Today, I'm number 2 nerd podcast episode number 24. How do you get into a venture racing? Do you go to a school? Do you take a class? Do you get certified? The answer is none of the above. You have to know every sport in event erasing before you can even think about promoting an event erase. It's really a triathlon on steroids and possibly on other things too. Fortunately,
Mark Montague from Soggy Button Boy's racing is here today. To set us straight on the way you actually get into promoting event races. You're not gonna wanna miss this show, especially if you're an event eraser. Let's roll. Thank you for joining me for the Merchant Center podcast. I am Kyle Bondo, your professional recognier. And racing business coach, and I'm here to make the art and science behind building, promoting, and directing off road races. Simple and understandable.
My goal is to make sure you build better races. And with me to make sure you don't build better races. Of course, as Mister Murphy, we don't like Mister Murphy. But Thankfully, today, we have a special guest on the show that makes Mister Murphy go run and hide, which is awesome. So if you're new to the merchandiser podcast, Welcome to yet another special episode. Why is this special?
Well, not only is it my next interview with another a venture race promoter, but it's 1 of those special shows where you get to hear how to get into a sport. If you plan on promoting something as complex and as difficult, as a Venturacer. Today's episode is brought to you by our sponsor,reckonier.com.reckonier
was created to help you successfully create off road races that change people's lives. But when a race promoter fails or gets discouraged enough to quit, they never build the event that could have impacted the 1 person whose life could have been changed by it. They never get to share the joy that comes with providing an experience to someone who didn't know they could do it. Or even a chance to motivate someone to just living a health care life. I saw so many race brothers disappear from the industry that I started to ask, why? Why are they disappearing?
Why were they going out of business? What are discovered was something astonishing.
Nobody is teaching race brothers how to build race promotion businesses that thrive. That's why I created Reikonir. I've taken everything I've learned from years of managing races through trial and error and created a catalog of free lessons, strategies, and tools that work. I provide you with the best lessons learned in event design, race management, and race promotion education, all for free. If you don't know how to grow your racing business or you just need a place to start or you're ready to become successful at promoting offered races, I can show you how. So please visit brickandear.com
today and learn how to build a race that can change a life. So are you ready to take your race promotion skills to the next level? Let me introduce today's guest, Mark Montagu. Now, Mark, is the founder of Soggy Bottom Boy's Racing in Portsmouth, Virginia. And he's the founder and race director that builds some of the more difficult adventure races in Virginia. And as an adventure racer, he is very well versed on how to build
and set a course for a venture racing, which includes paddling and mountain biking and trail running and all sorts of extras in the middle the anxiety and the stress and the challenge, the endurance.
All that is something that Mark is very, very well versed in. And there's a there's a lot of reasons you wanna pay attention to Mark. And saggy bottom boys racing. They're currently doing 3 of enter races a year in all in Virginia, and 1 of them is an expedition level event. Called Stormy Eastern Shore, which is 18 to 24 hours. He's 1 of the few people to put on expedition level races. And because of that, he is in a different category than some of the interrace promoters because putting on an 18 to 24 hour race is not an easy thing. That makes SSB racing 1 of only really 2 event racing promoters to do 24 hour events in the Virginia area, than the Washington DC metro area. So you can find out all about these epic races at soggybottomboy's
racing, which is sbbracing.com. And now Mark Montague.
Okay. And joining me right now is Mark Montagu from Sagibana Boys Racing. How are you doing today, Mark? I'm great. I'm great. Maybe that's great. Excellent. Now you're a you're a venture race promoter, and you run a company called Soggy Bonn Boy's Racing. Kinda talk a little bit about how you first got into event racing. Where does the the bug bite you when it comes to event racing and how you kind of got into the sport yourself? Well, I appreciate you asking about that, Kyle. Recently, I am a 6 flat lead. I've done over, like, a 100 plus trial lines. Okay. Like, I got bored of surgery and sclerosis lines. And 1 man, 1 of the originators that have had a few of interest leasing. Introduced me to a dentuation
being the volunteer at there was a race call in that time, the beast of the east. I had no idea what a dentuation was. But once I saw, you know, all the different incredible things that these racers were doing there on the cataloging and the biking and the ropes out of instantly hook. So your 1st adventure race had the word beast in it. That sounds like a little that sounds a little intimidating.
