SpeedRun Sponsorship & Organization Discussion (2008)

[ananthkamath]

O boy. A lot of people here have missed the spirit in my original post by a country mile.

My original post #1 on this thread was hived off from the Speedrun pics thread where I apparently exercised poor judgment in bringing this issue out. It was made in light of

1) piss poor event management on the part of Autocar or whoever the organiser was.

2) haughty and elitist attitude towards the participant, who, being neither a rich friend of the organiser nor a sponsor, found himself being abused, threatened, and subjected to bias.

In the light of that, I felt (feel) it wasn't acceptable to deny entry JUST on the basis of a few stickers that the car was supposed to run. And not having been supplied those stickers at an appropriate time before the event, how could it be done in the first place?

I never said its wrong for the stickers to be placed on the car. If I implied that then I apologize. I am neither asking for an air-conditioned hangar nor a million dollar contract. Nor my face on the TV.

Obviously there will people wanting to attack me or anyone else who voices his opinion without mincing words. To people who have called me names such as "a hot bag of gas", "sticker paranoid" etc: Do not pretend to know me and where I come from. You may have seen or participated in a couple of speedruns but my involvement and exposure to Indian motorsport goes back to the days of Sholavaram. The days when MRF used to give free tires to all competitors in return for their logo. The days when people came to the track to have fun, where most everyone was on level playing ground no matter how rich he was. The days when scrutiny meant complete teardown of the winner's engine. And a complete check of his car. The days when 50,000 people actually came to watch. So don't you even dream of accusing me of being a couch critic on this forum ever again.

Thanks but you guys can keep your brand of elitist high games for yourself. I am happy where I am spending my weekend chasing cones and just having a good time. Apparently no one in Indian racing knows what that means anymore.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

O boy. A lot of people here have missed the spirit in my original post by a country mile.

My original post #1 on this thread was hived off from the Speedrun pics thread where I apparently exercised poor judgment in bringing this issue out. It was made in light of

1) piss poor event management on the part of Autocar or whoever the organiser was.

2) haughty and elitist attitude towards the participant, who, being neither a rich friend of the organiser nor a sponsor, found himself being abused, threatened, and subjected to bias.

In the light of that, I felt (feel) it wasn't acceptable to deny entry JUST on the basis of a few stickers that the car was supposed to run. And not having been supplied those stickers at an appropriate time before the event, how could it be done in the first place?

I never said its wrong for the stickers to be placed on the car. If I implied that then I apologize. I am neither asking for an air-conditioned hangar nor a million dollar contract. Nor my face on the TV. .

Ananth, your post seems to be some what in my direction (I might be wrong) though my opinions were more generalized in their inherent expression!

Well, having said that, you seem to twist and turn your opinions more often than somone with cholavarams days experienced high boot would do. If your 'haughy and elitist' verbalization is anywhere close being a response to forumites contesting your opinions, I care less to clear your misconception however if its not I rest my case on that right here.

ALso, the reason you saw so many with contentions against your opinion is just coz atleast half of them are some what directly connected with the sport or atleast aspire to be. Most importantly they understand the concept or Advertizing and event management.

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

Obviously there will people wanting to attack me or anyone else who voices his opinion without mincing words. To people who have called me names such as "a hot bag of gas", "sticker paranoid" etc: Do not pretend to know me and where I come from. You may have seen or participated in a couple of speedruns but my involvement and exposure to Indian motorsport goes back to the days of Sholavaram. The days when MRF used to give free tires to all competitors in return for their logo. The days when people came to the track to have fun, where most everyone was on level playing ground no matter how rich he was. The days when scrutiny meant complete teardown of the winner's engine. And a complete check of his car. The days when 50,000 people actually came to watch. So don't you even dream of accusing me of being a couch critic on this forum ever again..

My friend, most people here know of all the above, expressed as rare knowledge, least meantioned some are still part of it! so take it easy on the general knowledge part. And well, as for the couch critic part, i'd like to ignore that in the light of your primary argument on why stickers shouldnt be mandatory. Its your turn to contemplate now.

