Joey D
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- Lakes of the North, MI
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- GTP Joey
I was at www.streetracing.com and found this.
Racers Against Street Racing?
Recently I picked up a copy of a magazine and saw this ad and within that ad was a small icon that said RASR Racers Against Street Racing. Now you would think since we run this site and Streetracing.com that it would make me mad. Instead I just sort of snickered. Lets examine why it's so funny.
1. Most vendors recognize that the majority of their money comes from the average street racer. It is us that are buying the parts to make our cars faster. Now let me make something clear, thats not say that if you fix your car up to make it faster that automatically means you're going to street race. But I believe, and yes I could be reading too much into this, that RASR is an association of professional racers. So by vendors supporting RASR aren't they in essence shooting themselves in the foot? I mean most professional racers get sponsored by these companies thus getting thier parts for free. So don't companies really want to appeal to you and I since we are the ones actually spending them money? OK so lets say I just have NO clue what I am talking about, which is more true than not. Lets say OK vendors support RASR in order to get bigger companies like Toyota, Honda, Mitsu to buy their parts because they are against street racing. Weigh the amount of money they get from regular consumers vs. the big company consumers. The big companies may need 1000 parts a year and they expect them at a deep discount. The average consumer probably buys 25 parts per year now multiply that by the number of street racing or legal street racing (Q racing) people. On the conservative side San Diego alone probably has 500 racers. OK so you do the math. Thats SD alone! So doesn't make more sense to just keep quiet about how the company personally feels about street racing? I mean this is business right? Yes we recognize that street racing is dangerous and so is legal racing. But by supporting RASR it seems to me that you essentially alienating your consumers because the reality is that not all of us are professional racers. We race on the streets and at the Q. Does that mean we are not good enough to buy your parts?
2. Do they really think for a second that their little professional racers never raced on the streets? Reality check please! Do they think that they obey the law at all times? That they don't speed or get into a sudden speed contest with a rev of an engine at a stop light? Seems to me that its a case of, "I did it but because I have sponsors you can't do it...I am Holier Than Thou" Seems to me that by supporting RASR you're gonna piss off a lot of non-professional racers.
Now this isn't sour grapes. I could care less I am just pointing out things that made me laugh when I saw that. Charlie and I have always known that any sponsors we have or will get are totally silent. We don't tell people who or who is interested in sponsoring us because we know that companies don't like to be involved in anything that has to do with street racing. We could have very well opted to cover legal only events. But thats not reality. Reality is that racing occurs on the streets and at legal venues. We cover both. The good and the bad of both events. We tell it like it is. So we probably forfeit a lot of sponsorships because we cover the reality of racing not just the pretty little cars on the perfect race track legally racing. I'm gonna give you a funny little fact that I learned in my Journalism class. The National Enquirer has the largest subscription base and the highest circulation. Interesting huh? Want to know why? Controversy. This site is controversial as well and we know that. The National Enquirer has very little support from the Journalism world because of the subjects that they cover but they have a huge fan base just as we do. Sounds familiar huh?
I know this sounds like we totally support street racing in this article. We don't. We don't support anything we just report what we see. All I am saying is don't act Holier Than Thou now that you have sponsors or you're trying to get new sponsors by supporting/creating RASR. Seems to me you're only going to hurt yourself in the end by pissing your fans off and having regular people buy from other places.
Maybe an optional club or whatever is should be called something like RADD Racers Against Drunk Driving, RFSR Racers For Safe Racing, encouraging helmets, seatbelts, sobriety, safer car parts, and legal venues without alienating the people.
Racers Against Street Racing?
Recently I picked up a copy of a magazine and saw this ad and within that ad was a small icon that said RASR Racers Against Street Racing. Now you would think since we run this site and Streetracing.com that it would make me mad. Instead I just sort of snickered. Lets examine why it's so funny.
1. Most vendors recognize that the majority of their money comes from the average street racer. It is us that are buying the parts to make our cars faster. Now let me make something clear, thats not say that if you fix your car up to make it faster that automatically means you're going to street race. But I believe, and yes I could be reading too much into this, that RASR is an association of professional racers. So by vendors supporting RASR aren't they in essence shooting themselves in the foot? I mean most professional racers get sponsored by these companies thus getting thier parts for free. So don't companies really want to appeal to you and I since we are the ones actually spending them money? OK so lets say I just have NO clue what I am talking about, which is more true than not. Lets say OK vendors support RASR in order to get bigger companies like Toyota, Honda, Mitsu to buy their parts because they are against street racing. Weigh the amount of money they get from regular consumers vs. the big company consumers. The big companies may need 1000 parts a year and they expect them at a deep discount. The average consumer probably buys 25 parts per year now multiply that by the number of street racing or legal street racing (Q racing) people. On the conservative side San Diego alone probably has 500 racers. OK so you do the math. Thats SD alone! So doesn't make more sense to just keep quiet about how the company personally feels about street racing? I mean this is business right? Yes we recognize that street racing is dangerous and so is legal racing. But by supporting RASR it seems to me that you essentially alienating your consumers because the reality is that not all of us are professional racers. We race on the streets and at the Q. Does that mean we are not good enough to buy your parts?
2. Do they really think for a second that their little professional racers never raced on the streets? Reality check please! Do they think that they obey the law at all times? That they don't speed or get into a sudden speed contest with a rev of an engine at a stop light? Seems to me that its a case of, "I did it but because I have sponsors you can't do it...I am Holier Than Thou" Seems to me that by supporting RASR you're gonna piss off a lot of non-professional racers.
Now this isn't sour grapes. I could care less I am just pointing out things that made me laugh when I saw that. Charlie and I have always known that any sponsors we have or will get are totally silent. We don't tell people who or who is interested in sponsoring us because we know that companies don't like to be involved in anything that has to do with street racing. We could have very well opted to cover legal only events. But thats not reality. Reality is that racing occurs on the streets and at legal venues. We cover both. The good and the bad of both events. We tell it like it is. So we probably forfeit a lot of sponsorships because we cover the reality of racing not just the pretty little cars on the perfect race track legally racing. I'm gonna give you a funny little fact that I learned in my Journalism class. The National Enquirer has the largest subscription base and the highest circulation. Interesting huh? Want to know why? Controversy. This site is controversial as well and we know that. The National Enquirer has very little support from the Journalism world because of the subjects that they cover but they have a huge fan base just as we do. Sounds familiar huh?
I know this sounds like we totally support street racing in this article. We don't. We don't support anything we just report what we see. All I am saying is don't act Holier Than Thou now that you have sponsors or you're trying to get new sponsors by supporting/creating RASR. Seems to me you're only going to hurt yourself in the end by pissing your fans off and having regular people buy from other places.
Maybe an optional club or whatever is should be called something like RADD Racers Against Drunk Driving, RFSR Racers For Safe Racing, encouraging helmets, seatbelts, sobriety, safer car parts, and legal venues without alienating the people.
