Today, I purchased her podcast episode number 26. How do you make business decisions? Do you roll dice? Do you roll the chicken bones? Do you pull ruins? Do you look at the stars? Do you jump up and down on 1 foot? Do you pull an eyelash? Do you blow on a ladybug? If you do any of those things, your business probably isn't doing so great. Weighing it does not get good business results. What does data? And when it comes to event raising data, No 1 does it better than scisack from avengerracehub.com.
He's the avenger racing data scientist who has all the answers for what you should do next in your event erasing business. Don't wanna listen to him? Fine. You can always go back to looking for those 4 LEAP clovers I'm sure that pot of gold is around here somewhere.
Thank you for joining me for the Merchants River podcast. I am Kyle Bondo, your professional extraordinaire and racing business coach. And if you're new to the Merchant Center podcast, welcome aboard. I'm here to make the art and science behind building, promoting, and directing off road races. Simple and understandable.
My goal is to teach you how to build better races. And of course, my cohost, his goal is to make your race never gets off the ground, but that's okay. What we learn here is how to Murphy proof your race so that Mister Murphy has no impact on you. Wouldn't that be worth it? Wouldn't that be worth it to be able to know all the gotchas and know all the hang ups and short circuit that learning curve so that you can build better races today rather than a year or 2 years from now. So if you're ready to take your race promotion skills to the next level, Let's get into today's topic, which is the interview
with scisack from avengerracehub.com. Now scisack is what I like to call the big data scientists of a venture racing statistics. Now what Si has done is compiled a venture racing data to understand how many event erases are out there, what states are doing event erases, what standard, what formats are event erases taking place in and compiling all that to understand the state of a venture racing in the United States as of today. As you'll find in this interview, Psy
reveals some things that you may have never known about adventure racing. And I think when you were finally done with this interview, you're gonna wanna listen to it again. It is fascinating to find out what compiling just a little bit of information can do to not only understand how a sport is functioning or not functioning, but also what business decisions you can make from that. When you hear what Psy has to say today, You're number 1, gonna become a fan of a ventureracehub.com.
That's for sure. But number 2, you're gonna have an understanding of a venture racing that no 1 else does. Not even some race promoters out there. So sit back and listen to Sci sac, unravel the data that surrounds the up and coming sport of a venture racing.
And joining me today is Sci sac from a Venture Race Hub, Venture Race Hub.com. How are you doing today, Si? I'm great. How are you? Not too bad. Thanks for joining the Merchant Center podcast today. Let's get into a little bit about kind of like what a venture race hub is to kind of get people to understand
what the website's about and kind of where you got started with building a resource for adventure racers. Yeah. Absolutely. So adventure racers have been around since, I think, about winter of 2004
team. And I built this website to essentially solve my own problem. At that time, I was in the US Army. I've moved around a fair bit, and every year or 2, I essentially be in a new marketplace or a new part of the state and had to go through the same process of trying to find my local venturators. I love the venturators, and God bless him. But most of the websites for the races are aren't well maintained. Right? Right. So you'd you'd be through page 6 of Google results trying to find out if this race that happened once if it's happening again this year, emailing a race director that may or may not even be in this. And I just got tired of it. Okay. And so I just went about to build this kind of this mass directory Right? Like, I wanna know every single venture race in the US, and I wanna know if they're happening this year or not. And so could you not like, I was on Google Washington Adventure Oregon Adventure Race California Adventure Race, and then scroll through for each of those searches a couple pages, find the URL and see if these websites were still even active. And I built this big glitch, and then I was like, you know what? I need to share this. And so that kinda got me launched with building a website, learning some basic stuff about WordPress, and I found this kinda cool nifty little plug in that she let me display the the geographically on top of a Google map. And I was like, wow. This, you know, this is pretty useful. And then I was on a tag point, which is a, you know, at least for adventure racers, a a popular website. And somebody else had done something similar in terms of just collecting a a list. And they're like, hey. I made this list of races that are happening in 2014. And then I just kinda chime in, like, yeah. Me too.
And I just kinda started Okay. To answer your initial greater question of what is Adventure Race Hub and what purpose does sir. Well, I'm kind of this 3rd party. I watched the the sport of adventure racing, and I make commentary about it. And I do analysis
over trends and any data that I can extract about adventure racing, which is weird for our sport because ventracing. It's niche. It's mall. It's kinda in sport, forgotten about, or not even known about, where there's tons of of blogs and fanboy site about triathlon or mountain biking
or trail running in the other popular outdoor endurance sports. There really aren't any or adventure you're racing. The websites that are out there by and large are aligned to a specific race series or race, you know, maintained by the race director talking about their race maybe they'll talk a little bit about nearby races and give them a shout out or something like that. Mine is at the macro level. I look at everything in North America. I'm agnostic to any particular race series or race, not financially invested in any of them. Just love adventure racing. I really want the sport to grow so that there are more races for me to go to. That is my bottom line I want more races for myself. That sounds like a great concept to have. Building your own race calendar for yourself, which then also, by extension, helps other people find races too. Right. And so adventure rates hub is just kind of my the mechanism through which I try to make my own selfish interests happen. Right? So if I I can create an accurate database of all the races. Those races are easier for adventure racers to find, which means there'll be higher attendance at those races. Mean those race directors will make money and be happy, and then they'll put on more races. And hopefully, those races will be better, which means there'll be even more racers who will then, in turn, be looking on my calendar for more race. That's kinda what I call my virtuous cycle Okay. For adventure race hub. That's how I see my website supporting in the Street. That is fantastic. So you talk about your love for Venture Racing and definitely this is a a labor of love to build and curate this massive list of national and possibly even international venture races. What was your driving factor? Where did you kinda get the bug for venture racing? What was your initial entry in to the event or the sport of event racing? Sure. Yeah. I've seen you in your college. I just saw a poster
at EMS Okay. At Eastern Mountain Sports. I just saw this 1. What is that? That looked like crazy. I didn't own a mountain bike, but, you know, I just I love the woods and endurance. I just love suffering from extended periods of time. So me and a buddy went down, and it was about, like, hour away. We went down there. We borrowed bike, and we just had a blast. And, like, you know, what is this? This is awesome. And that was in Bear Mountain, New York. Still got the t shirt race series has long since folded.
