.com
| D r a g I l l u s t r a t e d | 79