Welcome to Merchant of DIRT Podcast episode number 1. Thank you for joining me for the Merchant of podcast,
this is your insider's guide to practical recreational engineering, where I teach you the art and science of building, promoting, and directing off road races. I'm your host, professional recognier and race runner, Kyle Bondo. Coming up on this episode, I'm gonna give you a pre dinner action to what this podcast is all about? Some insight into the meaning behind my tagline, build better races,
and we'll get into the 3 reach as most people get into this business, this offered racing business in the first place. I wanna begin today's show by telling you a little bit about my company, Rechinir. I found a Rechinir in 2012 as a veteran owned recreational engineering and education company. My main reason for starting Action Reconier was my own frustration in how few resources there are for race promoters to learn the business of off road racing.
That's also become my purpose. Rickeners is all about teaching race promoters how to build direct and operate successful off road racing business. But what about the name Rechinir? Reconeer. Sure. It's it's a kind of strange word. Right? So I hear that from a lot of friends asking, where did you come up with that name, Kyle Reconeer? What does that even mean? Well, the short answer is that it created it from the words recreation
and engineer. Think of it the same way Disney creates imagineers. You know, the guys who design Disneyland rides for Walt Disney World and Disneyland. They combine the words imagination and engineer into imagineer. So wrecking error is kinda the same way. They kinda took the word recreation and engineer put them together. They really started as a joke. So when I was going to George Mason University, I was majoring in applied information technology and sports management, which is a really bizarre
thing to major to double major in. So my best girl joked that I was trying to become some sort of recreational engineer because I IT guys just don't go into sports management degrees. So I was very much the oddball in a classroom full of of sports management people. But at the time, I was convinced that I was going to find a way to create a job that would be something akin to recreational engineering of combining IT with course management,
and the name Rechinir stuck. So Rechinir became its own unique occupation, taking the best parts of events event professionals and merging it in in many ways with the ideas of what at least what I think sports management should really be about. Now, Rechinir is more of an occupation than than I would like to admit, and it's kinda become I calling calling that to simplify art and science of off road race promotion? Because like it or not, there is a lot of IT going on in side race promotion.
And I hope to do to do this, you know, simplifying the art and science of offering promotion. Offer a racing promotion by providing you with the tools knowledge to build better races. So with that being said, Each merchant is a dirk episode will explore how off road races are built, and attempt to simplify the more difficult and confusing aspects of race strategy and direction. I have a ton of topics I wanna talk about when it comes to race promotion and the business of Offering Racing.
And when I say business of Offering Racing, I'm talking about The sports management skills needed to promote successful mountain biking, trail running, or interning, adventure racing, endurance events. This is by no means an exhaustive list of sports.
But this is a it should give you a good idea of what I mean when I say off road racing. So it could include all sorts of other things. But this is kind of the the shortlist of things that that I like to focus on. So Merchant's or DER podcast will talk about the techniques that work for off road race and off road race development that it kind of include those kind of things. Also cover the common mistakes that so many race promoters make.
And of course, how you can avoid them when building on races? Sometimes, it might catch me diving into a few related outdoor topics that I love to exploring. In kind of a little background. You know, I started off her racing when I was a kid, racing BMX bikes. And that led me to all sorts of outdoor related sorts. And growing up in Washington State, you can't help but be a kid running around the forest. But all this off road and outdoor works really led me into a career in the military.
And during a tour overseas, I had a chance to race mountain bikes on Australia, and that hooked me on mountain biking in particular. So that's why I tend to go down the rabbit hole on mountain biking more than any other off road sport. And if you had a chance to visit my blog over atreckonier.com, You'll find that I do tend to lean towards the mountain biking more than anything else.
So it should not be a surprise to you that I love mountain biking. And I'm an active mountain biker, and my favorite part of adventure racing is the mountain biking part. You know, like, venture racing. Wait a minute. You're you're just talking about about you. I don't know about venture racing. Yeah. There's all sorts of sports I love. But when it comes to when it comes off of racing, I tend to lean towards mountain biking. But this is not a mountain biking or mountain bike racing podcast.
This is a podcast about off road race education. And I try to make each of my articles fromreckon.com relevant to a broad range off road off road sports, and merchants of dirt is no different. This will be a podcast dedicated to race promoter who are actively working and offered racing. So it should apply 90% of my strategy should apply to anybody in the off road sports. So strategies, tips, tactics, all those should apply to you.