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

Thanks but you guys can keep your brand of elitist high games for yourself. I am happy where I am spending my weekend chasing cones and just having a good time. Apparently no one in Indian racing knows what that means anymore.

Now, this part is definitely impinging my nerve, what exactly are you trying to say here??? Just coz you are in the US some 8 days you have gained the right the declare us ignorant or plain dumb as it reads??? Son, my humble opinion, please close the tap before someone does it for you.

[ssjr0498]

Wolf!!

well said!! its like you stole the words out off my mouth!

Cheers,
Shrey

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Now, this part is definitely impinging my nerve, what exactly are you trying to say here??? Just coz you are in the US some 8 days you have gained the right the declare us ignorant or plain dumb as it reads??? Son, my humble opinion, please close the tap before someone does it for you.

[JayD]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Now, this part is definitely impinging my nerve, what exactly are you trying to say here??? Just coz you are in the US some 8 days you have gained the right the declare us ignorant or plain dumb as it reads??? Son, my humble opinion, please close the tap before someone does it for you.

Took the words right outta my mouth wolf!
@ ananth, while we do respect your know;edge about cars and motorsport, pls refrain from seeing the others as less capable. If u didn't mean to do so intentionally, that's the feeling people get while reading your posts. There are a lot of people on this forum who are specialized in a whole lot of things u may not have even heard of, but they aren't exactly screaming it from the roof tops are they?

We all know the motorsport scene in India is just developing, and is nowhere close to the stuff in the us of a, so u needn't keep on repeating that in every single post!

[Revvhead]

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

No I'm not above that Sam. I respect your point-of-view as a sponsor and representing a corporate who supported the event, but did your company (or anyone else's whose logo was forced upon the cars) support the participants? I doubt it (correct me if I'm wrong though).



Unless you pay contingency money, you have no right to ask anyone to put your stickers on their car. Period.

.

Welli havent seen which way the message has been misinterpreted.
The message i read was pretty clear,
You dont think that the event sponsors have the right to put stickers on your car without your explicit permisiion.

Note: i have deletd the middle of the text in the wuoted post, only for reasons of brevity, so that the main subject could be discussed.

you have taken great umbrage at the whole sticker business, the si mple fact it once you signed the entrace form, you DID give permission to put those stickers on

( and by YOu ,i mean the participant)

i dont think the message was misinterpreted too much.

yes, mismangement made a mess of the stickering process, and that about it.

as far as what have the sponsors done.. very simple. the made the event exist. simple.

[ananthkamath]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Well, having said that, you seem to twist and turn your opinions more often than somone with cholavarams days experienced high boot would do. If your 'haughy and elitist' verbalization is anywhere close being a response to forumites contesting your opinions, I care less to clear your misconception however if its not I rest my case on that right here.

Where did I twist and turn my opinions? I am not generalizing anywhere that stickers shouldn't be placed on cars. Its just that I don't agree that the way it was done is most elegant or appropriate.

Let me say this again: For THIS event, in the light of the horror stories that I merely read on the pics thread, disqualifying/denying entry to participants solely on the basis of not having stickers was not acceptable to me from where I am standing. This is something that participants including Mad Monkey, Psycho and Rocam have agreed with.

My only mistake here is ever entering this discussion having not been a part of the event either as a participant or otherwise. I regret having ever opened my mouth and voiced my opinion.

I didn't call anyone on this forum or any of the participants elitist, I meant to say that Indian motorsport is elitist and favors those with too much money. Maybe I vented too much.

Originally Posted by The Wolf

My friend, most people here know of all the above, expressed as rare knowledge, least mentioned some are still part of it! so take it easy on the general knowledge part.

To be really honest (I'm not being sarcastic like I usually am) I am relieved that most people here know all of that. I was under the impression that most people have forgotten or simply dont know. But I'll still take that with a pinch of salt.

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Just coz you are in the US some 8 days you have gained the right the declare us ignorant or plain dumb as it reads???

Please don't connect any of this to my location .Maybe my wording was all wrong. Let me clarify. This is what I meant:

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

Apparently no one in Indian racing knows they should be having a good time anymore.

