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Small Business Stories - Drag Racing League

Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on SBTV.com and with me is Kenny Nowling. Kenny is the President of the American Drag Racing League located at O'Fallon, Missouri in the St. Louis area; we are familiar with that. And we are here at SEMA 2007; Specialty Equipment Market Association, literally on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Kenny, how are you sir? Kenny Nowling: Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. Alex Fees: Good to see you. So what’s up with the American Drag Racing League? Kenny Nowling: Well about three years ago, I had this crazy idea after running a program within the NHRA that I wanted my own sand box if you will. Alex Fees: Yeah. Kenny Nowling: So I thought, you know what, I can’t complain about how they were under business or what piece of that sand box that I get because that’s sure. I figured I’d go out and get my own and through my business partners and investors, Daywood and Tommy Leafer. We went out on our in 2004 and just completed our third full season here in 2007 and things are very exciting right now for us. We designed a partnership with the National Guards to be a presenting sponsor of our series next year. Slow master will stay on as a title right sponsor and they are sort of lining up the door to come in and join us and it’s all accredit to. I know it sounds cliché but it’s all accredit to my staff. I mean I’ve got a great staff of people. Alex Fees: So how does this work? You say you have different venues around the country or what? Kenny Nowling: Yeah. This year we were in eight events and markets throughout the country. We’ve been to Houston, Dallas. We’ll start up next year, we’ll go to Houston. Go to markets like Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit and an effort to bring our product to larger markets but at the same time, we’ve got a little bit of a unique twist on how we get the fans out there; we don’t charge admission. Alex Fees: How does that work? Kenny Nowling: Well quite simply. I have a ticket distribution team instead of having a conventional advertising scene that would go in and do media buys and things to that nature. We go in and we distribute tickets. We do it through school; we do it through relationships with local chamber of commerce, local businesses. We get the community involved in distributing these ticket to people who may be aren’t as financially capable and some others would be but the bottom line is we get them out to the events and our marketing partners get more eye balls on their logos, to their brands and their products and really that’s what it amounts to. Alex Fees: Right. So Kenny it takes the emphasis off of what? Of receipts at the gate and places the emphasis on impressing upon your sponsors and look how these many people are going to see your product line, these many people are going to see your emblem. Kenny Nowling: Well that’s kind of the concept. I mean look, at the end of the day, I got tired of fighting for the first year and a half. We tried selling tickets and we had successful events and very successful events but I thought to myself, if I want to get this company to grow to where I need it to grow, how are we going to take that next giant step? Well my assistant Jessica Alcoke came up with this idea that for our larger events, maybe we should give the tickets away and then charge for parking, sell t-shirts. Alex Fees: Right. Kenny Nowling: The track venues, the track partners would have an opportunity to sell more concessions and what would happen is if we can grow our live attendants to 30, 35,000. We’d be able to go to marketing partners such as the National Guard and present a package and not just selling blue sky and conversely, we don’t have to compete with things like the NFL and NASCAR and so many other things that take that entertainment dollar and absorb it before we get the chance to. Certainly NHRA is a great organization; I had 50 years to grow the organization. I’m 35 years old and I hope to retire sometime in the near future in order to accomplish that, I had to achieve my goals a bit quicker and the ticket distribution thing has just been stroking geniusly. Alex Fees: And giving away free tickets, that’s certainly sets you apart from your competition right? That sets you apart from NHRA? Kenny Nowling: I think that it does. I think, look, we both have on track entertainment to offer and both of our on track entertainment packages, I think are dynamic, spectacular, entertaining, any adjective that you want to use but what sets us apart is that you’re a father and you’re working 50-60 hours a week just to provide, excuse me for your family. At the end of the day, you don’t have a dollar to pay your bills let alone an entertainment dollar like some others that are fortunate enough to add that. I thought to myself, I want to bring this product to America. I want to bring it to Grassroots America, to people that will buy products, the people that would go to the auto zones in the world and spend their money. Everybody has to go to an auto zone now and then to get parts and products but why would auto zone want to sponsor a league that’s only putting 3,000 people on the stands. Alex Fees: Right. Kenny Nowling: So I said to myself, we would take this product. We’d give it to America. My marketing partners, the tickets aren’t free, believe me. Alex Fees: Sure. Kenny Nowling: My marketing partnerships help pay for those tickets. It just takes that line item is trying to draw a small business which is what we are right now. Take that line item off the budget. We don’t have to worry about having gate revenue to support our series. It’s just a different, it’s just a different concept and fortunately for us, it has work. Alex Fees: How many people attended a drag racing event? When you’re approaching some of these sponsors, you know, what is the figure? I’m going to have these many people sitting in the stands. Kenny Nowling: You know I don’t know that anyone ever has really published drag racing attendance figures and I’m not exactly sure