Tom Compton Interview on DRO

[Jim Wahl]

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


.

[Lyn Smith]

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

[gbur]

Originally Posted by Lyn Smith

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

Doubtful

[goinbroke2]

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...

[Michael Beard]

Originally Posted by Jim Wahl

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


.

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

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.

[Julie Jordan]

"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

[GUMP]

Originally Posted by Julie Jordan

"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

Well said!

[Bobby Fazio]

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.

[Mike Pearson]

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.

[Gary Smith]

Originally Posted by Mike Pearson

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.

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?