OBRA: OBRA Chat: OBRA mentioned on the NCNCA...

OBRA mentioned on the NCNCA chat list (Northern California/Nevada)

← Newer
OBRA Chat
Older →

Candi Murray

2006-03-14

I thought you might find this interesting.
Candi

-----Original Message-----
From: ncnca-bounces+mike.murray=obra.org@ncnca.org
[mailto:ncnca-bounces+mike.murray=obra.org@ncnca.org] On Behalf Of Jens
Heycke
Sent: Saturday, March 11, 2006 17:41 PM
To: ncnca@ncnca.org
Subject: Re: [NCNCA] USAC permit fees

Having recently moved from Oregon, I *like* "piddly little races in the
middle of nowhere." I see that the NCNCA calendar has all of 4 individual
TTs during the season. By contrast, OBRA has 13. . . . .just in the month of
June.

Yet OBRA membership is roughly the same as here, despite having only a
fraction of the population base. And, I note the *big* stage race on the
NCNCA calendar is where?..... In Oregon.

Could it be that piddly little races are what generage high interest, high
membership, and the "high profile" races that you desire?

-jens heycke

--------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mar 10, 2006, at 12:42 PM, Captain Nimrod wrote:

Scott,

It's called the USAC "Race Prevention Tax", and nothing irritates me more -
as you will read.

It is discourages promoters making any extra effort to raise more prize
money from sponsors to make their races bigger and better, therefore
guaranteeing that the sport never rises above the status of obscure weekend
hobby - comparable to Horseshoes, Tiddly Winks and Badminton.

I don't buy the grass roots racing excuse. We don't need more piddly
velopromo races in the middle of nowhere with no prizes and/or glory. The
sport is already diluted by having way too many of those events. Yet,
that's exactly who gets subsidized by this policy. They don't need
subsidizing. They make their money off taking entry fees and not giving any
of it back in the form of prizes. What we need is more big time races with
big time prize lists in exciting metropolitan venues that promote the sport
- not obscure it from view. USAC should be encouraging more bigger races
NOT more smaller ones, which is what their policy does. A little
competition amongst promoters to attract racers would be healthy for the
sport. Instead they penalize anyone who tries to truly promote the sport
and then tell them that it is so they can subsidize velopromo, who does
nothing to promote or move the sport forward - because they don't have to.

I am reminded of the Early Bird Criteriums where we were told that they had
to raise their entry fees to $15 and quit scoring the finishes so that we
could subsidize all the piddly races they put on in the middle of nowhere.
How many times do we have to subsidize them? Ever wonder why no one goes to
all those little races in the middle of nowhere? ...why they need to be
subsidized? Exactly because they're piddly little races in the middle of
nowhere!

USAC is very short sighted on this. They shouldn't penalize the real
promoters and sponsors who are trying to make sport bigger and better so
that they can funnel their hard-earned cash to those who don't lift a finger
to find sponsors and promote the sport. Their policies are what are keeping
cycling in the dark ages.

Why would any self-respecting race promoter go through the trouble of
raising more cash to promote their race and/or the sport in general if an
increasingly significant portion of the money is going to be channeled in
one way or the other to the competition? And for what? Don't we already
pay enough fees and taxes to USAC? Additionally, if they know it up front,
most sponsors won't put up money to subsidize USAC or other promoters.
Sponsors want to sponsor races. THEIR races. If they want to subsidize
USAC, they can simply make a donation. USAC is of course free to go out and
get its own sponsors.

We have gone through this the last 2 years with my team's race that we
promote in SoCal. Notice that the race flyer below lists the Pro 1/2
category prize money at $1999, even though the promoter in this case, my
friend and teammate Roger Worthington is more than capable of putting up
[and sincerely wants to] WAY more cash than that. He personally writes the
check for this race. Originally the goal was to make this event one of the
biggest single-day Pro 1/2 + Masters race cash prize lists in SoCal, but he
could not bring himself to pay the ridiculous USAC tax on top of all the
other fees, surcharges and associated costs of promoting the race. This is
in spite of the fact that he does NOT take ANY of the profits from race for
himself as promoter - all profit goes back into the race itself and to the
city of San Clemente, this year going towards a new public swimming pool.
Last year in its inaugural race it brought in something like $6000 cash to
the city. No matter, USAC still imposes its tax. USAC should at least have
the equivalent of a 501c3 designation fr promoters who give back.

The San Clemente Challenge is a great race, but it could be a lot greater if
USAC wasn't so greedy. We feel your pain, Scott. If USAC needs yet another
tax, it should be a small per racer fee ($1) and not penalize promoters and
sponsors for doing a better/great job! Where's the logic in that?

Anyway, you're all invited to come on down for an awesome event in SoCal
where the prize list is guaranteed by USAC to never be more than $1999 per
category. But, get your entry in early because last year most of the
popular categories filled and the Cat 5/Public race was so huge it was split
into 2 races! This is a absolutely great race course and a really fun
event! Larry Nolan can attest to this as he came down for the day last
year.

2nd Annual San Clemente Challenge: http://www.54x11.com/pedal4poolfin.jpg

Thank you for going the extra mile with your race, Scott. It was great last
year and I'm sure it'll be even better this year. I know it doesn't pay the
bills, but we really do appreciate it!

Flame on,

Chris Hipp | Labor Power

sbutler20@sbcglobal.net wrote:I know, I'm a little behind the ball here, but
I'm promoting the Pacific State Bank/Anderson Home Crit here in Stockton.
Our sponsors have committed a decent sum of money for the race. I just
realized after reviewing the new fee structure that we'll pay quite a bit
more than year past. It doesn't seem to be very fair to base the permit fees
off of the total prize list. Our prize list may be over $10k and 7% of that
is a hefty chunk of change, yet I'm not sure what benefits are gained from
it. This as most of you know doesn't include the insurance surcharges and
extraneous charges, permit fee, outside insurance fees, police fees, etc.,.
that come along with putting on an event.

Has anybody (once again sorry if I've missed the boat on this) questioned
this fee structure? If this isn't negotiable is there a way to call them
primes (i.e. last lap for the P/1/2 is a $1000 prime) and not have that
counted towards the actual prize list?

Scott Butler
President Delta Velo

_______________________________________________
NCNCA discussion list
NCNCA@ncnca.org
http://lists.ncnca.org/mailman/listinfo/ncnca

the stable wears out a horse more than any road...
Peter Nicholson
peterpen@comcast.net
638 Laurel Street
Petaluma, CA 94952 USA
+1.707.763.3493
+1.707.364.0338

_______________________________________________
NCNCA discussion list
NCNCA@ncnca.org
http://lists.ncnca.org/mailman/listinfo/ncnca

← Newer
OBRA Chat
Older →