The success of
a race track depends on the success of its promoter. Although many owners and promoters attempt to place the blame for their failures elsewhere, it is seldom anyone else's fault they go broke.
The prime desire of a race promoter should be to make a given race track produce a monetary profit. This sounds reasonable, but the appearance of many promoters would lead you to believe
otherwise. The track should not be used to gain friends, influence people or pass idle time.
Only a very few race tracks are promoted by anyone having a sound business background or philosophy.
The majority of race promoters are either building con- tractors or former race drivers. The contractors usually built their tracks during slack periods of regular work schedules. This permitted them to go into the race
promoting business as a sideline at a minimum cost. The former drivers probably felt the former promoters were exploiting them and making a fortune. When these people got the opportunity they decided to have a try at
the same thing. The drivers usually felt they could accomplish their goals by pleasing their former competitors.
Most contractors know about building construction and operations incidental to
that business. But a promoter will not achieve success simply because he can have a track built at a cut rate price. Some former race drivers know how to drive a race car and whatever else they have done or are
presently still doing for a living. However, neither will this knowledge alone or coupled with the ability to win a popularity contest among race drivers put much money in the track bank account. To be successful,
today's race promoter must look, think and act like a well rounded businessman.
Although only briefly described, you can recognize the fact most promoters are inadequately qualified to
successfully operate race tracks. This basically ac- counts for the high number of faltering or closed race tracks.