Mhmm. And yeah. And then just kinda pick it up wherever I went, whenever I glued find a race. Some there were dry spells and, you know, there are a couple years that I didn't get to the bit race at all. Deployment certainly didn't help that. But when I moved to Georgia and 2010. That's when I was really able to start picking it back up again through a couple of race series that also have all folded trailblazers
down in to South, and Bush Wacker's up in North Carolina. And then now I'm out here in Seattle where, thankfully, the Pacific Northwest got a pretty robust scene. It's not quite Virginia or Pennsylvania level of robustness, but still it's really good seeing for ventilation in North America. You would think that the northwest would be a beacon of our venturing. No. Absolutely. In fact, you know, I kind of feel like we're underperforming given
the massive, you know, number of endurance and outdoor kind of meccos that we have around here. So what is the state of event erasing in the Pacific Northwest Is it does a couple vendors or or promoters here and there? Or Yeah. To go pretty far away to erase? Well, that's the great thing is that if you live kinda in Pacific Northwest, I'm thinking, you know, Oregon up to British Columbia. Sure. There's 4 companies. We've got Bend Racing down in Bend, Oregon. At Central Oregon, and that's closely aligned with team yoga slackers, which are 1 of the premier event raising teams really in the world with Jason Magnus, and Chelsea magnet kinda leading the way there. And they just they're putting on 5 adventure races this year. Wow. All of them, 6 hours are longer. Okay. So that's pretty phenomenal undertaking.
And then up here in Seattle where I'm at is crank adventure races, which puts on 2 long ones a year, and then they have 5 week night adventure races. And I actually the race director Corey was my very first interview for the website of interest rates. And we talked about the weekdays of interest rates, because that's pretty neat. In fact, as far as I know, he's the only race director who does anything like that across the US. So pretty interesting business model. Then just north of us is Quest Adventure Racing. They're really popping on to the scene. Just got 10th place at Godzone. So those guys are phenomenal to watch and the absolute horrible to race against. There's so fast. They put on 2 long ones a year, 12 hours a piece, 1 in Bellingham, 1 out in San Juan Islands, which is pretty phenomenal. And then north of them is Momar, mind over mouth. He puts on 1 race a year up in Cumberland, British Columbia, which is just the most phenomenal
production of race I've ever been a part of. Yeah. Really, we got a deep bench over here in the Pacific Northwest. Now do you find these big series to be something that's common across the United States? Are they grouped together? Or is it unique in just a couple locations? It's unique to a couple locations. For sure. So we've got ours, which is pretty new. The Wisconsin
Adventure Agent series is a pretty good 1 that's been chicken along for a few years, and I think that's 4 or 5 race series or, you know, different race organizations participating in that. I think there's 1 or 2 more. They're not on the tip of my tongue, though. If you get too big, then essentially, your your people are gonna be stepping on your toes just between r 3 races, crank quest and bin racing. There, you know, there was a significant calendar deconfriction to make sure that they're spacing just across the the short adventure race season. So Okay. You know, there's probably a limit to the aside. I would say overall, there's probably not as many of these kind of series that there should be of, you know, joint forces between multiple rates for you. Station. Do you find that when they do join forces that there is a bigger draw, does that seem to be something that benefits the race promoters that get involved in this type of marketing? Yeah. I don't have any data yet to support or deny that. My gut instinct would be yes to put in cash on the line. That naturally should attract the few more individuals Okay. Or people who are on the fence between, well, I'll do an adventure race this weekend, or maybe I'll do a bike race and blood since I'm the data guy. I can't. Okay. Total answers. Well, as the data guy, 1 of the things I think was very interesting about adventureshub.com,
and especially your take on the sport itself is how you're using actual analytics and crunching the numbers to understand
the state of adventure racing. And you've you've put out a couple surveys and got real responses back, I mean, in the hundreds from a venture race Yeah. Racers and then some promoters as well, race records in here and there. To kind of give yourself a unique perspective of interfacing that few people maybe no 1 has. We're in the United States is there no event racing? Where are the big, bold
opportunity land that a new event race promoter could capitalize on? Where is this not happening at? Montana. Seriously. Yeah. You know what? Like so almost every state has at least 1. Right? Okay. Some fairly technical definitely have 1. Like, Idaho technically has 1, but really it's Wyoming. Maybe Arizona had 1 for once, but as far as I could find But, yeah, Montana you're you're killing me Montana because, 1, you've got multiple endurance
mecca. Billy's, Mozilla, Bozeman, all, like, always on, like, you know, on outside magazine and, you know, always being talked about, like, the incredible trails and, you know, the huge parks and, like, you know, destination
for outdoors people. Yep. Nobody there can put together an adventure. Wow. So it's it's just killing me. Did the 1 time primal quest happen there kind of be the was that it? Was it just a drop in the bucket? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's actually pretty surprising that Montana of all the states would be the 1 that doesn't have it anywhere else you know, I'm I'm I'm definitely surprised by the underperformance of California.
Okay. You know, there are 2 companies there. I think Goldrush and all out. But I mean, California has got tens tens of 1,000,000 of individuals. And and now as far as I've learned, apparently dealing with parts and rec permits in California are pretty difficult, but there is just massive swath of California that has no adventure races, like the north and the south. It's only the middle, you know, around greater Sacramento
and whatnot that have and greater San Francisco that have races. But Yeah. California's hurting certain size. Wow. I think it is much much better. Yeah. That is amazing. So so let's flip that around then. Where is a venture racing just exploding. Where are the what's the Mecca right now for ventressing? Yeah. So it's a tie as far as I could measure. So using data for 2016 2015 because those were the 2 years that
had good data on from a venture age hub. It's a tie for 1st place between Pennsylvania and Florida. And so both of those have put on across the 2 years 2015 2016.
Those states have been hosted 22 adventure races. Well, Pennsylvania makes sense because there are actual mountains there, but Florida, that's another surprising thing that Florida would be. Right. As what's really kind of when you delve into that is what's interesting is it's very different in terms of the kind of the adventure race ecosystem. We might call it within those states. Okay. Pennsylvania,
there are a ton of players. I think 4 or 5 different race organizations have had races in Pennsylvania.