But you may notice the mountain biking slants on my in some of my articles and some of my podcast. And that's kind of the reason why. It could also explain my interest in things like dual slalom and Enduro. However, I've raced, built, and managed just about every kind of offer sport there is. And I wanna appeal to your favorite offer sport sport. So if you would like to spend some time we would like to start you.
If you would like me to spend some time addressing your favorite offered sport, please reach out to me. Reach out to me. I'm at Rankineering, that's with the I n g at the end, on Twitter. So, and if you do reach out to me, I will certainly see it by giving your sports a lot.
However, you'll find most of my focus to be on the business side of offer racing as well. My hope is to make merchants adhered a series of conversations intended to help you understand the mechanics of strategies behind building better races, not just the mechanics themselves of of race promotion. Race direction.
But some of the business side of this stuff, and that team seems to be where a lot of people get caught up when it comes to racing. Is they don't focus on the business side. They focus on the mechanics. So merchants of dirt will focus on both of those. Some of you might want to know what I mean when I say build bitter races. While after racing and working in the off road racing industry for over 20 years, I have learned 3 things.
And here's what they are. Number 1, I have met few race promoters that have built their races year after year the same way twice. Number 2, I have met numerous people who want to get into off road racing racing, off road race promotion, but don't know where to start. This is a big 1. And number 3, I have met too many race promoters that have gone out of business because they did know how to make their race or their race business work, and that's that's the tragedy. So why is that simply put?
Why why are these 3 things? The 3 things that I that I that I've learned. Well, simply put, there's no school for off road race promotion. No 1 is taught how to work in this industry. But anything that resembles structure. I mean, most come to this this business thinking is that that this thought that they'll learn as they go. I mean, maybe you've caught yourself saying something like, oh, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't seem that hard. I'll figure it out as I as I do it. Only to find out how much of your life your first race really consumes. I mean, there is no lesson plan to tell you We need to be working on your race, and no 1 will tell you when it's a good idea to go home. I mean, planning a race takes time exploring miles of acreage often in remote locations takes time. Building proposals and applying for permits takes time.
And because most events take place in the weekends, you'll often find yourself doing most of the time consuming work alone. There is no teacher to explain to you. That a race promoter's job description makes you the manager, the marketer, and the manual labor all in 1. No one's gonna do that. All orchestration of communications, planning, milestones, deadlines, and schedules, it all starts with you. It's all managed by you. It's all closed out by you.
And surprise, you will often do this with no pay. And when it comes to that alone part, you can only delegate your work when there's someone to delegate that work too. So chances are you're not going to have a staff, you won't be able to pay them. It's going to be volunteers, it's going to be friends, it's going to be family, and they're gonna be working with no pay as well. I mean, there is no test or quizzes that prepares you for the ambiguity of all this, you know, the not knowing.
I mean, who will explain to you? That there will come a time many many times. That you will not have an answer. You'll be forced to change your plans because you just don't know. Or you get the plans changed for you by something you cannot control. Who will prepare you for these limitations, your restrictions, the cancellations that you will definitely face. Who will teach you about Mister Murphy and his law firm, Murphy, Murphy, and Murphy.
And you'll probably as you listen to his podcast, hear me talk about Mister Murphy. All locks. Because Mister Murphy and I, we have he's kind of my cohost, Mister Murphy. But He's always out to get you with an arsenal gotchas and pitfalls designed to ruin every 1 of your races. So who's gonna teach you about Mister Murphy and these gotchas? And if you survive all that discouragement, all that not knowing what you don't know, there's still no guarantee that anyone show up to your race.
I mean, how would you keep motivated? After you put a huge amount of time into making your 1st race, only to have 30 people show up. The answer to my friends, is me, that too. I'm the only 1. Now, I mean, a 2 by hone horn about this, but if you start looking out on the on the the interwebs, you know, the intertubes, there is not a whole lot of this education out there. There isn't not a whole lot of people who wanna dive into this topic. Why? Because this stuff's hard.
