If you’ve been reading my Racer X stuff lately, you know that I’ve been working on getting some riders to the Montreal Supercross.
If you’ve been reading my Racer X stuff lately, you know that I’ve been working on getting some riders to the Montreal Supercross.
Why am I bothering to do this? I don’t really know as I don’t get anything out of this deal (I should make 10% but these privateer dudes don’t have any money so I’m happy to help- yep, I’m a giver) but since I’m a dude that’s been around the scene and the race is in Canada, I get asked to help.
I’m happy to do this and put the deal together for guys. I have a buddy up there that runs a small Honda team (Ping and Troy Adams raced for him at the last Canadian National- see the feature next month in RXI) and he’ll drive out to Montreal and provide two Hondas with good parts on them. He’ll provide gas, tools, oils, food-whatever you need as a rider to be comfortable and set to race. He just asks that you use his sponsors stuff but it’s all legit so that’s fine. He’s doing it for the exposure sure, but it’s not as if he’s going to benefit from this deal in any sort of cash.
The promoter runs a good show, gets 50K fans and used to get funding from the provincial government to run his race and bring up riders but that has now stopped. Blame the big E- economy on that. So, him and I have been hashing out deals for riders. Here’s the deal that I managed to get out of him 1000K to the rider that he has to pay for his flight out of that, free entry, free hotel room and here’s the purse breakdown for the main event-
Supercross MX1 450cc Supercross
MX1 Finale
1 5000
2 4000
3 3500
4 3000
5 2250
6 2000
7 1700
8 1500
9 1300
10 1100
11 1000
12 950
13 900
14 850
15 800
16 770
17 740
18 710
19 680
20 650
21 620
22 590
23 560
24 530
25 500
Not bad eh? I mean it’s not going to have the depth of a 450 AMA main but with Jason Thomas, Heath Voss, Steve Boniface and the Canadian guys, competition is pretty decent. I managed to get Troy Adams to agree to this and I think, barring anything weird happening, Troy will get top five. That’s $2250.00 plus whatever is left over from the 1000 bucks (probably $500). All in all a decent pay-day for a night of racing on a tamer than an AMA race track.
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| Montreal Supercross is a good time and attracts some decent riders…if you guarantee them $! Lissimore photo |
Here’s the kicker. I can’t find guys to go. It’s not enough money for them! What happened to racing for the money? The purse is not that bad, it’s decent and like I said, it’s not as if Reed and Stewart are lining up. Also, it’s not like I’m asking Reed and Stewart to come up for mere pittance. I know for a fact that two guys that said no way make ZERO salary. Yes, you heard that correctly- the riders make no money and I’m offering a chance to probably (if they got last in the main-which they wouldn’t) come away with a thousand bucks after a night of racing. That’s about $850 USD.
I don’t get it. When did “Racing for your money” become an insult? I know what Thomas is getting to go and seeing as how he’s a former winner, the fans know who is he and he’s been racing the Montreal supercross forever, it’s not much more. All you have to do as a rider is bring your gear and some suspension and you’re set! I’m trying to give you money and you’d rather eat ravioli in a hubcap instead of travelling up to a cool race and possible make some decent cash?
I’d love to make $500.00 in a day (minimum) and be treated like a rockstar. How about you?
What’s wrong with me? Am I crazy for thinking these guys are crazy?