Yeah. It's just 1 of the it was a little scary at the tune of me. So when so when you got into a venture racing, does it was that the thing that kind of work you into starting your own venture racing company, or did that take some time to get to that point? Well, actually, it did take some time because I waste waste air volunteered at any level of events racing over 4 to 6 hour events, the 24 hour events, all the way up to its expedition length event. Including the Primal Quest race in Utah. In fact, Michelle Facet is our ultimate on our Primal Quest Utah team. So you talking about going to the big leagues? Was this a transition over several years, or how did you transition up to that primal quest level event? Well, I think you'd treat it like any other business sport, you can put more and more time in it, both in the training and the racing to get good at it, to understand it better, and to do it well. So I volunteered that a number of races
at Odyssey, I watched how things were done. I learned from other venture racers. How to do certain things that cut time off, whether it be packing, whether it be the way pedal stroke techniques, things like that, and I increased the number of events that I was participating in and or volunteering at. Thought I would travel all over the East Coast just to find another race. So you have quite a portfolio then of different races you've seen done. What What do you think is
so when you when you look back on all the event races you've been to and you've experienced what do you think is the thing that most event erasers get right? And what's the things they kind of, like, have difficulty with what's their challenges? Well, I would say that as our as our as my off even after a decade of racing, there were other race organizations
that were closing down, or they were reducing their number of races, at that point, I don't think that I bring the best of all the things. I learn over adventure racing in many years and start my own race organization. So, you know, 1 that's kind of focuses on the challenging, you know, fun races that have unique elements or things that everybody else's gonna be doing. We even do things like navigation
prolog. It says it's just running. We do time bike trials. These sort of sections are more than 3 hours long. We have a surprise and fun things that sometimes are check points. So I use all my years and experiences both both the volunteer and the research to design events like this. So when you approach this level of venture racing, sounds like there's a lot of moving pieces. When you approach this, what do you think is step 1? Where do you begin? Well, I started out, like, most 4 days in the early years of Saudi bottom post racing. I basically made flyers for our event, and then a past amount of other eventuations that I was either participating that or volunteering yet. Well, risk records do always nice, and there's great, and there's allowed me a 1 or 2 minute plug in any of our races. So I went to at least 10 races a year year long term duration and hanging out flyers. That's all I did from our Okay. Delegate send these flyers out to maybe keep those email addresses I had. That means it. So I do nothing about race promoting and restarting. So then I started teaching a Venturation 101 clinic, and our website going out to Blue Ridge outdoors
and REI, and I offered basics of math and compass. And I went in sharing classes, basically introducing people to the sport by training them how to do it. Okay. Also contacted some of the local colleges, inquired about any kind of outdoor programs, and it turned out even a field we have these. So I go ahead and speak an hour or so to give high level introduction or the overview of installation.
And and from this, new lasers are starting to emerge and come to rate. When you have brand new people who hear about a venture racing and are like, what the heck is that? What is what's the common question usually get from the people you're educating? Well, as a good example, I have a brand new racer who's coming out to our upcoming Sprout next weekend. And as it turned out, he didn't even understand that he needed a bike or a motorcycle
or ride to events. Okay. So most of the time, you people are unaware of the equipment needs that it takes attention rate. Okay. So a lot of people get into this who who don't understand the equipment, then they're they're into, like, 6 hours, 8 hours, new erase, and they're like, then they don't understand that wow. This is a lot lot to do. Do you see a lot of those when you when you were hosting when you're promoting races? Yeah. Absolutely. There's new people that come in and they're way over their head. Can they get out there and not realizing they don't even know how to use a compass, but yet they sign up for a race. I think that's kind of interesting and fun because they're at least trying out something new. So we'll always it's a great community of people that are ventilators and everybody always willing to stop by and show somebody how to use a company, so how to interpolate that with a mask and things like that. So where do you when you're starting to to build these events for people? It probably I think it's like a 5050, isn't it? A 50% know what they're doing and the other half are kinda, like, just kinda learning from the people they're watching. Is that what you see? Or is it No. I understand. That's pretty good initial number at newer event. Established race companies like the RSV Venture Racing and others who have been around for a number of years tend to have a large audience who come to the races who are are very experienced. Some of the newer start up race organizations,
they have probably a 5050 of seasoned racers and new racers, which is great for the community to continue to grow. Okay. Do you see the community growing? You know, I wasn't sure if I was for a while, and it got me concern, and I actually stopped. I was racing a few years ago because I didn't see any new people starting to come to the event, and I wasn't actually gonna restart it. And then I decided I'm gonna give it 1 more shot. I restarted it after a year and a half hiatus. And a good example is the sprout we have coming up next weekend actually has about 60% of the people that are racing are names that I've never seen before or heard before and coming from 3 to 4 from states. So we're really excited to have a a large number of new people apparently coming into the sport. That's a pretty good. Bode of confidence that that your race has the appeal that you're looking for. Kind of going back to how you plan and get into getting into this sport. If you're getting into this sport as someone who's building adventure races versus someone racing event races, what's the kind of the first thing you do to think about creating a course and creating the the way you plan on challenging
these endurance athletes. Is it something that you you sketch out? Do you try to run it yourself? What's kind of your thought process for how the course gets developed in your head. Well, I think a lot of that has to do with the promotion of the event first to get people excited about it. And at the same time period, you're doing both these and dual folks the promotion of it is really critical. It helps really have people to understand what something might be about, and then you have to build in what you're promoting. Do you conceptualize a course and then go promote it and then build it or do you build it and then promote it? What's kind of your process? Well, in my process, I'm actually kind of an old school, and I'm an engineer by degree, and I'm very anal about my course design. So I actually start well in advance. Some of my times, I start as much as 6 months to a year ahead of time. Wow. I usually have all of my course designs almost completely done at least 6 months before the race itself. That also allows me time to race personally as well. So that 6 months of a year out, are you just thinking about venues? Are you thinking about wear behind flags? What's the do you how many designs do you go through before you have a final course?
