I could not
understand why all the tracks I encountered were losing money and began realizing I obviously did not know everything there was to know about race promoting. Understandably, I did not want to invest my money and find
out the hard way why all these other track owners and promoters were unsuccessful. Therefore, it appeared the easiest and least expensive way to gain a better insight into the matter would be to simply observe the
operation of all the race tracks I could. In doing so I hoped to find some race tracks that were successful. By comparing these to the unsuccessful ones, I would certainly find differences which would give me the
reasons for success and failure. Thus, I began my survey. I began to attend races at tracks from Gardenia, California to Miami, Florida. In the course of my survey I talked to many
people, counted a multitude of heads and made numerous other observations. I discovered there were over one thousand race tracks in this country. Yet, comparatively, only a handful of them appeared to be successful.
Most were losing money, or at best, failing to make any profit.
Normally the tracks ran one quarter mile in size and were named after the nearest community. The average population
of the community ranged from thirty to forty thousand people. Most important, these tracks were not producing any substantial amount of money. Unfortunately, under the present circumstances, the future for the owners
and/or promoters of these tracks did not look any brighter.
On the other hand, there were a number of race tracks that appeared to be consistently operating in the black. The owners
and/or promoters of these tracks had been doing so for some time. The highest concentration of these tracks was in the northeastern and southwestern sections of this country. The fact these areas are highly populated
contributed to most to their success. Like the past, the future looked bright for the owners and/or promoters of these tracks.
My most important observation pointed to a condition
present at almost all race tracks. This was the relationship between the number of spectators and the number of participants at the various race tracks. Consistently I found there was a direct relationship between the
number of spectators in the grandstands and the total number of race cars in the pits on just about any given date. In most cases, within an area of hundreds of miles, encompassing many race tracks, the same ratio of
spectators to race cars remained constant. As a general rule, I found the long heard rumor was true. "The more cars there are at a race track the more spectators there will be in its grandstands."
As intended, I had accomplished the basic objective of my survey. I had located and compared successful and unsuccessful race tracks in this country. The data I had gathered, along with easily
accessible information about the locality in which I hoped to promote auto races, gave me the formula with which I was later to successfully operate my race track.