why that is. I hear some figures that I’ll be quite honest with you, it make me laugh because I can count grand stands. I know how many people, people who rather fit into somebody’s venues. But look at the end of the day, for us; to set attendance record to some of the tracks Rockingham for example last year, we put over 31000 people in there. Alex Fees: Wow. Kenny Nowling: And Steve Earwood, the track owner and operator said to me, this is not only the largest crowd we’ve ever had. For any of that and they call the nature events, it held IHRA events. Not only was it large as crowd that they’d ever had for any type of drag racing event at that facility in over 40 years. There was also in his exact word to quote Steve Earwood, the best drag racing show he’s ever had there so that’s what the thing I’m most proud of is the fact that we’re not only giving this tickets away but we’re not giving away to come out and see something that’s, ‘oh that was okay’ or whatever. Alex Fees: Okay, right. Kenny Nowling: We’re giving away a value that’s really exciting and a product that’s really done and we’re putting that in front of people who couldn’t afford to see it otherwise. Alex Fees: Because that wouldn’t work if it were second rate or B Team drag racing. Kenny Nowling: Oh absolutely and these are nicer at the top of the line. Alex Fees: Okay. You mentioned there’s any, I don’t know drag racing, there is NHRA, there is what I, I, ray. Kenny Nowling: IHRA. Alex Fees: IHRA and now there is the American Drag Racing League, are there others? Kenny Nowling: You know there are. There are several others start up organizations and the thing that we’re most excited about is the fact that in just a short time, we have established our self, you know, this ring is from the original Drag stock event, the original ADRL event. We had the thing called the Three-Second Club at the time and that’s to get into a link of conversion about draggers but at the time, in the eight of a mile, there has only been one door slam of one car that would run on our series that had ever run at three second the last time. Well that particular weekend, one of my clients at the time, Mike Ashley, add a marketing firm before I got started into the American Drivers and League, went the three second run. Well this three’s had had been symbolical or something. In the last two years, we’ve established our self now and my opinion and the opinion of most in the industry is clearly the number three drag racing organization in the country in the world for that matter and I think in a short while, I’m going to have to get this change to it to as well. Alex Fees: Wow, wow. Well Kenny how do you guys go about dividing up drivers, dividing up sponsorship, dividing up teams? Kenny Nowling: Well really certainly, the NHRA as said. They’ve had a long history and they certainly have a great business model with this new HD partnership that they’ve entered into and Thompson’s leadership. They’ve grown the NHRA to a level that I know Wally Parks only dreamed of that when he founded it. For us to get to where we need to go, we just had to do things a bit differently and for drag racing in general, look, I don’t know what the exact figure is but I would bet based on statistics that I’ve read, the drag racing is only familiar to maybe two or three percent of the population as a whole. Well it’s my job to go out and change that and the thing that I’m most, just shocked by every event during our previous ceremonies, we’ll look up in to the stands and we’ll say. How many of you guys and gals, this is your first time?’ not just to an AVR event or to this particular track but how many of you, this is your first time ever to a drag race? And I’ll tell you that at least 60-70% of those fans, based on the response, from the cheers in the crowd, had never been to a drag race so I’m excited about the fact that I think we’re making an impact on not just the American Drag Racing League. And our small business and eventually hopefully a major corporation but we’re making an impact on draggers thing as a whole. We’re growing the fun base of drag racing which will transcend to the IHRA and help them and transcend to the NHRA and help them and to be in a position to do that, I’m incredibly humble to have to tell you that I’m excited about the future and not just the future of the ADRL but drag racing in general because that’s the way we want to grow. Alex Fees: Can you talk to me about this back here in the SEMA before? Kenny Nowling: Oh yeah absolutely. Every year when I started mailing motor sports management a few years ago, when I started working that program in the NHRA. I thought to myself, I’ve got to get out to these straight shows and nothing else, not just to, the networking opportunities and the business opportunities that lie out of here on this floor but to meet people, to start familiarizing yourself at the basis and the names and the players in the industry. It’s so great now. I was just speaking with Jackie over it over Toyo tire and to walk up two years ago. It would have taken me 20 minutes to explain them, who I was and what I was us, to had them come and introduce themselves to me and say ‘oh I know who you are’ then falling congratulations on the National Guard partnership. It’s pretty exciting stuff for us so yes, certainly, we’ll be here, we’ll follow this and go to the PRI down in Orlando in December and do it all again so. Alex Fees: All right. Kenny Nowling, good to meet you sir. Kenny Nowling: Thank you so much. Alex Fees: Wish you well. It’s time for free plug. Got a website or something? Kenny Nowling: Free plug. ADRL.us. We couldn’t afford .com, maybe someday, we’ll be able to do to adrl.com but right now you log on to ADRL.us. Alex Fees: Okay. Kenny Nowling: For United States which plays well into our theme of Americana. Alex Fees: It works. Kenny Nowling: And so on and so forth so, ADRL.us. You visit ADRL.us. You can log on, find out about our 2008 schedules and exciting things that are going on. Get some merchandising souvenirs, all kinds of good stuff. Alex Fees: All right, Kenny, great. He is Kenny Nowling. I’m Alex Fees. This is SBTV.com.