Strategy's not easy. Business development is not easy, and offer a race promotion is a very unique opportunity. But I want to help you be successful at this. I've seen too many of my friends fail at race promotion. To to let it continue. And, you know, I've had some failures myself. I'm not a 100% awesome at this. But I have learned what not to do. And I'm here to tell you the things you should not do and the things you should do.
And then I'll tell you my opinion. So I'll tell you what I know. I'll tell you what I don't know. I'll tell you my opinion. You know? And that's kind of my that's kind of a deal with you as a listener. Is that's why I started wrecking here, and that's why I'm doing the Merchant Center podcast. I hope to do this, you know, for several dozens of episodes.
But I'm here to help you, whether you knew or whether you're a veteran, and not just survive this business, but I wanna see you succeed and thrive. And that's my goal for you. Okay. That's enough introduction to why I'm doing the emergency dirt podcast. Let's get into today's topic. That is the 3 reasons most people get into the business of off road racing.
And this is kind of a interesting interesting kind of take on why you might be in this business, business, and let's see if you fit into 1 of these categories. Chances are, you probably will. Let's see which 1 you identify for more. So kinda going backwards. We'll start with with reason number 3. And reason number 3 that that someone might get into offered racing is, of course, to make some money. Now you might be saying, make some money. That sounds pretty, pretty straightforward.
I mean, why do most people go in businesses to make some money? But with offered racing, there's an interesting there's an interesting fact that you should know about this. So if you're kind of in thinking about off road racing or in off road racing and wanting to know kind of how much money kind of in this business, in this industry. Let's let's start with the understanding that there is this steady rise in America of people needing to go outside.
And I don't know if if it's just the the need to to connect with nature again. But outdoor experiences have become a very important part of American culture. I mean, whether it's this lack of connection with our interpersonal lives. You know, this the need for this the the social environments, people are stuck in their phones, this resulting emptiness. In our collective lives that is causing this this trend to take place. But the result is very measurable.
Because the revival of the outdoor recreational, you know, in in industry, and especially in personal health, the you know, active communities, things like that, has a dollar amount attached to it that you can say, hey, you can point to and say, hey, there are people spending money doing outdoor recreation that we're not spending money before. So what do we mean by that, Kyle? Well, according to the Outdoor Industry Association, this is outdoorindustry.org.
I'll I'll put that link in the show notes. Their 12 12 their 2015 outdoor recreation economy reporter said that Americans spent Now get this. $645,000,000,000 on outdoor recreation. Now, let me say, hey. Get a gun. It ain't worth to say. It's 645,000,000,000. That's a 1,000,000 with a b. And this spending included 1,000,000,000 in off road events, trips, travel, gear. I mean, this data shows the potential of off road event market.
And this makes off road events a very real opportunity for tapping into this robust outdoor recreation market. There is money here. So if your reason to get an offer in racing is to make some money, The potential is there. Now don't be fooled. You have to do this correctly in order to tap into that money. But there is money to be made in off road racing, in particular. The outdoor recreational market is telling us that people are interested in spending money in that arena.
So matter of tapping into it, with 645 billion reasons to tap into it, it is definitely a motivation to get into this industry. What's the second reason? So the second reason I often hear about why people get into the offered racing is they wanna be their own boss. I wanna be my own boss. I mean, you wanna be that person who owns their own business, and you want that business to be, raise promotion. I mean, you wanna be your own boss in the way that you wanna run races your way.
I mean, be that independent race promoter. And you're most likely lured into this industry after experiencing too many bad races. And this is kinda how I got started and draw for offer a race promotion. Is going to a race that was just awful. In in 1 instance, it was a race with All of our illustration was 1 pop up tent with a young lady sitting in style on the dirt. Writing in registration on the back of a used form, and everything was cache.
That was it. And big numbers, well, you know, they weren't gonna show up eventually. That's a horrible race. That's a horrible race experience. So when you get lured in this industry based off of a really bad experience, often it kinda guides your desire to make it better. So when the data shows that there's 30,000 race promoters in the United States. And over 80% of those
are race brewers at once or still are razors themselves. So chances are being your own boss is that you're 1 of those 4 out of 5 for those keeping score at home that are coming off of some sort of racing experience and said, you know, enough is enough. We need to do this ourselves, or I need to do this myself.