And a lot of, like, the most stalwart, you know, long going race series are in Pennsylvania. Really, I I I consider that kinda the part of Adventure Racing right there in Pennsylvania. Oh, make a lot of sense. Florida, on the other hand, it is straight up run by 1 company. So FLX, Florida Stream Adventures. But FLX essentially owns Florida, runs Florida, and Ron does a phenomenal job. His key race there is the c to c, which takes place beginning of the year, usually early March or late February. It's a 72 hour race where you essentially race across the peninsula Okay. From 1 side to the next and I know lots of people, you know, fly in from all across the US for that 1. Had some friends here that did that 1. That's a fantastic race. Okay. Yeah. And he just puts on, like, every month, he's got, you know, a race that has 3 or 4 different lengths. You know, it'll be, like, a 12, a 4, and a 2 hour version. Of the race, and he just he keeps knocking them out. And that's the benefit really is, you know, Ron is a professional,
and FLX is a professional race organization. Like, that is his livelihood. He is doing it to put food on the table because of that, he's putting on high quality events, and he is putting on numerous events. That's what I'd love to see, and I hope that Venture Race Hub helps support race directors to kinda wanna make that jump. I provided them the data that gives them directions to where to really double down. And so the more professional
adventure racers and professional race directors we can get, the more the sports gonna grow. So it sounds like from the data you've collected with the exceptions of maybe Pennsylvania and Florida, there's a lot of opportunity
for a new venture raise who compliment other adventure races. All across the United States. It sounds like the door is wide open. Yeah. If I if I were to just kinda pick up shop and put down wherever wanted to knowing that Venturation was gonna be a key component of my life using the data that, you know, I've got all the geographic analysis I would probably say avoid the eastern seaboard and start out with. But besides that, the sky is the limit. Because even in locations that have got, you call it, decent coverage,
of adventure races. You're talking about 1 race, maybe 2 races a year. The vast majority, there's there's plenty of faith for a new race director to create a race series or for existing race organizations to expand it. I think it's primarily it's less an issue of the opportunity and more an issue of vast majority of the venture race organizations are, you know, this kind of size hustles. Right? People are doing it for because they like the sport and
Sure. A little extra money that they make helps out. And what I really want for the sport to grow in order to is to to get people to make transition to, oh, this is a significant revenue stream. Like, I can, you know, I can maybe scale back at work, you know, work 1, let's say, a week, because I can count on the money I'm gonna bring in because I'm putting on 4 or 5 adventure races. So do you see the sport growing then? Sadly, I don't have the
the data I truly want isn't available yet, which would be, like, raw race attendant. What I do know is that the number of races between 2015 2016 shrink. So how far back Yeah. Does your data go? Are you only doing the past 2 years? Have you been pretty solid? Yes. Since, you know, 2014 was a wash, I only had, you know, partial data. So 2015
and beyond. Okay. And I I I don't have the ability to backfill because Motel Ray's website still keeps historical data. Right. And so 2015 and on is the only thing that's consistent. But in 2015, we I found at least my website recorded 181 adventure races Okay. Across North America. And then in 2016, there were 29 left. So we shrank by about 6 18%
year over year. But here's kinda, you know, because that's the only metric I have for it, like, you know, we have to immediately call in the question. 1, are were these true adventure races, and some of them were not. And I just kinda got better at filtering out. Okay. But we do know, you know, I I have identified specific race series that folded between 2015
2016. So we know in your neck of the woods, Odyssey, they stopped doing adventure Yep. It's really trail running and other stuff. But Oklahoma Adventurerations didn't do anything in 2016. Terra Firma stopped doing adventure races, trailblazers,
folded, blanks. World stop. And so sadly, you know, most of these were the at risk and venture race series when which is when a race series only does 1, maybe 2 races a year, that kind of is what puts them at risk because that tells me that 1, it's probably just some people who like this sports and are doing it kinda on on the side for fun. Interesting. And so Okay. If they're only doing 1 or 2 races a year, life can easily get in the way. So that becomes a key indicator that there could be a race that will disappear
just based off of the number they're doing a year. That's absolutely true. Wow. And directionally, that's correct, but then at the same time, there's a solid use case of Molar up in British Columbia. He only does 1 a year, but sells out 9 months in advance and has 500 racers. Oh, wow. Right. Okay? So there's an outlier. There's always yeah. Always outlier on the Velcro. Okay. Yeah. I would say overwhelmingly, directionally,
it's true that if you're only putting on 1 or 2 races a year, you're at far greater risk Of course. Interesting. Now are you finding that a lot of these companies are putting on just adventure races, the 3 and above or the the crowd that kind of stick it around with the sport, or are they diversifying?
Do they mix it up with all sorts of different types of disciplines? The diversification is definitely the way go. For the race organizations that are, you know, professional, that the the owners of the organization, that's a full time job, those guys, you know, they're putting a trail run to put on all sorts of, like, adventure ish style races. You know, I I know a few that host Exteras
Okay. And all sorts of other things. But yeah. I I it's certainly I don't think it's financially viable to be exclusively adventure racing and nothing else. And you're gonna, you know, have a a good year. At least not yet. Well, very good. Then out of the group of people that that are putting on the races, that are becoming, I guess you could say the core adventure race promoter, cadre.
What's the what's the format that seems to be jumping out? What's the the go to event to race format that everyone's doing versus the 1 that few people are doing? Well, what I do know at least is length, and that is the average length of an adventure race in 2016 2015 was 12 hours. So that's the most popular
distance or, you know, length of a race. Okay. Makes sense. Just from a business sense. Right? Because you get it all done in 1 day, so much lower cost than terms of volunteers and equipment and expectations
and the time dedicated for racers, you can, you know, you can get there to the race and get back home all in what we Okay. So that's kind of probably the most immediate indicator. And, you know, when I put that out, you know, there are a lot of sad faces because, you know, you know, the hardcore adventure racers, they want there at 36:72 hour long races. But it's it's tough. There's really only, like, 1 race organization out there who's committed to consistent long
races, and that's happy mutants. And he, you know, he's he's the only guy I know that runs his own nationwide race organization that I dedicated. Wow. So how many states is he operating in? I think, like, 4 or 5. Okay. He does Iowa, Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada.
