Rocket1 Racing Owner and Rocket Chassis Co-Founder Mark Richards shared his thoughts on Dirt Super Late Model race purses and questioned why they are so lopsided in favor of who wins rather than spreading it out through the field.
Richards shared his thoughts on the most recent episode of The Dirt Parlor Podcast when co-host Don Martin questioned why Crown Jewel races are still paying the same purses they did 15-20 years ago.
“It’s kind of a subject for me that I got to be a little bit careful about,” Richards answered. “Because everybody wants to win the big prize. I say this and I still say this: Racers are gamblers. And if anybody believes they’re not, let’s get the finances out. Because we’re putting a car out there that’s worth $140-$150,000 with the engine and a lot of nights we’re racing for $10,000 to-win. Now, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“But there’s only one winner. If you look at what you’re really racing for, nobody wins—. And I made this statement a long time ago and Scott Bloomquist tried to prove me wrong about 20 years ago. Nobody wins more than they lose. Do you know anybody that wins more than they lose? I don’t know. I don’t. Because you got guys running 100 races, and Bobby [Pierce’s] obviously, the top guy in this sport, and what’s he won? What 25? And he’s the top guy. Brandon’s going to be at 90-some races, and he’s won like 18. So nobody wins more than they lose.”
“So let’s look at it like this,” Richards said. “If we paid better back through, and you lose more than you win, you would stand to make more money without depending on that win. I don’t understand how the purses can be as lopsided as they are. And one promoter said, ‘Well, if I don’t pay that big purse, the crowd’s not coming.’ I said, ‘Do they get any of it?’ I don’t know any of the crowd that’s getting any of the purse. If you promote your race for what it is, what the win is shouldn’t mean nothing to the crowd. And if you actually promote the total purse, that sounds way better.”
He then shared an example, “So if the race pays $100,000 to-win and it’s a $250,000 or $300,000 purse, advertise a $300,000 purse. And pay the spots on some kind of progression that is similar to what that race is worth. Say if second needs to be half, 50%, then pay $50,000, $25,000.”
“Back in the World of Outlaws days when it started, Scott and I was involved in the purses. And we wanted to have 20 or 25% for fifth and we wanted to have 15 or 20% for 10th. And we wanted to have 10% to start,” he added. “When a promoter says, ‘All right, I’ve got a $12,000 purse and we’re going to pay $100,000.’ And we seen that happen this year. The race was supposed to pay $12k and then somebody put money in to make it $100k. Well, the guy that ran second is now getting $5,500 or $6,000 and some guy got a $100k.”
The race in question was the World of Outlaws Late Models event at Mansfield Speedway. It was announced just as the cars pulled onto the track for the feature that the race would pay $100,000 instead of the originally announced $12,000. Second place only received $6,000 while third place took home $3,500.
On the second night of racing at the track, the winner’s purse was increased from $57,000 to $100,057. Second place still received $25,000 while third got $15,000.
“I just feel like we can’t make the sport healthy if we’re going to keep keeping the purses so spread out,” Richards declared. “If a guy really thought about it and you race a hundred nights and let’s say you win 20 races, 80 nights out of the year, you take in a couple thousand dollars more or three thousand dollars more on those 80 nights, it’s going to average out. And the guys that are not winning the purses are going to be getting a little more money.”
“Look, if X amount of money’s in the pot, that’s what you got to deal with, whatever the total is. I just think that putting it all on top, I don’t think that’s healthy for the sport.”
To that point, he shared that instead of a race paying $100,000 to-win, it should pay $50,000 instead and split the other $50,000 throughout the field. He explained, “I don’t care what race you’re at, there’s one winner. That’s it. If there’s 100 racers there, 99 of them went home with less money than they would if the purse was more structured with some kind of percentage base.”
“I don’t know if it’ll ever get fixed. Don’t know if it can be fixed. But I think it would be better for the sport,” he concluded.
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