Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

I'll just let the comments speak for themselves.:rolleyes:

http://www.dragracingonline.com/inne...compton-1.html

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Interesting reading. I think he answered some of the questions in a sort of " what the reader wants to hear" way and maybe not what is really happening by painting kind of a rosy picture of Drag Racing. The interviewer and Tom never really approached the subject of purses or ways to either control or lower the racers expenses nor was the subject of increasing purses brought up. They also missed talking about ways to increase racer participation regardless the of level.
I feel NHRA needs to get more "THE OFFICIAL BATH SOAP or THE OFFICIAL MOBILE PHONE CO " for instance sponsors putting up money to be recognized as the official (insert product here) of NHRA-- Nascar has many times more companies involved at this level than NHRA has probably 50 -60 OFFICIAL PARTNERS --- these companies inject HUGE sums of MONEY into Nascar . Since Nascar is privately owned by the France family we will not have any way of ever knowing how much money is involved but it's probably in the many MILLIONS !!! of dollars range. These Official partners must be satisfied with their results as many of them renew their advertising agreements .
As I said interesting reading the interview from 2000 to compare the comments between 2000 and 2014. ---FED 387

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Stuffed suit.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

No doubt he is a smart guy. Hard to believe NHRA was 22 million in debt back in the 1990s. I wonder how on earth a not for profit that charges what it does for membership, competition number, entry fees, and to spectate while getting large corporations to purchase billing on the series and event names as well as sponsor the midway and contingency programs all with a 1970s payout? But then again the fact that all of the above increased over the last two decades (aside from payout of course) must have been all part of the strategy to getting them back in the black by juicing people like us with insurance fees.

How do I get to schedule an interview with Mr. Compton? I want to ask the real questions about sportsman racing.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Good Luck with that one Bobby...

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Empty suit

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Spinmeister

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

For many non-profits all it means is... "we spend it all"!

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

The terms "misconception" and "complicated arrangement" were used in the article. Both of which can be directly descriptive of "bullish_t" or otherwise known as in some parts as"hogwash". As I read on it became clear to me that the remainder held the same validity. Although I did learn that M&M / Mars also manufacture pet food.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

You're right Ange.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

empty hat too

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Sounds to me like he got his training at Beatrice Foods in the early '80s. Been there, suffered through that. John Kissel

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Bet his glass is not empty! :)

Ken
Stock 412

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Good 'ol Tom totally forgot to mention ONE word about the NHRA Sportsman racers. Fans, Pro racers, sponsors, television, big money and dog food. Nothing about us, the backbone of the sport. I'm sure we just slipped his mind. To bad he didn't ask him about his driving record or his salary. Jim


.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Glad see that NHRA is getting back to making a profit.I'm sure that will mean a increase in payouts,and maybe even a reduction in entry fees.LOL

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Doubtful

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Sounded to me more of a "fluff" interview where no "hard" questions are asked. In politics the leftwing stations ask the dems questions like this and the rightwing station asks the repub's questions like this. Wouldn't suprise me if the questions were pre-planned or rehersed. Of course this is somewhat disparaging to DRO and I don't mean to offend, but "how did you fix this" and "how did you improve that" are open invitations for blowhards to wax on about themselves.

The one line "no I never raced" says it all. He's got book smarts and that's what he was brought in for, but don't ever confuse him with someone who has eaten baloney sandwiches with greasy fingerprints on them while laying under a car trying to finish before it's completely dark.

No friend of a sportsman...

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

He wasn't asked any sportsman-related questions. It was all big-picture stuff. He did give us the "ONE word" mention you sought:
http://www.dragracingonline.com/inne...compton-7.html

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

"We serve a lot of stakeholders – very different stakeholders, who have very different angles on this sport. It could a team owner. It could be a sportsman racer. It could be a pro racer. It could be a racetrack [operator]. It could be a fan. We're in the middle of it all, trying to hold it together."

I think this would have to be the hardest part of running an organization like NHRA. There are so many people to please and it's impossible to please them all.

His non-racing background makes him very impartial, in my eyes. His job is to make NHRA sound and he has done a pretty good job of that. It's the job of his vice presidents and staff to run the racing operations. Looks like ole Wally Parks had a lot of vision but not a lot of financial acumen, turning over an entity with $22M of debt. If we had a racer running the helm I think impartiality would go out the door. I can't imagine anyone on this forum trying to manage NHRA and not being biased against the nitro cars! lol

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

Well said!

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

My question is how did the organization get $22 million in debt? I wish they could have gone further into that. All the sponsors, memberships, competition numbers, entry fees, official this/that of the nhra, event billing, series billing (Winston at the time?), etc. seems like the sanctioning body would have been bringing in much more than they were spending. What overhead costs did NHRA have that was not being covered by the aforementioned revenue intake? Not being sarcastic, just curious.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

The debt was most likely from the purchase of real estate ( race tracks owned by NHRA) and the updates, operating costs and repairs to those facilities.
Just because there is debt does not mean there was a problem. I wonder if the debt has been reduced under the new regime or has it increased. Last time I was at Gainesville there was a huge Remodel happening to the grandstands. I know that is not an out of pocket expense. I doubt if any of the actual racing related expenses created the debt.

Re: Tom Compton Interview on DRO
 

I was always under the belief true debt is when capital expenditures are way beyond net profit (like 10x) before bottom line loss. And being a 501C org, I was under the impression all "profit" is classified as "surplus" which needs to go back into the organization anyway.

Fuzzy math?