By this I am refering to the people who organize. That maybe they've forgotten that the main purpose of all this is to have a good time and treat it as a hobby. Not as a profession and your day job.

What did I do wrong by giving a suggestion? At the moment this is all I can do. When the time comes I will do my bit for Indian racing. And you can be assured that I will do whatever I can do to the best of my capability.

For all those who are in it right now, I meant no disrespect. And really, I mean if the objective is to slam me then, Wolf, you have nailed it by reading between the lines.

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by ananthkamath

You may have seen or participated in a couple of speedruns but my involvement and exposure to Indian motorsport goes back to the days of Sholavaram.

Some of us are lucky to have racing in our family tree. I'm not one such person. But if memory serves me, racing at Sholavaram stopped in 1988, when you were 5.

Just be happy for us. We get some sort of motorsport. Don't be mean to the few people who put the money down. If you want to rant, rant at Hungama or whoever manages to screw things up year after year.

[Scooby STi]

Hi all,

Please treat this as an attempt to diffuse the situation. I have known Ananth personally for two years now and one thing I know about him is that he is a bit of an idealist. The rest of the world though is not ideal, which is lost to him sometimes.

I think he picked a wrong title for a thread to start this discussion ( IMO slapping stickers on your car does not even qualify to be a grievance let alone starting a thread on it). I think the jist of what he is trying to get at is that Motorsport in India is by far a too elitist and does not provide a level playing field for your average joe enthusiast. I know where he is coming from because the both of us are active in the local Rally-cross and Auto-cross circuit and it just seems that people here are able to organize events on a shoe-string budget every fortnight. The playing field is level and the last time I went for rally-cross event, the owner of the dirt track got just as many laps as the rest of us. The concession stand was also truly a 'concession stand' with everything marked down.

Having said that I know the practical difficulties involved in doing the same sort of thing in India, there is far too much red tape to start with. Space is at a premium and there is the problem of crowd control which does not exist here. So, replicating the same sort of event that happens here in India is impossible without big money backing the event. I agree with Sam Kapasi and feel that the least an enthusiast can do is slap a few stickers on his/her car if that gives him an opportunity to race.

I feel Ananth got frustrated with the way things are back home and ended up with something akin to a rant. I am sure you agree Ananth that you might have been a tad more caustic and vehement than you might have wanted to be. I just wanted to clear things up because I think this thread was started because of a discussion he and I had about motorsport in India.

Everyone can rest assured though that we intend to come back to India soon enough and throw in our lot to make motorsport more accessible to the true enthusiast which is again a purely selfish endeavor

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by Scooby STi

I think he picked a wrong title for a thread to start this discussion ( IMO slapping stickers on your car does not even qualify to be a grievance let alone starting a thread on it).

Just to clarify, he didnt create a new thread, but posted a post in the existing speedrun thread. The conversation then started to go off-topic and this topic seemed to have enough steam to warrant splitting it into a new thread, which is what was done. (There is a note in Ananth's first post explaining that).

Cheers,
R

PS - i guess you are his roomate he speaks about on occasion? How about an intro?

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by Scooby STi

Everyone can rest assured though that we intend to come back to India soon enough and throw in our lot to make motorsport more accessible to the true enthusiast which is again a purely selfish endeavor

Get the STi and the Miata, and all is forgiven.

[Mpower]

All right gentlemen! Everyone has made their point and expressed their opinion on the sticker episode so why don't we stop and move on and talk about other aspects of "SpeedRun Sponsorship and Organization"

For one, I think that we can take a leaf from MMSC's book. For the longest of times they clubbed bikes and cars into one weekend. Now, it is clear that the bike crowd and the car crowd is totally different so they are run as separate events. This will reduce the overcrowding at the venue and make life easier for everyone involved.

[kkr2k2]

Originally Posted by Mpower

....talk about other aspects of "SpeedRun Sponsorship and Organization"

For one, I think that we can take a leaf from MMSC's book....

