Tom Compton Interview on DRO

[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?