So you're fully diligent. I mean, you could do something like many people have done in passwords starting. And where do you start? You can simply grab a map of any park or head to head water on it and some trails. You can put checkpoint locations on it. You can go hang flags, the weekend before race, and you could even have the race. You know? However, the total amount of planning would easily instantly be evident to anyone who's got any experience on the course. Okay. It's a truly built a successful race course. You got a ABS, I call it, always be standing up. The 1 of these are traveling. Yeah. You got a 2 or going to or from a race. You have to look around for process venues that have sufficient water, have woods, and trails, have all the elements you need to put together a successful race. Know, then he's gotta contact the local authorities of the intended area. As early as possible, ask to meet with them and discuss your request. Get their buy them. And then go over examples of your previous race maps for them on a map in their area, which you have an idea what you'd like to do. Then you use a map while you're home. You look over unique like, locations on the map, something that sticks out there that would be really interesting or neat to have a checkpoint at. You kind of pre put those checkpoints onto your mops, ahead of time. You get your basic ideas, the distances
for different sections. They have a roughed out plan of a race. Okay. And I go to the areas. I go out in the woods, out on a water, out on a bike, to all these different proposed checkpoint locations with my GPS.
Then you kinda refine them. You get out there and you go, oh, that's not kind of what I thought it was gonna be, and you move. Or you go, hey. That's in a great place. Move it a little bit. Get your GPS mark that location. Boom. That's gonna be checkpoint something later on in the race. Okay. Do you then troubleshoot this? Do you try to see what kind of times you would come up with if you Oh, yeah. So how long does that process then take between the Hank, finding the flag points, finding out where they exist in real life, changing their locations and then troubleshooting. How what's that time frame look like for you? Well, for me, once I develop all my associate paperwork, I need to put on a race timelines
to to do list, the score sheets, the kind of contact names for all the organizations
and people, the voluntary list, you start building a race map on the paper we talked about. It fail maps, put all the paperwork together, use your social media for marketing, promoting it, advertising it, Facebook, Twitter, things like that, then you go up, and then then test it out yourself, and you get some ideas. And then you'll find out some of other venture racers who maybe aren't able to racial race at other other friends and and ask them to test your course. Right. Depending the course. You have somebody come out and maybe test part of it or all of it to get an idea if your design is set up so that the time takes what you plan to have you ever done 1 that you're you're you ever done some vetting where the course was just not going to happen? Something didn't go right? Oh, absolutely. I have vetted the Richmond ASRs
course for the River Rock, all 5 or 6 years that they've had except 1 year when I participated in, which was last year,
and I vetted it every year. And at times, it was spot on, and there were times when there were way too many checkpoints in 1 small location. And and we simply told the race directors you need to pull out 3 or 4 checkpoints here. Here for there, and it'll it'll spin the time up and shorten it up. Or you need to add some checkpoints here because there's only 2 or 3 here, and you've got plenty of great terrain to do it in. You're finding almost like they were a little too excited about putting checkpoints in? No. Not necessarily.