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Alex Fees: I’m Alex Fees on SBTV.com and with me is Kenny Nowling. Kenny is the President of the American Drag Racing League located at O'Fallon, Missouri in the St. Louis area; we are familiar with that. And we are here at SEMA 2007; Specialty Equipment Market Association, literally on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Kenny, how are you sir?

Kenny Nowling: Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me.

Alex Fees: Good to see you. So what’s up with the American Drag Racing League?

Kenny Nowling: Well about three years ago, I had this crazy idea after running a program within the NHRA that I wanted my own sand box if you will.

Alex Fees: Yeah.

Kenny Nowling: So I thought, you know what, I can’t complain about how they were under business or what piece of that sand box that I get because that’s sure. I figured I’d go out and get my own and through my business partners and investors, Daywood and Tommy Leafer. We went out on our in 2004 and just completed our third full season here in 2007 and things are very exciting right now for us. We designed a partnership with the National Guards to be a presenting sponsor of our series next year. Slow master will stay on as a title right sponsor and they are sort of lining up the door to come in and join us and it’s all accredit to. I know it sounds cliché but it’s all accredit to my staff. I mean I’ve got a great staff of people.

Alex Fees: So how does this work? You say you have different venues around the country or what?

Kenny Nowling: Yeah. This year we were in eight events and markets throughout the country. We’ve been to Houston, Dallas. We’ll start up next year, we’ll go to Houston. Go to markets like Charlotte, Cleveland, Detroit and an effort to bring our product to larger markets but at the same time, we’ve got a little bit of a unique twist on how we get the fans out there; we don’t charge admission.

Alex Fees: How does that work?

Kenny Nowling: Well quite simply. I have a ticket distribution team instead of having a conventional advertising scene that would go in and do media buys and things to that nature. We go in and we distribute tickets. We do it through school; we do it through relationships with local chamber of commerce, local businesses. We get the community involved in distributing these ticket to people who may be aren’t as financially capable and some others would be but the bottom line is we get them out to the events and our marketing partners get more eye balls on their logos, to their brands and their products and really that’s what it amounts to.