That's all I can think about. Oh, that's an interesting interesting format. It's almost like it was a Rev 3 Adventure, which became, what, Adventure Enablers spanning from the Shenandoah region where they put on Adventure Race here to Wyoming. Yeah. So Yeah. And so Rev, yeah, RevX started getting up there along with Happy Newtons and, like, press 3 or, I should say, adventure enablers, you know, starting out of Virginia, but And now they're in West Virginia,
Georgia, and, obviously, Wyoming, Calcutta. So they're actually you're right. They're pretty pretty Trans USA as well. Alright. So so do you see the formats then like the recent announcement of Untamed New England coming back and storm the Eastern Shore, which is like to 24. Do you see these kind of these bigger format races fading away, or they just kinda come and go depending on whether or not people can do them? Yeah.
Good question. I'll get like, I'll get back to you on that. I'm kinda curious now. At least between 201516, did we see more or less of the expedition level races? It would seem, you know, I would say pretty much all the big race organizations, they have them marquee events. Right? Okay.
Rev 3 has cowboy chucked SLX has c to c, soggy bottom boys, has dorm the Eastern Shore, you name it. So all those guys kinda where the natural selection, I think, has the breakdown. Everybody's got this kind of 36 to maybe 72 hour long key marquee event. For their race series that is their way to kinda plant the flag on the ground and say, you know, this is my this is my masterpiece.
That certainly seems to be like a key component of the business model for a successful Adventure Race Organization. It seems like a lot of these race promoters who do these marquee events or have these big series
are event erasers themselves. Yeah. And are not just event erasers, but their expedition level world champion type race people. Do you see that? That's kind of the the main ingredient in making some of these successful, or are you seeing some of the race promoters out there who are people that maybe never heard of? Or does it seem to be more leaning towards the elite athletes turn race promoter? Yeah. That's an interesting question. I don't know how much of that is a matter of anecdotal that we just know that, you know, the the successful race promoters also at a time race seriously themselves. There's certainly a lot of those stories, you know, you can't talk to most people without talking about, well, the first time I was at eco challenge, you know, but I would say this is there's a a large silent majority of Okay. Race directors out there that probably never made it to Primal Quest or Ecosystem challenge. Really. Yeah. That's that's just my guess, but I don't know. So that being said then, you've collected
data on maybe for the first time least on a large majority of athletes within the event erasing community. And you came across something that you were telling me was the best event eraser
Racer? Kinda talk a little bit about that. Yeah. So so it's in Victoria's World Series back, I think, in January, published this thing they called the athlete vault, which was the total ranking by team across 2 years of Adventure Race World Series races. So, you know, things got down in New Zealand, Expedia in Australia, cowboy top up in the US, expedition Alaska,
and then, you know, things down in Uruguay and South Africa and all of it. Right? Okay. But what they did is, like, they had it by team, the ranking, and then all the members of the team. And I talked to myself, wait a minute. Like, if I can just get the missing data point, which is who on that team raised at? Which of those races? I could essentially assign the number of points each individual racer had obtained
using Adventure Racing World series, you know, point system. It took me better cards a month to get through websites and begging people to find old machine roster list that they had. So I was able to pilot and after doing a lot of data cleaning holy cow, the pain. You know, essentially, was able to come up with a list of from 1, 2, 2000 of each individual adventure racer who had raced at some adventure race world series race in the past 2 years and the points that they had accumulated
across all of those racers. And so I called that, you know, hey. This is through the best adventure racers in the world are, which is totally, you know, a clickbait do I get it? But I wanted to stir that up because, like, that's just not something they talked about at adventure racing. No. Hold on. Of course. It Yeah. They triathletes, Xcerra,
you know, trail running, mountain biking. They all have a way to rank individually, but we're a team sport. Right? You you don't really know what goes on during that race of how much, you know, team member a had to carry team member b Right. Is at the end, a and b both earn the same number of points. You you cross the finish line together. You go cross and all, and so you don't get any points. So I didn't that it's kind of, like, not even necessary for our sport, but the insight that it provides is so valuable that it's worth it to me. So which teams jumped out at you then as the ones that have kind of
mastered this expedition or this elite level of athlete? Yeah. Well, I mean, there's no question that the Kiwis run adventure racing. And team Seagate yeah. Team Seagate out of New Zealand just is is a is a team of champions. And so they took 1st, second, and third place for individual racers and total number of points accumulated. They have the 3 best adventure racers on their team. And then maybe it's, like, 7th of 8 best adventure racer is also on their yeah. They're just dominating
group of folks. Out of New Zealand. Wow. You're the out of interracers. Go to New Zealand if you wanna become an an elite athlete. Yes. Yes. That's amazing. I wonder if it's that that Lord of the Ring style terrain there where you can, what, ski and snowboard in the morning and surf in the afternoon,
with a mountain bike ride down to the beach? Is that kind of that works? I'm pretty sure all those people that's pretty much all they do. The entire industry and economy of New Zealand is based on just everyone just working out during endurance sports all day. Well, if you definitely had to escape some place, New Zealand's not a bad place to go, like, train for 3 months. Yeah. Right. So that's fantastic. So the data collection process that you go through, you talked about data cleansing and about the analytics of trying to find old rosters and stuff for the past 2 years of doing this. What has kind of been your discovery
of just adventure racing data, statistic? What's been kind of the challenge? What's out there and what's not out there? What could the adventure racing community do better to give you better numbers to learn something we didn't know. Well, there is no data out there is what I've learned. So just new data on any data. Yeah. We are not a quantitative or qualitative
support by any means. Everything's kind of anecdotal, just kind of what you know and what you think makes sense, which is a fair starting point or a great point scale if we wanna grow. Okay. Like, we have to move beyond the anecdotal to tell me what is in fact true Okay. Measure it, repeat it, record it, and use that to forecast. Those kind of things that businesses do as opposed to just hobbyist. Which by and large we currently are, but I want us to move beyond just obvious. I want people out there making money off adventure racing. So like we talked about it, beginning, the virtuous cycle sends faster. Right? Right. You know, I want people interested in collecting metrics about their performance so we can then, in turn, measure who the best racers are. So these racers can go say, hey, sponsors, look how good I am, give me money, and the sponsors happily give it give them that money. So then they in turn race even more. And then, like, that is how the sport grows. Right? When people can safely
commit additional time to the sport. And typically, that safety comes from fiscal stability. And I think measurement is a like, is gonna be such a key driver for that. And so there there isn't data. I've had to make the data. You know, the the the listing from the Venture Race World series was an anomaly. By and large, it's me going out copying and pasting off of websites or team rosters copying and pasting data, and it's only very recently that I've even accumulated enough that I could spot trends and provide analysis.
