future of snox

Is it just me, or has there been significantly less talk this year about the upcoming sno-x season than years past. I would have to say sno-x was in its hay days back in 03-05 and started to taper off since then, now it is almost as if it’s extinct. No one is talking about the new 2010 sleds; no one is talking about the upcoming season, who is racing for who, ect. The cost to race continues to go up, as the interest level and sponsorship money continues to go down. As a guy that used to race, I can say I haven’t been to an event since 07 and maybe watched one on TV between now and then. I really think the only thing keeping it alive right now is the exposure it gets at X Games. The manufacturers are taking steps in the right direction by production race sleds that can still be ridden on the trails with less work than before, but I think more needs to be done on the event side of things to keep the sport alive and try to make it grow when the economy turns around. What do you guys think? I think a few things that could help it along are:

- Continuing to take advantages of practice tracks for races, have facilities open on weekends for practice and run races on them, just like a mx track. Run all MN north reg at one location, all south at another location, and hold nationals at each track once a year. Same can go for WI, MI, NY, and out west. If you can afford to race sno-x the 500 miles and $100 in gas is a moot point. Yes some people will have to drive 250 miles each way every time they race and some people will have to drive 5 miles…..life’s tough, deal with it.

- Cater your facility to the fans, try to bring in specters that reach beyond family and friends. No one wants to sit on metal bleachers in -20 degree temps with no shelter, build three sided stands with radiant heat, and have concessions and beverages.

- Run the track like a mx track, issue memberships, have open practices on the weekends, require those people with memberships to volunteer time at a race to minimize staff expenses.

- Take advantage of this little thing called NETWORKING, work with hotels that offer discounted rates for racers and spectators have kickbacks set up from the hotel, if we give you 200 guest over the weekend you give us a $1000 bonus, if we give you 300 guest you give us $1250. There are a ton of possibilities here.

- Push publicity of sno-x, develop a good, interactive website, get racers on the radio, promote your races.

- Build technical tracks for the nationals, set it up for good racing, and tell whoever is televising the event to work on their camera angles so the sport doesn’t look so damn boring on tv.

skidoo_rider #1 said:

Zach, your ideas are good but I see some problems arising. Running it like an mx track would be awesome but a snox track needs a lot more maintanence than an mx track to keep people happy, so, you would need to charge high enough membership fees to pay people to keep the track in riding shape and the riders arent going to like that. With there being fewer people into snox than mx I just dont think it would work too great.

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I totally agree, upkeep on a snox track is prob 20x the cost of up keeping a rideable mx track. I guess what my point is in reference with mx tracks, is that they dont go out and build a new track for every race. Yes they build the national sx tracks in a week, but then again they are bringing in 30,000+ fans to watch top riders that are racing for $million contracts. Keeping the number of venues to a minimum is going to reduce set up expenses and establish a track that people will become aware of.

If year in and year out, a site is used for sno-x througout the winter, people will hear about it and its popularity (hense, attendance) will start to rise. If you look at the national mx series, the AMA doesnt own all those tracks....they use one venue one week, and move on to the next for the next race. If ISOC wants to keep its hands in the regionals, we will use MN for example, they can run two circuits. A MN north, and MN south (like the good ol days). Those two circuits will hold all their races on ONE track at ONE facility. Sure you can change the track up race to race, but you are not driving all over goods creation towing trailers full of crap you have to set up for every race. The national circuit can come through each track once a year, and move on.....and possibly the national circuit may choose not to run on those tracks (since they have a history with Duluth and Shakopee).