BTW, back in those days how did they manage to hold the racing events, who were the sponsors?
I see from the pics posted by hellkuul, that those races attracted lot of crowd. Is it so that the interest in the crowd has fallen down?

hellkuul(Naiz Ali) sir could you put some light on "Sponsorship and Organization" of those events which might give us some inputs.

@ALL, anyone who know anything regarding the same can also put it here.

raj.

[HPP]

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I think I get the idea. Personally I know the point of view from a sponsor, and I also understand the view of a participant.

Realistically, making it mandatory for participants to place stickers is out of line. It is the duty of sponsors to do their due diligence to make the event worth their time in regards to ROI or just plain old viewing of branded banner ads. They should be making large enough booths, placing enough banners, handing out enough stickers, t shirts, key chains, having the announcer mention the companies a certain amount of times at a minimum, etc to make it worth their time. Placing stickers on cars is not the right move. In the rest of the world, it would be suicide for an event to ask/be mandatory for such a thing without some sort of compensation possibility for the car owner.

There are plenty of correct ways for sponsors to get their moneys worth, it just seems lazy the way they executed this year. I understand space constraints, crowd issues, etc, but every situation can be handled and there is always a solution.

The second the participant pays money, they are off the hook for anything else being mandatory for them.

I could keep going on about this, but do not want to bore you all.

If any sponsors want to hire me for some consulting on your next event, I'd be happy to come help the enthusiasts in India.

[DKG]

A motorsport event is a wonderful way to bring together enthusiasts from around the country/city together for a day ( or couple) of fun.

A lot of us have been into cars and bikes on our own and a few have tasted the joy of sharing the sport/hobby with likeminded people. To me the second option is clearly so much more enjoyable as people make it all the more special and the hobby/sport gains dramatically in the fun quotient.

For decades in Hyderabad enthusiasts have lovingly maintained their Jeeps and enjoyed it on their own. Yesterday saw a Jeep Thrills event organised which brought together over 50 participants and boy what a riot it was!!

For any event, as I see it, you have the rules of the game and the dynamics of organising the event. At times these are unrelated (mostly) and are both critical to the success of an event.

Here in India it is inappropriate to assume there is a lack of passion for the sport or an ability to organise events. Both talents exist.

As we desperately need more events, we do need a broadbased approach to enable as many participants to take part as possible. I'm sure most here would agree that organising these events is a very costly affair, not to forget the headaches of permissions and logistics.

Option 1: Asking participants to split the costs personally. This would do little to grow the sport as it would remain an elitist indulgence of a few rich kids.

Option 2. Participants source their own sponsors and enter the sport. Here every participant has to locate a sponsor and split the event cost.

Option 3. The organisers arrange for sponsors and fund the event with a token participation fee to encourage as many participants as possible.

Every sponsor tries to get mileage for his money spent. Usually that mileage in events translates into viewership of his brand. The larger the viewership the higher the mileage, the more justification for his money well spent.

Indian motorsport is still not in a stage where individual participants can effectively source sponsorships.

Which leaves us with the third option of allowing an event organiser source sponsors and ensure the sponsor gets his mileage.

Sponsors get their mileage, organisers add value through events organised, and individuals have fun. Its a win win situation for all.

If option 3 entails the organisers requiring all particpants to do the needful to meet sponsor mileage requirements that is the very least a participant can do considering he is paying peanuts to take part.

My personal view is that option 3 is the most broadbased in terms of growing the sport and may I request all enthusiasts to please consider the economics of organising these events and cooperating.

If we can agree to this model and move on, I know all of us would have a whale of a time in the coming years.

Last but not the least, none of the comments above are a reaction to anything said by anyone in this thread. Please don't view it so. This is just my humble opinion as I would like to see more events being organised and consider option 3 as the most broadbased and workable model

[nickatnite]

I flew to Mumbai, the suburb of Khargar,wasted my time at "SHABBY RUN 2008".I have lots of pics.For what use?. I would have seen better cars at an used domestic/import car lot!. And, that is all i have to say. In contrast, check out my pics from events at the Madras Motor Sports Club Track from last year. All i have to do is drive 35km outside Chennai.

Madras Motor Sports Club Track -Chennai - SkyscraperCity

Cheers!