Very cool. So Yeah. My my in hope here is is that, like, I'm I'm wedding everyone's appetite. Right? They're starting to hopefully see that statistics analysis and things of that nature isn't just interesting to read about, but it actually provides actionable
insight that you can in turn go and make sound business decisions off of that data and benefit from it. That's what I've yet to see, but I I truly hope I can get there soon. And and I would love to hear thanks to size work on you, the geographical analysis or chest adventure racer or the census, I took this decision and instead of that decision it benefited from it by, you know, x% growth in attendance year over year or something like that. Like, that's when I know we're gonna start winning and when the sport is growing. Well, I commend you on becoming the silent voice of endurance racing data analytics, which I think is a pretty cool thing. It's almost like you've created your own path where people didn't realize that this could actually be important and then seeing just 2 years worth and going, woah, Wow. This actually can impact my race. This can impact my decision on where I build or promote or how big of a event I do. So I think that your your analytics are definitely starting to see some Now you recently have joined forces with Doug Kreutzer at the North American Event Erasing Association. Are you looking to kind of establish the metrics standard for Venture Racing. Is that a goal? Yeah. I haven't even set goals for that. But you're right. Doug Reese again, I came to an agreement, and that's under director of research analytics. We're not sure what that means, but it basically means find what I hope it means is to measure adventure racing and find insights and provide them because, you know, that is a business, whereas mine's just kind of a fanboy website.
I think you're very humble in saying that. The fanboy thing has kind of left the station. You've kind of you've stumbled onto something, I think, could extend into orienteering, could extend into I mean, even mountain bike orient hearing good benefit from this even mountain biking itself. So Yeah. I think probably most sports are underserved
in terms of know, business intelligence and analytics. I would agree. Yeah. So but we haven't established goals because it's just wanting the sport to grow. Okay. You know, 1 key indicator to me that kinda put a smile on my face. A few days ago on Facebook, there was a very lively
debate about plotting. And should braces still include clotting or or is it, you know, had it gone away with the dinosaur and whatnot? And there were, like, there were so many just great point. It was fantastic to see, like, the entire community pitch in and on this conversation just over the course of about 24 or 30 to 6 hours. What made me smile at 1 point, a couple of people who said, they say, do we have any data on how many races require plotting? And how many do not. And we don't. Because like I said before, there is no data out there. Right. But but the fact that people said, hey. Maybe, like, maybe we should just measure this so we can settle the debate and move on. That kinda, like, with a little bit of a key performance indicator for me, like, it's starting to work. People are starting to think that adventure racing doesn't just have to be well in my day or at my race. This is what we do. It can actually be it's an industry
an industry that has standards and measurable actions tied to it. So that that question of procedure you're talking about with Anne Gibbons from Goals out in Pennsylvania, the place you said was kind of the Mecca for eventual racing. When she was asking about UTMs, she really I don't know if she was just asking of on whether or not it was a skill that eventual racers still doing because there are races out there. I don't know if you've you've heard some other adventure promoters talk about where there's arrows telling you where to go and the the controls
on the map or so they're so fat. I guess it's a it's a technical term that Mhmm. You could find them in the dark of the blindfold. So she brought up that question, hey, what's the level of interest in plotting? And wow, the response, so you're absolutely right. Where it sounds like even the very nature of event erasing is still kind of up in the air of what exactly event erasing is. So when you in your analysis, what have you found to be is there a a standard definition of event erasing, or is it kind of being defined? Yeah. It's it's you're absolutely right. It is gray. How I define adventure racing for my website? Because, you know, it's many times I have to decide. I'm looking at this, you know, some race website and, like, is this actually an adventure race course that just kind of adventure it? So how I define you know, I try to keep it as, like, as simple of a checkpoint. Right. Fiery pits or apps. Right? Yeah. Is it multi is it mostly sport and does it require navigation? Okay. And that's my definition. There are many people who think that's public far. We you know, people would say, well, like, there are you know, it generates traditionalists
who think they're it should require specific disciplines. And have to have all of those systems in the sport. And there you know, as we just talked about, there are people who think that plotting should be mandatory. Otherwise, it's not true adventure race. And then there's people who think true adventure races know our linear
races, and then there's others who think, you know, it can't if it's a stage race, it can't be an adventure race, or if it's a low gain style or an injury, it's just an adventure race. So this is gray. I think most people probably come down in general agreement with what I have on my website. As long as it's multi sport and as long as it's, like, it's actual navigation rather than, you know, following the signs, then you're you're safe to call them in a situation.
Okay. Would you say the same is true then about promoters who want these disciplines? Are they actively involved in their communities? Are they teaching this sport? Do they support their local orienteering clubs to help cultivate new event erasers? Or are they just hoping people will show up and know what to do? That stuff. I'm only familiar really up here with the northwest of how tied in they are with the orange sharing. And it's a mix.
But by and large, at least the races around here, they do not require plotting, and so it's just show up because your map, and you're expected to kind of find you figure you away from point a to point b. And they're not doing coaching on how to orient here. I see. How tough are the races then in those areas? Are they fairly difficult, or is it the the control right on the trail? Is it just kind of a mix? Yeah. Depending on the race. Series and depends on the the specific race. So, like, cranks, weeknight adventure races, very low barrier to entry. You know? It's only bike and run, the points are, you know, right there on the trail, and it's intentionally designed like that. It's a 3 hour race you know, on the week night. Well, a week night of interest. Hold on. Hold on. Go back there for a minute. A week night of interest. That's something I've never heard of before. Okay? Yeah. That's you gotta read my interview. With Pori, the risk record. It's the only 1 in the US I'm aware of that does this. That's fantastic. Right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so it's just in the Metropolitan Seattle region. And so, you know, you drive to work, you bring your bike, and you just drive off to the park so that he's posting it, and it's from, like, 7 to 10 PM. You're just running around, getting checkpoints and, like, you know, nearby parks and whatnot. Oh. Very cool. Okay. So that's our That that's designed that way to be the entry level. So what's the the other version? Low barrier entry. Okay. Yeah. What's the bigger Yeah. The bigger ones got your your checkpoints on top of rock formations
and whatnot. Things are always gonna be on trail or right off the trail. Okay. That 1 to 24,000,
ma'am. Micro yeah. Okay. Yeah. Everybody around here keeps micro navigation. You know, once you get to the x walking around the x x to find the orange and yellow square, they keep it fairly simple. Okay. Very cool. So so in all your data analytics, and everything that you've collected, you mentioned that you have the Venture Racing bug to the point where you may possibly start your own race yourself. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. What's what's kinda going on in the future Sizak of Interrace 12 hour? Uh-huh.