Sometimes in an area, it looks like it would be great to put a point points there. But once you're actually out in the woods, you find out that they're really too close together or there's not enough terrain changes between them, and there's too many checkpoints in 1 small area. Okay. Then does that roll into the things where you found
where checkpoints that they were supposed to be hung in a certain area. Do you hang all your all your controls? Or would you have other guys hanging controls, then maybe a control doesn't go to the right spot? Do you ever have experienced those kind of things? Well,
I think every 1 of my point. That's just me a personal feeling. Okay. If I know it's there, I'm the 1 who has to take responsibility when a razor says, hey. Something I'm not there. So I know that a point has been taken to have at least 1 testing or vetting by another independent third party person to know that everything is design the way it says it is, and everything is located where it says it is. Okay. Now I remember racing 1 of your races. It was 1 of those down in the water where 1 of the flags blew off the mark and, like, I think, flew out into the river. So Yes. That was a typical Boy Scout camp. That's the word. Okay. So when as a race promoter, how do you deal with a situation where you knew you hung the flag, where you said it was, you knew it was there, and then all sorts of people come in and say, I couldn't find it. How do you deal with something like that? Well well, what you try to do is to be fair to everybody because everyone spends time out there looking for a location that should be there. And if it isn't there for some reason such as you said, then they need credit for that. So you'll credit the came back for the ones that have identified, they were at the location. They'll give an example of, hey. This is by this tree. There was this thing there of certain rock. Oh, yeah. I know you were there, and you'll give me credit for those locations. So that's something you just adapt to as it happens? Well, that's what the whole sport of adventure racing is about. Adaptability.
Absolutely. He's dealing with adversity. That leads me to another question about adaptability then. For for Venturacing, in particular,
the and then we did this couple a couple of episodes back, talked about contingency planning, emergency planning. In adventure racing, you carry a lot of your emergency gear on you. And you're in places where you're pretty remote. How as a race promoter do you deal with with at the minimum lost, people who are lost, who don't come in when they're supposed to, people who get hurt what's kind of your way of dealing with? The loss and the hurt when it comes to racing? Certainly. That's a great question, especially for someone who's looking to designed to put on a new race. 1 of the things you need to do is have great documentation
on your racers. So you wanna make sure that you have your waiver forms, in your medical forms on every individual. You wanna have those closer hand all the time? I keep a master folder with me under my arm right next to me wherever I'm in charge of a race. Because at the end, you get to know who comes in and who doesn't come in. And then, okay. Now we know a team, for some reason, is not in, and we're 30 minutes past to finish up a race. Should we be concerned? Is it a bad weather day? Is there something coming in that could be, you know, a problem? So then what would we do first thing, what we do, obviously, would be to try to call the person's cell phone. Because every team is required to carry a cell phone that's supposed to be on. Okay. So you attempt to make a cell phone call to the individuals. If you don't reach somebody, well, that's not a big deal. Because they maybe turn it off or or they're out of sale coverage. You know? That is the situation. It's in the woods many times you don't have signal. Right? I don't even have a contingency plan. I and you're supposed to have to put together a contingency plan and an emergency plan that you do for when you have the situation that may occur. So the emergency plan normally takes into consideration
where you are, where you're at, what your your resources are, such as the emergency group, if you need to call the fire department to sir the sheriff's department, the rescue department, whether it'd be dependent on the injury or the situation. So if you had that if you had to do that, if you had to initiate kind of that kind of level of response? I've been involved 1, not from 1 of our leases, but I was at anointing during some time where there happened to be a a use that was lost. And as it turned out, he kinda had a little bit of a a medical or a mental ailment of sorts. So he was let's say Ross, he just didn't realize he was out there too long, and he wandered off a little bit too far, and we ended up doing a grid work search where we did the search and rescue techniques are going out, and
you're gonna run this way and you're gonna run this way and you're gonna run this way, and a wide good pattern, and we easily found the individual by going out in that way. Oh, wow. Okay. Yep. So did what's the what's the most common thing then with the ventricers that you find within your races that they come back with? Is it usually just bumps and scrapes? It's funny you should say that.
The name of our organization, of course, is that, you know, it's not the bottom butcher. Absolutely. So it's hard to find the team that doesn't come back with my doctor underneath
number 1. Usually, we'll have some form of of ryors if they're a tough technique. Sometimes it's your points are are out in the swampy area, so you can get a little scratch stuff. But all part of the sport we love so much. So when you formed the saggy bottom boys racing, does the name inspired by something? Is it inspired by seeing those people come back covered in mud, or your experience of being covered in mud like that? Well, it's kinda so I didn't say that they have our organization. So I was wondering about, okay. How's the name? I'm able to say where does that really come from? So when I was developing the organization,
I I I thought of the Tidewater area that I lived in in all of our surrounding area. And how about how much water and soggy and soggy areas? Do we have to go through our plan for adventure races or or including me and I have to be watching old brother where I fell from my 3rd or 4th, maybe 5th time for my favorite movie. Okay. And I was watching and and there's a scene where I was watching them run through the wood to figure out where they have to go next. In the next, you know, it comes from the bottom voice ratio. That's perfect. Almost it has a built in theme song with that too, doesn't it?