So as a trail junkie, there's a pretty good chance that you're looking to create an off road race that you've kind of always dreamed of promoting. I mean, maybe you're that guy that maybe it's not really a bad experience. Maybe just want a better experience. Maybe just wanna maybe it's a a piece of trail that or a park that no one's ever raced in. Because no promoter will touch it for some silly reason. You decide, you know, I really have to erase there. I mean, chances are a lot of the
the mythologies around race promoters won't touch x is usually that. It's mythology. So it's just people who haven't tried. And there's tons of places out there. People just haven't tried making a race at. These are complexities. There's local government involved. Park management is difficult, etcetera, etcetera. But building that dream, that dream race may be a good reason to start this and go down your own road.
So, I mean, bringing the off road racing community to your events in droves is a is a big big factor but making better events. Events that you know you can make better events is a great reason to start a company. Because if you can make better events, better than the other guys, then people will start coming to your stuff rather than their stuff. And that's just that's just effective in the market is there are play races I've gone out there.
But if I've got a toss-up, I'm gonna take the 1 I know. I'm gonna get better better experience out of. So, okay, that was the first 2 reasons. You know? Make some money, be your own boss. What's what's another main reason? So reason number 1 and this is a big reason for me. Is race promotion allows you to do something that few other jobs allow you to do. And that's make a difference. I mean, this is an important reason for creating that positive influence in your community.
And it may sound a little bit squishy, but despite the challenges that kind of lie in your path, if you do this right, you can really make a difference in people's lives. So people like, make a difference when you're talking about, you know, bunch of people come out riding bikes, bunch of people gonna come run. How's it gonna make a difference on his life? Well, don't think of it as the people who you see in the gym every day. You know, those those Gazelles,
those super strong, super fast, everything comes easy to them. Don't think of that. Think of it as that your race Your event can directly impact a person that may not be a racer. Or may not be a racer yet. Okay. So you're think look and think of the person who is sitting on that couch eating eating chips, watching the game, and realizing that, man, you're really gonna lose this weight. I really need to start moving around.
Need to really start getting involved in something something a little more than themselves. Okay? And they and they decide that Today is the day. Today is the day they decide you don't screw it. I'm done. I'm done sitting on the couch. It's time for me to to live up and live a bit. Time to get on my life. And they pick themselves off the couch and they start to train in anticipation for your event.
And they wanna come meet like minded people, and they wanna come they wanna come, you know, there's a community element of your race. But they're not the kind of people they're gonna come to win your race. I mean, this is like 1 entry. They could come in dead last. I mean, you're gonna be picking up your race. Hopefully, you're not. But you'll be picking up your race long before you ever see this person across the finish line. But
They showed up to your race. They raced your race, and they crossed that finish line. And that change in that person's life could be epic. And it takes bringing your event to existence before that capability exists to touch a real they'll touch a real person. And this actually can happen, and I've seen this happen. Because without you, they might have found that moment to say, you know what? I I I need to do something different.
But with you, mean, your creation mean, think about is is building races is kind of a it's almost like I I call it the art and science for a reason. There's a little art to this. But with you, your creation, you could be that force that gives them the new outlook on life they needed. It may be somewhat intangible. You know? In some ways, this may be spiritual.
But I see event creation as a tool for promoting positive mental health. And if you can change just 1 line for the better, isn't that worth the struggle? I think the whole reason behind race promotion of making money is great because making a living is great. You know? Being your own boss is great, but changing a life. Changing a life is awesome. And now you know. So that's it for this episode of The Merchants Adeouf podcast.
Now, if you'll learn something from all this and you wanna learn more, I have a few things I want you to do right now. 1st, go to rickenair.com/join, and drop your email in the box. That way I can tell you when new episodes are coming out or when I've got some new posts coming out on my blog. 2nd hear back from me about this episode. Did you learn something useful? Is there something I can do better? And is there a topic about race promotion you would really like me to cover?
If any of those are true for you, I'm on Twitter at reckoning and let me know what you would like to hear in a future episode. Now, 3rd and most important, if you like this episode, I would love for you to go to the Merchant Center Podcast on iTunes and give me a quick review in a 5 star rating. Thank you for listening to the merch of the dirt podcast. I'm the wrecking area, Kyle Bondo, hoping that you take what you learned today and go weave Idyll into Ebony.