Yeah. Well, god. Yeah. I it it's definitely burning in the back of my mind, and I like to think, you know, it all the work I'm doing with Adventure Race Hub is kind of ways for me to cheaply learn how to put on the adventure race. Sure. Because, you know, I'm just I'm interviewing. Right? So, like, here's I'm I'm learning all the best facts this is. You know, I can, you know, I now know that the 12 hour races from is the most popular race length. And, you know, I know I can tell you what weekend is the most popular weekend for adventure races, all that sort of stuff that I hope in 1 day. I'm not just giving this to other people in the hopes that they action it, you know, I hope to action it at some like, in the future too. I definitely got that engineer mindset, loved 1 out there and filled a race myself. But, you know, I there's no date attached to it, and quite happy with all the races going on around here. And, frankly, if I put on a race, that means it probably won't be able to race 6 months.
And, yeah, that is the that is the downside. I've I've got my problem with I think that's a after 40 goals, right now, my preferred 40 goals, I wanna win some championships.
Very cool. So how old are you now? You're 39? I'm 32. 32. Okay. So you got some time. Yeah. So you got 8 years to championships and then then to the racing. Okay. Yeah. And the best part is is that, like, you know, having just completed defensive I know that the large majority of adventure racers are 40 to 50 year old. So I've got another solid nearly 2 decades of adventure racing in That's another little nugget that threw out there. Now Yeah. So as we're as we're kinda coming to the coming to the end here, couple 1 of the the the questions that I thought kinda jumped out of me looking at your survey was the statistic that you collected about how you get into
building an adventure race or starting adventure racing. That seemed to jump out at me to say that a lot of people who get into adventure racing, some people I've talked in the past are usually because they're adventure racers themselves. But in your survey, it said that 1 of the barriers to starting or building event erasing was just starting. Yep. Tell me a little bit about that, about what you found with that response. You know, I I asked this kind of generic question of, like, what's what could adventure racing do more to, like, get you out there? And 1 guy said, like, hey. It's so funny. Like, actually, I I need to follow-up with him and email on your website because if someone asks, is there any way anywhere someone could go to get instructions on how to host a race I'd be glad to host a race, but I'm intimidated by the permitting and permission and liability and all that sort of stuff. I was like, oh, wow. This guy needs to know about wrecking you.com.
But that is a great point, really. And it kinda ties back to the whole virtuous cycle, and I think how you and I, both are kind of brothers in arms on this effort of Absolutely. Just how do we reduce friction on this sport that we love that is kinda, you know, just treading water. Like, how do we get this thing to grow?
And using using technology, using the the digital world, just this spread best practices to reduce friction in every aspect of the sport, whether it's, you know, providing solid measurement so people can know where a brace gets successfully be started or providing, you know, good guides on how to build a race and things of that nature. It's a huge highlight coming out of the sense another 1 I wanna call out is just the the teammate finder. That's kind of a future project of mine Okay. That I'd like to pick up with NAR. You know, I think like, 27%
of the sense of taker said that 1 of the reasons that pulls them back from doing more races is that they can't find a partner And that is something I think technology absolutely could solve. There is currently a Facebook group called Adventure Race Teamfinder, but the problem there is that requires that you'd be on that Facebook group, and you actively check it, and you are in the same area going to the same race as other person looking for, you know, a teammate for that rich. Right. It's almost like I've seen a lot of different efforts put out there, but none of them seem to work well. Yeah. A lot of shotgun
Right. Done well intentioned efforts. Right? So most likely, you need a Tinder for venture racers. Oh, I've I've swipe right if you wanna go to a 12 hour. Yep. Yep. I mean, it says the exact words we need to tend to for the situation. But what we actually probably need is something more along the lines of a national registry. Right? With, you know, here is your eventual racing ID number, your membership number, and you know, oh, you're registered for this race. We'll hear all the other, you know, solo racers registered for it. What is your skill level rank at? Oh, x, you know, let's pair you guys up. Or something like that. Right? But that's a massive undertaking
and requires kind of a consolidation and government
support that currently just isn't there yet. So Right. That kinda leads me for sure. Definitely. That kinda leads me into something I saw that you you posted on Facebook was talking about the idea of an adventure racing summit. Kinda talk a little bit about the the kind of the idea that you had behind that because I think that's a really it's I think it's an interesting idea that it's time has come. Because the sport isn't its 10 it's teenage years and it kinda doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up and maybe a summit is how we figure that out as a community. Like, so many industries have Summit. There's there's Summit for everything these days. Right? You know, like, by and large, it's you see a lot for, like, small business and entrepreneurial
summits. Right? And there's cons. Everything there's Comic Con and it's on. You know, it's on and
everything con. Right? But we needed to accentuate con. And the the re reason being is I I think if we could get everybody in the room or if not everybody, you know, quorum, you know, a lot of the RG's and racers who just love the sport like, 1 of Lake Arms rather than just having the same Facebook group discussions over and over again. We sit it down and we have an agenda and, like, hey. Let's all agree on this rule. Okay. We've covered rules. Now let's all talk about how to build successful Facebook ads. Okay. Now let's talk about how to build a strong forecast for, you know, year over year race attendance growth. Okay. Now let's all fit the trails. Okay. Let's come back like, let's party. Absolutely. I mean, mountain biking does it, trail running, does it, I mean, triathlons, and Xterra does it. Why not have interracing? Yeah. It's, you know, it's kind of a professional
professionalize the sport. And I think a summit would be such a huge catalyst and driver for that professionalization. By getting everyone together, sharing best practices, building new tools and systems together, you know, having a few key notes speakers from outside in street really inject some enthusiasm