You you know, I I will say this, but we have a tea a team coming to our event who actually so inspired by it. That's been their team name at Olive Garden. AOT, r u n o s t. That's awesome. So you're 1 of the only race promoters in Virginia, that that as far as I could tell, you and maybe 1 other, that it does races in the 18 hour to 24 or beyond
time frame. Kinda walk walk the listeners through a little bit about how do you approach a race of that size compared to how you would approach 4 hour race. How's the what's the difference in thinking when you're doing something of that level? The biggest difference in time is always related to the terrain. Always related to the terrain. If you don't have sufficient terrain changes,
you cannot put on a long race, but you have nothing more than extra meat or a trial afterload. Oh, it's a very good point. So do you do you then for for that kind of race? Do you do you you said you 6 months ago a year to do some of the smaller races? What's the time frame for building a race that size? Is it still kind of the same constraints?
Now it tends to be a little bit longer because you end up having to take longer trips further away from our area because we don't necessarily have the best demographic for entering topography for not really long races without being, again, my a long flat track me for a trial line. So I end up driving a lot of times out to the world, a lot of times up north, definitely a lot of times out in the western part of the state. I'm already got 2000
18 races. I already know my injuries are gonna be for 2018. In fact, 2 of them are gonna be west and north of Richmond Greater Area. So Oh, spoiler alert. That's okay. And the reason and the question you just asked me, Kyle, is we need more terrain in order to put on more challenging longer difficult races. Right. We we'll still have an in on 8, 10, 12 hour race in our area. To allow all the local people to come. But if we wanna put on a really, truly challenging, fun, exciting,
long distance race like that, you need more train changes, and you need to have that. You need to travel a little bit. Okay. Does that involve a lot of, like, private property? Is there a the element of that in there? It it does at times. You know? Sometimes when you're out scouting area, you find out you come across, oh, there's a house way out in the middle of nowhere. You never like the house to be. And, you know, usually, what you do is if you make a fight approach to the home and, hopefully, you find a homeowner sometimes they'll leave a card or a message until they reach you and you tell them, hey. This is what I'm trying to do. And we just like to have permission to be potentially on your property, hiking by or biking by. And then what you do is you get your information, and you put it on your certificate of insurance so that they always recover in case anybody ever got for on their property, then no problem. Okay. I remember 1 of your races way back when the property owner forgot, and he came out with a gun. I know. Talk a little bit about just talk a little bit about that 1. Do you remember that time? That was that was big red. I I know. Definitely, I know we were going to that 1. Yeah. There was a crazy old crew. There was no 1 in the area in this town to be the crazy old wild crewman. And some racers were nowhere actually, honestly, near his property. However, he saw him going by and he got interested, and he wandered out there and I think too many kids was 1 of the teams that got pulled a gun on them and told them to get the heck off their property, which they were actually on his property, and they were near it. Wow. So how do you so when you when you have a big race like that where you have a property owner that changes their mind, what Jesus, the same as as moving controls and we talked about earlier, is it the adaptability, or do you find those to be a little more involved? It sometimes can be a little more involved. We had a checkpoint a couple years ago on 1 of this on the eastern shore races where
the homeowner
of a property didn't want people near the property. Again, I knew we were on private not private property. And it wasn't an issue. However, they called the police. I had to drive over there in the middle of the race and and meet a sheriff and identify what we were, show him my permit, and basically, the race went on and she had to go home. Oh, wow. Have you had racers disobey their their rules of travel and wonder where they shouldn't be? No. Not necessarily. I that has happened, but not in this particular case. She just thought that property was their property.
Once I show them the permit and that I have the show property line, she just basically had to let go and say I'm not on your property. I'm actually on public property and allowed to be here. The fuzzy lines when you're dealing with hundreds of miles. Well, in addition to leasing, there tends to be a lot of fuzzy lines and a lot of fuzzy lines.
That's an excellent point. So when you so getting back to the storm that you use from shore, you find that well, let's kind of approach this from 2 different directions. Do you find the bigger races to be a better draw? And kind of as a second question to that, do you find these bigger races to be financially worth it, or are the smaller races, the better the better option for a venture race promoters? Well, it all depends what your goal is as a venture racing promoter. If you're a venture agent from order who's in it for the money, then, like, many people, you're gonna put out a lot of very short, very easy races that peel to a wide audience of mudrun people and others like that. Okay. They'll pour in a lot of bro a lot of people in, and they make a lot of money, and they don't cost them very much put a race on, it's very evident when you do 1 of their races that there's not much put into the thought of the race. In fact, I get a race 1 time or for almost 12 hours, that I never even had to use my compass. So they go back to that that triathlon or that long cross country run. Correct. Okay. Even had even had the point that had arrows on the course to make sure you weren't making wrong turns. Wow.