Alex Fees: Right. So Kenny it takes the emphasis off of what? Of receipts at the gate and places the emphasis on impressing upon your sponsors and look how these many people are going to see your product line, these many people are going to see your emblem.

Kenny Nowling: Well that’s kind of the concept. I mean look, at the end of the day, I got tired of fighting for the first year and a half. We tried selling tickets and we had successful events and very successful events but I thought to myself, if I want to get this company to grow to where I need it to grow, how are we going to take that next giant step? Well my assistant Jessica Alcoke came up with this idea that for our larger events, maybe we should give the tickets away and then charge for parking, sell t-shirts.

Alex Fees: Right.

Kenny Nowling: The track venues, the track partners would have an opportunity to sell more concessions and what would happen is if we can grow our live attendants to 30, 35,000. We’d be able to go to marketing partners such as the National Guard and present a package and not just selling blue sky and conversely, we don’t have to compete with things like the NFL and NASCAR and so many other things that take that entertainment dollar and absorb it before we get the chance to. Certainly NHRA is a great organization; I had 50 years to grow the organization. I’m 35 years old and I hope to retire sometime in the near future in order to accomplish that, I had to achieve my goals a bit quicker and the ticket distribution thing has just been stroking geniusly.

Alex Fees: And giving away free tickets, that’s certainly sets you apart from your competition right? That sets you apart from NHRA?

Kenny Nowling: I think that it does. I think, look, we both have on track entertainment to offer and both of our on track entertainment packages, I think are dynamic, spectacular, entertaining, any adjective that you want to use but what sets us apart is that you’re a father and you’re working 50-60 hours a week just to provide, excuse me for your family. At the end of the day, you don’t have a dollar to pay your bills let alone an entertainment dollar like some others that are fortunate enough to add that. I thought to myself, I want to bring this product to America. I want to bring it to Grassroots America, to people that will buy products, the people that would go to the auto zones in the world and spend their money. Everybody has to go to an auto zone now and then to get parts and products but why would auto zone want to sponsor a league that’s only putting 3,000 people on the stands.

Alex Fees: Right.

Kenny Nowling: So I said to myself, we would take this product. We’d give it to America. My marketing partners, the tickets aren’t free, believe me.

Alex Fees: Sure.

Kenny Nowling: My marketing partnerships help pay for those tickets. It just takes that line item is trying to draw a small business which is what we are right now. Take that line item off the budget. We don’t have to worry about having gate revenue to support our series. It’s just a different, it’s just a different concept and fortunately for us, it has work.

Alex Fees: How many people attended a drag racing event? When you’re approaching some of these sponsors, you know, what is the figure? I’m going to have these many people sitting in the stands.

Kenny Nowling: You know I don’t know that anyone ever has really published drag racing attendance figures and I’m not exactly sure why that is. I hear some figures that I’ll be quite honest with you, it make me laugh because I can count grand stands. I know how many people, people who rather fit into somebody’s venues. But look at the end of the day, for us; to set attendance record to some of the tracks Rockingham for example last year, we put over 31000 people in there.

Alex Fees: Wow.

Kenny Nowling: And Steve Earwood, the track owner and operator said to me, this is not only the largest crowd we’ve ever had. For any of that and they call the nature events, it held IHRA events. Not only was it large as crowd that they’d ever had for any type of drag racing event at that facility in over 40 years. There was also in his exact word to quote Steve Earwood, the best drag racing show he’s ever had there so that’s what the thing I’m most proud of is the fact that we’re not only giving this tickets away but we’re not giving away to come out and see something that’s, ‘oh that was okay’ or whatever.

Alex Fees: Okay, right.

Kenny Nowling: We’re giving away a value that’s really exciting and a product that’s really done and we’re putting that in front of people who couldn’t afford to see it otherwise.

Alex Fees: Because that wouldn’t work if it were second rate or B Team drag racing.

Kenny Nowling: Oh absolutely and these are nicer at the top of the line.

Alex Fees: Okay. You mentioned there’s any, I don’t know drag racing, there is NHRA, there is what I, I, ray.