and new fresh ideas Absolutely. Quick faces, you know, to, like, gosh, I would love to actually meet all these people that I've worked with. You know, like, if things stay the same, I'll probably never meet the vast majority of adventure racers out there despite having, you know, good online correspondence with them and sharing resources and helping each other out online. But, like, I want to go meet, you know, Rootstock, and I wanna meet Michigan Adventure Racing and FLX crew and all those folks. I wanna get all together in the same room so we can agree on things and, you know, start marching to the same drop. We need a lot of help on something Yeah. If you were talking about goals, I think, 2018, like, let's make that happen. I think even if it even it's got 10 people in it, it'll be worth it. Yeah. Absolutely right. I have a feeling there are a few folks out there that minute, something like this happens, they'll show up. So Yeah. And so my pitch to Doug on ours was like, hey. Why don't we just tie a national championship. Right? Absolutely. So There's always 2 flights to Vegas too. There you go. We're gonna do a summit 2018 of inter racing. So put it on your calendar. We're gonna figure this out. Figured out. We figured out a 10 vocal
and mobile wise and enthusiastic people, and a sport as small as adventure racing actually could probably change the whole industry. It could. It could. I've seen it done with with with other sports, so I don't I don't see why event tracing would be any different. Tell me a little bit about what's next for ventureracehub.com. What's kind of your mission, your vision for what you see going into the next year, and where do you plan on taking your analytical
expertise and What's the next thing you wanna crack when it comes to statistics for bet you racing? That's a great 1. So, you know, I've I've got a lot of the little ions in the fire that are all aimed at continuing to just reduce friction, reduce friction, reduce friction, like habituation easier any way I can. And, you know, that's primarily just through sharing knowledge and, you know, making things available
very easily. Okay. So improvements to the website, you know, I want people to be able to quickly search and filter by RaceLink or, you know, the diff go through rating of the race. We are you know, I've got, you know, blog posts coming up, but that's desk ones coming out of, you know, guides to your first overnight adventure race. And then the statistical analysis will just continue to develop and be far more robust and accurate on the geographical analysis,
the, you know, the year over year growth analysis of the sport. And I think kind of the the next huge kind of project that I really wanna start tracking is that kind of individual racer performance and attendance and all of that sort of thing. So I'm gonna start looking into ways of just looking at results that at least a few race series can start our post Like, maybe I'll just actually you inspired me. I'll probably focus on Pennsylvania. Right? Okay. With so many race organizations
just across that 1 state, would it be kinda cool to learn? Like, who's the best adventure racing in Pennsylvania?
Or who the best team is? Or something like that. Right? Because it spans across 4 or 5 race series. So it's not like gold and root stock and, you know, the rest are just gonna, like, share notes. I mean, they would probably if they, you know, if somebody would initiate, but me is the 3rd party to go in there and actually spot. And say, hey. You know, check out this guy, like, he's the king of Pennsylvania or
or something like that. Right? Okay. I think that would I think that's great. I'm also I would definitely encourage you to do the state of AR annual reports because it seems like the survey and the the output of the survey are is incredibly valuable information. I don't think if any of the adventure race promoters are not looking at this. Well, this is definitely something that you need to be internalizing into your business. Because you can't get data like this anywhere else. So I think that's I think that's 1 of the benefits you are providing to the to the sport by itself is just looking at the sport in a way that none of us have ever looked at it before, and definitely commend you for doing that. I think that I think the the fanboy thing, I think the that's gone, man. I think you are You are truly the the event racing, you know, analytics. It will call you the data scientist for for event racing. I think you've I think you've got a new venture I work with real data scientists. They would scoff.
Of course, they would because they're yeah. It's like, you know, algorithms and and anomalies and medians. Yeah. I think you I think you're stumbled onto something that that I look forward to seeing it grow. So it's definitely I think it's definitely a benefit. So I'd really pretty get you coming on to the Merchant Center podcast. I think this has been a it's been a fantastic interview. And that's Oh, great. Thanks. Yeah. You've provided, I think, some food for thought that I hope resonates with with the venture racers and venture race promoters and just race promoters in general because I think in a microcosm of venture racing, what you learn from venture racing, you can adapt to other sports as well. Yes. Absolutely. And I I think that's kinda, like, maybe my my super goals, like, someday be able to provide services to to race organizations
that, like, let them harness the power of data that otherwise are, you know, beyond their individuals, feel that some, like, really just drive it home. You know? Wow. I think you just started a new company right there. Yeah. Right. Sizac LLC. That reminds us. Yeah. Create the outdoor recreation business intelligent industry. Ah. So it even sounds cool. Yeah. Right? Very cool. Yeah. So they they so everyone everyone can find you at adventureracehub.com.
That's the place to get your the interviews that you have. You're right up your blogs. Find out that cool map you have for finding a venture racing across the United States. And we talked about this a little bit for the interview is you sell a venture racing apparel. And something I think that that's had a plug there at the end is the Si Si's got a bunch of really cool t shirts on his website. That pop up here and there in different adventure races and you're not cool if you don't have 1. So I think you should go to ventureacehub.com
and get yourself some of these cool t shirts. Why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of your your little side apparel business? Yeah. So, you know, frankly, as many adventure racers look test. There are drawers full of ratty old adventure race swag shirts. Right? Most of them are still fitting and, you know, of poor quality with 20,000 local sponsor logos on the pack. Right.
And I, you know, I get that that like, I've got the tour too in front of those things. But I figured it it's just another little fact that of if adventure racing wants to be taken seriously, wants to be a big boy sports, but the rest of the outdoor recreation industry need our we need a good swag. We need to, like, look good. If we want something you can wear at the office, you know, that, like, catches the eye, make maybe make somebody chuckle or think you know, about it. And so I I started a little store on the site as well. You know, kinda expanding the product line, bit by bit, but it's all about just adventurizing
and good high quality shirts that you like to wear that it it's not just another, like, loud brash logo. So I've got a Game of Thrones t shirts that I really love. I've got a Spaceballs t shirt. You know, I got a couple just, you know, outdoor themed shirts as well. And we got a few new ones coming down the line here this summer. So and for the the wonderful listeners of the merchants of their podcast,
we would be providing a extra special coupon, 30% off. Anything in the store, and the code will just be recognized. Very good. Thank you very much, Sai, for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Oh, this is fantastic. Thank you. And that was scisack from adventureracehub.com. And if you didn't catch it in there, he is offering a 30% discount from his store where he's selling a venture racing styled clothing.