So if you're not in it for the money, what's your what's your approach? Now you're talking about my approach. Okay. I'm doing it for the Venturation community. I'm I'm the sport, and I I don't know how when I'll ever stop doing it. And I really wanna continue to introduce new people to this sport. So I'm in it for the people. I'm in it for a great race. I'm in it for an excitement for everybody. And that's why my races are designed in a way where I overly maybe design them, take a lot of extra effort and time, put into them, and just put them in a way that that really challenges people that's in her fund has some really unique elements to them that Nobel Buzz has known for post race in incredible food. We do massages at the end of our races. All kinds of free things that people are getting for the same amount of money that are maybe paying for somewhere else or even less money. Okay. Well, obviously, you have a you have a day job. How do you fit in the time to to do all these explorations and course settings? To build something that you're doing for the community and not really for an extra chunk of money. Well, I'm a robot, so I don't need
I'm just kidding, but I'm not far from that. I don't sleep a lot. I've I've got a very bad ADHD
issue, and and I don't sleep much. So I'm always working on something in my head. I'm an engineer, and my head's always spinning on something. I'm always looking at different places I could be and and go ahead. So in order to put that all together, you really have the organizer. Right? And there's a leasing post from a personal listing as well as a business. It's only 1 of the many things that I do in my life as well as work, well as Umpire, as well as working at our church, as well as doing the other thing. So I'm just a person who would definitely talk very much. So does that something that stems from your your time as a as a veteran, or is that is that something you've developed over time
recently? I think it's a little bit of both. Question is a great question, Tyler. I think it's a little bit of both and and that yet you you'd learn things that are done through all the years of volunteering.
I learned so much from my mentoring by Don Man and Ronnie James available at Odyssey Ventures. I volunteered for them for probably over 10 years at multiple races that I have to start incorporating into the ideas and design for the races that Sagi bottom voice was putting on. Okay. So I know you you travel a lot too for work. Do you find your travel to be kind of dual headed where you you're gonna do work, but you're also going, well, there's a park right there too. Are you do you do you bake that into your travel plans?
Funny you should say that. Mhmm. That's exactly how I do it all the time. Because my job, I cover the entire state of Virginia, all the power plants for bringing in power. So I'm constantly driving around state constantly driving past with you. What what could be a unique venue? And so I always take my bike with me when I travel. I always take my bike. She's with me in my backpack. So at night, when I, you know, finish a job in the afternoon, I go in for a bike or a hike or find a new place, and next thing, you know, I found a new venue. That's how I found 2 of these venues for 2018 already and already in the works of design of them. That's fantastic. So race promoters then, I think, from what you're saying there is a a race promoter should always have their their venue hat on when they're when they're anywhere. I think I mean, if they're really in into it for the sport, like, I know Michelle for sure is. And and and and I think that this it goes hand in hand. I mean, if you're a racer, most race directors are also adventure racers themselves. It was a Britney Abbey. Well, they would start racing, and they've been putting on some great racers just in the last couple of years up in Pennsylvania. These are all people who have been eventual leasing and wanna do something unique to people. And I see some great leases over the last couple years coming out from some of the new race organizations.
So as we kinda wrap up here a little bit, it's great to have you on here. I'd like to just kinda do a wrap it up here. Tell me a little bit about what Sagibana Boys has coming up and where you see your company
going in the next year or 2. You've already mentioned, you've already got some venues planned out. What's kind of the growth plan for Sagibana Boys Racing? What's going on this year and what's going on in in the in the future? Well, we have obviously we try to tend to put on 3 or 4 races throughout the year, at least 2 to 3, those are being a venture races, and at least 1 to 2 of them being oriented in road game races. Assuming they have another a winter we've always had a winter event that we put on before at the board slot camp for numbers of years, and I'm actually working with them again to potentially come back there that would be a lot of fun to have a 3 to 12 hour road game there. And we have a couple of venture races that was going on. But for 2017,
next weekend on April 8th, and 7 April 8th, we have the sprout. That's a 4 hour introductory race, an 8 hour standard edition race. Couple of months later, in June June 17th,
we have a 8 hour standard and a 12 hour advanced. Adventure race is kinda like inner city, outer city, event. So part of the time, you'll be in the city, part of time you're down in the wild, living the mix of both worlds Mhmm. With history stuff going on there, some fun unique things along the way. And then, of course, this fall, we have our big signature event. We've been a number of years. That's the storm, the eastern shore. That's gonna be incredible at the event I've been working on in front of you saying say that. I actually I'm a vendor of that 3 years ago when I was coming back from a race on East and show way up in Delaware or New York or something. I was driving home and saw this park and said, that would be a great place for a race and I got a mat from them, and I held it for 3 years and eventually came back to it. And here we are, they had a race up that way coming up in October. Just needed to bake for a while. I needed to bake in your head until you finally decided that where it needed to go. Well, it was it was something I I I wanted to go there, and I knew it'll be a neat venue So I I traveled up there on business
and said, oh, it has gotten so much better since I was there 3 years ago. There's a ton of trails that have been put in for mountain biking, and it's just gonna be a really unique event. Lots of different pedaling sections, a lot a lot of sections that are smaller. Many of the longer races people get tired of 6:8 hour long trucks or hikes or paddles or bikes, and we strive ourselves to try to have something that's more no more than 3 or 4 hours at a time in 1 discipline.