Kenny Nowling: IHRA.

Alex Fees: IHRA and now there is the American Drag Racing League, are there others?

Kenny Nowling: You know there are. There are several others start up organizations and the thing that we’re most excited about is the fact that in just a short time, we have established our self, you know, this ring is from the original Drag stock event, the original ADRL event. We had the thing called the Three-Second Club at the time and that’s to get into a link of conversion about draggers but at the time, in the eight of a mile, there has only been one door slam of one car that would run on our series that had ever run at three second the last time. Well that particular weekend, one of my clients at the time, Mike Ashley, add a marketing firm before I got started into the American Drivers and League, went the three second run. Well this three’s had had been symbolical or something. In the last two years, we’ve established our self now and my opinion and the opinion of most in the industry is clearly the number three drag racing organization in the country in the world for that matter and I think in a short while, I’m going to have to get this change to it to as well.

Alex Fees: Wow, wow. Well Kenny how do you guys go about dividing up drivers, dividing up sponsorship, dividing up teams?

Kenny Nowling: Well really certainly, the NHRA as said. They’ve had a long history and they certainly have a great business model with this new HD partnership that they’ve entered into and Thompson’s leadership. They’ve grown the NHRA to a level that I know Wally Parks only dreamed of that when he founded it. For us to get to where we need to go, we just had to do things a bit differently and for drag racing in general, look, I don’t know what the exact figure is but I would bet based on statistics that I’ve read, the drag racing is only familiar to maybe two or three percent of the population as a whole. Well it’s my job to go out and change that and the thing that I’m most, just shocked by every event during our previous ceremonies, we’ll look up in to the stands and we’ll say. How many of you guys and gals, this is your first time?’ not just to an AVR event or to this particular track but how many of you, this is your first time ever to a drag race? And I’ll tell you that at least 60-70% of those fans, based on the response, from the cheers in the crowd, had never been to a drag race so I’m excited about the fact that I think we’re making an impact on not just the American Drag Racing League. And our small business and eventually hopefully a major corporation but we’re making an impact on draggers thing as a whole. We’re growing the fun base of drag racing which will transcend to the IHRA and help them and transcend to the NHRA and help them and to be in a position to do that, I’m incredibly humble to have to tell you that I’m excited about the future and not just the future of the ADRL but drag racing in general because that’s the way we want to grow.

Alex Fees: Can you talk to me about this back here in the SEMA before?

Kenny Nowling: Oh yeah absolutely. Every year when I started mailing motor sports management a few years ago, when I started working that program in the NHRA. I thought to myself, I’ve got to get out to these straight shows and nothing else, not just to, the networking opportunities and the business opportunities that lie out of here on this floor but to meet people, to start familiarizing yourself at the basis and the names and the players in the industry. It’s so great now. I was just speaking with Jackie over it over Toyo tire and to walk up two years ago. It would have taken me 20 minutes to explain them, who I was and what I was us, to had them come and introduce themselves to me and say ‘oh I know who you are’ then falling congratulations on the National Guard partnership. It’s pretty exciting stuff for us so yes, certainly, we’ll be here, we’ll follow this and go to the PRI down in Orlando in December and do it all again so.

Alex Fees: All right. Kenny Nowling, good to meet you sir.

Kenny Nowling: Thank you so much.

Alex Fees: Wish you well. It’s time for free plug. Got a website or something?

Kenny Nowling: Free plug. ADRL.us. We couldn’t afford .com, maybe someday, we’ll be able to do to adrl.com but right now you log on to ADRL.us.

Alex Fees: Okay.

Kenny Nowling: For United States which plays well into our theme of Americana.

Alex Fees: It works.

Kenny Nowling: And so on and so forth so, ADRL.us. You visit ADRL.us. You can log on, find out about our 2008 schedules and exciting things that are going on. Get some merchandising souvenirs, all kinds of good stuff.

Alex Fees: All right, Kenny, great. He is Kenny Nowling. I’m Alex Fees. This is SBTV.com.

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services