For venture racers out there looking for something new and different. Go to ventureracehub.com, and on checkout, use Rechinir as your checkout code, and get yourself a discount over there. Let's see if we can break Si's store. That'd be fantastic. I'd love to get an email from Si telling me that everyone from merchandiser podcast went over there and broke his door, random amount of stock, whatever it takes, it'd be fantastic. So go over there now, a ventureracehub.com.
It was wild supplies last. Use the the promo code, Rechinear, and get yourself some cool gear. And then when you get that cool gear, take a photo of it. Show me that you're wearing that gear and send it to atmerchasadirt on Twitter or on on instagram, atmerchadirt, or even send it over [email protected]. He would love to see you in it. So again, Rechinir, that's the promo code, ventureracehob.com.
Get over there before there's nothing left to have. Meanwhile, what Tsai had to tell us with the statistics was fascinating.
To know that Montana doesn't have any adventure races worth the source speaking about, and maybe sound like California, Arizona might be in that boat too. And then to find out that Pennsylvania and Florida are really the epicenters of Venture Racing, then to really kind of dive into the data that tells us that adventure racing still has a lot of growth and still has a lot of growing. And finally, of course, the idea of a summit. If you're interested in in a summit, you think adventure racing summit would be great, let me know at merch as a dirt on Twitter or scisack over ataventaracehub.com
and let us know if that's something you'd be it in. And maybe some suggestions on where we should have it. I think during the interview and even after interview, we kicked around the idea of having it at the NARS champ PSHIPS, possibly somewhere in Pennsylvania since that seems to be the place where Venturacing is growing and has the most representation.
But we also talked about Vegas. So there's all sorts of ideas to kick around for where they have a summit, but the location is kinda secondary. What does a venture racing as a community need to be talking about? Is it have to do with plotting? Does it have to do with standards? Does it have to do with what our national representation is? So I talked about a national ID or membership in which you better find teammates,
all these possibilities about a venture racing that I think the community is ready to discuss. So let's let's discuss that. Send out your ideas. If you can't find us on any of the the social media, go out there to some of the Facebook groups, the Venturation Discussion, or what have you. And post these kind of questions and let's start let's start talking about this or discussing this. That's what social media is for. Let's start talking about what event racing needs to mature and become a professional sport. Like Sai was talking about, how to become a professionally
and respected sport that no longer is playing loose with the rules or playing loose with the standards. We actually are coming of age to where the sport is being recognized as something
that is mature enough to be represented at a professional level. And I think of all the data that Psy gave us, I'm gonna have to go back and listen I mean, I've listened to it twice. I'm gonna have to go back and listen to it again and kind of pick apart the nuggets that I think are best for race promoters. What I see, of course, is just getting into the sport itself, the starting how to start an adventure race. I'm gonna probably on wreckingyard.com
dig into that a little bit more over the next couple of months and try to it's a site called remove the friction from the entry points for race promoters who are interested in promoting a venture race. And as an adventure racing myself and a race promoter, I know that adventure racing is not an easy sport to tackle because it's not really 1 sport. It's kind of 4 or 5 different sports rolled up into 1 sport. So someone start digging into this idea of starting and removing on my rickinear.com
blog post, some future merchant's adhered episodes. And I just recently did a get lost racing episode on adventure racing all which kind of talked about a high level of what event tracing is. But it sounds like for a race promoter or someone who wants to get into the sport, it's gonna need you're gonna need a little more detail. I wanna dig into that. So hopefully, the next couple of months, that'll be something. See that coming out of those channels for a venture racers to to sink their teeth into, especially venture race promoters. So I wanna thank SciMac for what I think was probably 1 of the most interesting interviews I've done so far. I think that SciShow
really brings a lot to the table when it comes to using and thinking about analytics and data to make business decisions, especially in such a niche sport as a venture racing. A lot to be learned by simply asking your customers for their feedback. And that's all really Sai did. Sai sent out some survey. He's done some observations. He's an adventure racer, so he he's been to races and he sees what happens, he's an eraser himself who has participating events, who knows the reality of what goes on. And he just asked some questions based on those observations and got answers back. Now fortunately for him, he got a lot of answers back, hundreds of answers back that were able to allow him to making informed decisions. But he doesn't have all the data yet. He's only got 2015, 2016. Imagine when he's got 5 years worth of data or 10 years worth of data. He's gonna be able to make predictions and understandings
of eventual racing that no 1 else would be able to do. And at that point, he's gonna have something over all eventual racers that they'll want. So think about that. Think about that monopoly on information
that you have between you and your customer. Think about your ability to ask your customers what they think and be able to react to that. That's something that your competition can't do. Your competition can't really ask your customers. They'll try, but they can't really ask your customers. You have this unique and this intimate relationship with your customers that only you can cultivate. But you have to ask them. You can't be afraid to ask them. So if you have some questions or you wanted to get some feedback, especially from customers, ask them, reach out, find out, Get the information you need. Start building that database when it comes to your races and your customers on what you can do better. And that's how you build better races. It's really that simple. You can listen to all the wrecking air .com and originator podcast episodes you want, but it really comes down to how you apply the information that you get from your customers to your races. That make your customers enjoy your races even better. That's all it is. That's the secret. That's the formula.
And now you know. On the next merchandising podcast, I'm gonna teach you how not to care what other people think about your race and your experiments and the things that you're trying to do because you're trying to do something that they only wish they could do on the next merchandiser podcast. Thank you so much for listening to The Merchandise Store podcast. I'd love to hear from you. Please reach out to me on Twitter at mercysdure or go to merchandiser.com
and click join and get my monthly newsletter for exclusive content to subscribers. Also, go to merchandiser.com
and Scribe. I'm on iTunes. I'm on Stitcher. I'm on Google Play. Any of your apps, any device you're using. Heck. If you're using Tinfoil Hat and the Pringles can out in the yard, there's probably a download link you can get podcast on. Go find the mergers or podcast and download that podcast. Love to have you. Also love you to go to iTunes and give me view, would love to get some feedback from fans. Meanwhile, while you get ready to go out there and use what SiSAC gave you to make your adventure races even better, I'll see you on the next episode of merch is your podcast. Until then, Go build Petarosis.