So you can break it up a lot more. And it and it seems to be more exciting, and I finally get a lot of people saying they really like that way that we do racing. Okay. So how do you see the soggy bottom boys then? What's the what's the future for you guys? What's the or do you see 3 races a year is kind of your thing, or is it gonna be more? Well, you know, if I if I if I didn't have to work for a living here, I can go back to the old Don man. I go back to the old Odyssey Don man eventually.
He had 8 or 9 races throughout the year.
But, no, unfortunately, I have mortgages to pay and and colleges to pay for those types of things, so I gotta keep working. Right. I I I don't foresee us putting on more than, you know, 3, maybe 4 in a given year events. But I mean, it because mainly, number 1, the time, but number 2, I take a lot of time to put these together in a way that they come out so perfected that people just love them themselves when they finally get a chance to come to 1 of Fantastic. So it's kind of a a a last, like, a book in question. What would you tell someone who had been doing maybe mountain bike races or trail runs? Who wants to do their very 1st adventure race. What would be your advice to someone like that who wants to build 1 of these? Ron. Ron is actually gonna wait for them. I think Michelle I think Michelle said something like that too. Yeah. The lobotomy question. Right? Yeah. No. Not not really.
It's it's something that you it's I think
either love them or you love them. They hate them. People love adventure races. They absolutely are hooked for life on them. Or they come in, they'll do 1 or 2, and they'll never see the sport again. It's just not their time. People love it, and they are everyone that can find their hands, and I'll get their hands on, or they never see them again. Very good. So it's 1 of those kind of things where it's either in your blood or it's not. And if it's not, you should probably do something else. Absolutely. There's plenty of great things out there for people to do with the laundry outdoors, and and ventilation definitely is either in your blood or it's not. But then you're all in. And you're gonna find every race that you could find to be involved with. If I may put a plug in, they are not necessary about racing, put it on file and hearing. Know we didn't talk about that much at all, but I I think it's important for people to understand
that a race director is only as good as all the people who support them. All the volunteers are mainly that. That's okay. You can put design yeah. You can design a course the best you can. You can organize everything the best you can. If you don't have a good core group of volunteers to help put that event on to the racers, it's gonna become quickly evident. There'll be problems in the states some issues and things like that. So I just ask that any event duration, if you're not racing at a race some in some time, consider at least 1 waste a year to go out and volunteer for some other rich organization,
they can really use your help and especially someone who knows eventually raising already. It would help our community grow tremendously Fantastic. And it sounds like that's kinda how you got your cut your teeth on a venture racing was by doing racing and volunteering for sing. So if an upcoming movie An upcoming event eraser or a rest event eraser director should definitely
go experience it and see it from both sides before they tackle an actual race. Yep. But but and you're gonna put on a good attempt. And the way you're gonna put on a good attempt is to go be part of it. Is that both as a razor, as you said, and as a designer, and as a volunteer, that will be the way to really figure out how to do a razor. If it's something I wanna do, I learned so many things that were right about designing a race and so many things that were wrong about designing a race course. I've seen any mistake made. I think it's caught on the left 15 years, and I just do all I can to not make those for the races that we put together for everybody. That's fantastic advice. I think that's probably that's the hallmark advice the entire interview right there was that that statement alone is if you wanna get into a venture racing. You need to understand it first before you tackle it. If you wanna be a successful director, you really need to understand it. I mean, in order to understand it, you need to be part of it. And that means, yes. Sometimes racing, but it also means a lot of it a lot of volunteering time. You see how things do. You see what's working there. You see what's not working there. I've taken all of those experience over almost with decade and a half, brought them together, and then I'll put those together into play into any design of our courses. Well, it definitely sounds like you love adventure racing. You provided some really good information for someone who's looking to do this. I appreciate it. I don't know if there's a shouldn't people out to who we say they are, but I don't know if they're and they will tell you. I'm not sure how many people are even more passionate about eventually than I am. But I love it so much. I always would be part of it if I can. I'm gonna race till I can't race anymore. And then when I can't race anymore, I'm gonna keep putting races on for people who can't. Fantastic. Thank you very much, Mark, for for being on the merchandiser podcast. Thank you very much for your and have me on the show, Kyle. Thanks a lot, Mark. Okay. Have a great day.
