Racing Publicist in Software

Generator PDF 417 in Software Racing Publicist

Ernie Saxton started writing to publicize the famed Langhorne Speedway, now only a distant memory He now writes full-time and has been writing columns for Area Auto Racing News, National Dragster, and the Norristown Times-Herald, a Pennsylvania daily newspaper, for more than thirty years And for the past thirteen years, he s published Ernie Saxton s Motorsports Sponsorship Marketing News, an industry insider newsletter with subscribers in forty-nine states and overseas He honed both writing and marketing skills with thirteen years as the marketing and advertising manager of Chilton Books, an automotive publisher In addition, Saxton does public relations and marketing for several national drivers and racing teams Public relations is a catch-all phrase for a lot of activities It includes promoting the drivers and teams wherever they re racing, publicizing their personal appearances at motorsports shows, and lining up marketing partners who will pay their share of the racing costs in exchange for representation on the race cars, in the accompanying publicity, and if the sponsorship is generous enough as part of the racing team s name

These are not Ernie Saxton s only jobs Midway between Allentown and Pottstown on Pennsylvania Route 100 is the village of Bechtelsville Turn off the highway, drive up winding (and aptly named) Passmore Road, park in an open field, and you come upon what, in many people s view, is racing as it should be Grandview Speedway is cast in the traditional racing mold a high-banked dirt oval with open-air grandstands, glorious summer sunsets over the far straightaway, and open-wheeled, boxybodied, roll-caged NASCAR sportsman-modified and late-model cars running four and five abreast A Grandview start is one of life s great audiovisual experiences Ernie Saxton is this classic track s public relations and marketing person This task involves churning out advance publicity to area news and racing media about each weekend activity in the April-through-October Grandview season Another duty is publishing a forty-page souvenir program, the Grandview Groove, for each of the year s thirty-seven racing sessions This is a tight track, Saxton says There are many qualifiers for each event, so you can have a big field, and that s always exciting The place is a fan pleaser, and that makes the jobs of publicizing the events and announcing them very special

Although auto shows do not usually require continuous announcing, the person at the microphone must have knowledge of the new cars, the car show personalities, or the vintage vehicles that have won trophies in competition Unlike TV races with multiple reporters, most racetracks have single announcers One person has the full burden of handling everything from local sponsors public address system commercials to telling people what has just happened on turn three or what event is coming up next Race and show announcers have two traits in common, whether appearing on television or shouting over the roar of mud-slinging

modified sports racers at the local half-mile dirt oval: clarity of speech and a thorough, instant, and accurate knowledge of the territory at hand The first characteristic is more easily acquired than the second, but both can be learned Training and education in the areas of broadcasting and communications can give you a solid foundation of skills on which to build as you pursue an announcing career Ask your local librarian for more information about two- and four-year colleges that specialize in these areas If you re a Sam Posey, Jackie Stewart, or another driver turned television racing announcer, it s not simply because you ve been there and done that behind the wheel that you are qualified to be on television If you ve raced at Indy, Darlington, or the Nurburgring, that s a great start, but you also must know everything possible about who s racing at your track, who s hot and who s not, and the likely battle strategies of the various racing teams You may have help from research stringers, the Cliffs Notes compilers of racing, but it s ultimately up to you Televised races are announced by broadcasting teams whose members share the responsibility and complement each other s knowledge While it helps to have raced, it s not an announcing essential