Alright. And that was Mark Montagu from Sagibana Boy's Racing here on the emergency room podcast, where we bring you race promoters and race directors who have done this sport and who are in this sport and know how to build races and build races well. Maybe not necessarily to make money, but definitely to achieve a goal. And with Mark Montague, his goal is definitely community growing the sport and doing it because he loves his board more than anything else. And that is Mark's
kind of his claim to fame is that he is a guy involved in growth of the sport itself. Venture Racing doesn't have a lot of people in it, but the sport itself goes through this this strange shrinking and growing period, especially after the end of things like Eco Challenge and Primal Quest and things that brought a lot of publicity to a venture racing, you know, kinda riding on the coast tales of that. These smaller amateur races and and smaller venues and smaller type events
grew out of the eco challenge and the primal quest and the TV level style of interracing. So these races have a lot of of connectivity with that legacy but have kind of become their own thing. And as they've grown to become their own thing, they have created a sport all to their own, where it's not necessarily an expedition level race. It's not the crazy
3 to 5 day. We're dealing with 4 hours, 8 hours, 12 hours, So Mark is in that groove of growing the community, of growing the sport for the fun of it, for the adventure of it, for the community. That's his angle. And that's okay. If you're a a race promoter who's looking to grow a sport, the mark model is how you do it. You do 3 races a year, you supplement it, on your off time, you build these races, and you give back pretty much every dollar you make on it. That's the mark model. And you get into the sport by volunteering and doing heavy volunteer work to learn from both the racing point of view by racing it, and the volunteer point of view by understanding the mechanics and the orchestration
going on behind the scenes. And once you have those 2 together, you can do things like this. You can pick sports that no 1 is racing, take sports that maybe there is no a venture race or a venture racing in your community or anyone near maybe not even in your state. Maybe there's no one's even heard of it interesting. I'm sure in every 50 states in this United States, there is a park, there is a venue, there is a place that adventure race could happen that would be magnificent.
And that's the Mark Monica model, is go find that place in your state. Go find where that adventure race can take place. And think about how you would build that, where you would hang the flags, how people would transfer from boat to bike to run, or maybe even special challenges. Like ropes or I've heard inner tubes, so many slingshots, another race. They fired rifles,
bow and arrows, There's tons of different variations you could add to it. But if you can do trail running, you can do mountain biking, you can do paddling, and you can do orienteering,
You have those 4. You have the makings for an event to race. And if you don't know where to build 1 in your community or build 1 in your state, then go find 1 in another state, go race 1 Go volunteer at 1. Go enjoy 1. Make it 1 of those recreational destinations and go enjoy some of these sports and then bring it back to your community and try it there.
Growing a sport could be just as beneficial as making money as a sport. Because the community of event erasing is unlike any other. Avent erasers is so small that avent erasers usually know each other. And when you have an adventure race where you see a bunch of paces people that you've never seen before, that's a good sign. I've been to a ton of races where I knew just about everyone racing there. And then I started seeing racers show up. I'd never seen before. Do that. To the Mark Monigu, Sagibana Boy's racing model.
If you wanna know more about Mark Monigu and his company, Sagibana Boy's racing, Go visit sbbracing.com and find out about his races. He got 1 coming up this weekend called the Sprout. He's got 1 in mid season, which is the summer solstice this. And, of course, he talked about in great length to storm the eastern shore, which is a race, not for the week of heart. If you're looking for some really good challenges, go check out sppracing.com, and now you know.
In our next episode of the Merchant Center podcast, I'm gonna get into the strategies you can use to improve your race registration numbers. A little practice and some discipline. I can show you how to not suffer the woes of pool registration turnout. All that and more on the next merchandiser podcast.
Thank you so much for listening to the merchandiser podcast. I would love to hear from you. So if you have a question, please reach out to me on Twitter at versus dessert, and I will answer it on the podcast. So if you have a question, Go to App versus Adura on Twitter. Let me know what you think, and let me know what would you like me to to talk about. And I will right here on the podcast, I will read your question. And throw it out there. So if you haven't already, please go to mercyserve.com
and subscribe to this podcast, and I'll see you on the next episode of the mercyserve podcast. Until then, go build better races. Take care.