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The headlines in the newspapers this week screamed of impending doom.

“Day of Infamy”

“Can Michigan Survive GMs fall ?”

“Worries Rule”

“Risky Business”

“State’s Darkest Day”

Within our racing community, we have seen one track close , four tracks which are taking on water and car counts are down everywhere.

In the newspaper industry, the headline which caught people’s eye was the 33% drop in advertising revenue in the 1st quarter of 2009.

Just this week, one of the largest and most well known trade publication in the entertainment industry “Radio & Records” announced unexpectedly that they were closing up shop at the end of the week.
When our paper didn’t mail on May 5th, I know there were questions abound, so I thought I’d clear up what happen and why; let you know what our plan is going forward; and expose some of the stuff which happens behind the scenes.

Putting the paper together is a tremendous task.  It is one which I can say without hesitation that I under estimated.  I’m pretty good with computers and type real well.  That didn’t prepare me for this.

I am lucky that I have a great team of writers and editors. They are out there every weekend getting the stories and doing the profiles.  They are good and we have the reader feedback to prove it.

But the actual task of assembling the paper, putting together the art, the stories, doing the layout and pagination is a  tedious and time consuming task. It is not as easy as it looks.

So the three problem spots we have currently which are resulting in the delays getting the paper out are 1.) The time it takes me to produce the paper.  2.) A delay between printing and mailing.  3.) The Standard Bulk Rate delivery of the post office.

No. 1 is the time it takes me to get the paper out.  Right now, it takes me about 60 effort hours to put the paper out each week.  This is the amount of time I physically spend laying out the paper.  This does not include answering phone calls, updating the web site, managing the mailing list, hand delivering late paper or going to the track myself.  Or any other responsibility.  Just laying out the paper. I start on Sunday Morning and  it takes 4 days at 15 hours a day to get it done for THU.  This is too long.  We have hired two layout people.  They will each have responsibility for either one side or the other side of the paper.  This is going to chop in half layout time and make it possible for us to get the paper out on TUE like we planned.

No. 2, our printer has delaying by one day mailing the paper.  This mostly had to do with the print file being delivered after Noon.  The fix above will result in the mail file being sent over in the AM, which will get the paper out that same day rather then next day.

Issues No.1 & No. 2 , will require additional effort and diligence on our part, but they are within our control and will shave 4 days off the current delivery delays.

No. 3 quite simply is a tough nut to crack.  When the MARC Times Racing News was being delivered previously, it was under a Periodical Permit.  This allowed it to be delivered right behind first class mail and provided good delivery times.  Previously, the Michigan Racing Scene was delivered “3rd Class” which  they actually call “Standard Bulk” now.  The post office states 4 to 8 days, but it can be longer.
It was our understanding that we could transfer the Periodical Permit to our sending post office and continue to send using that same periodical permit.

That turned out to be inaccurate.   In order to keep Periodical Status, an Audit Report must be turned in yearly.  This didn’t happen in 2008 (the year the paper was in suspended operation) and the post office terminated the permit.

We have re-applied for the periodical permit, we meet all the requirements for periodical status, but the application process is long and its expensive.  We will not allow that to be a barrier, but we are going to ask for your patience as we navigate through the governmental paperwork and required auditing.

Getting back to the May 5th and May 12th issues, this is an embarrassing mistake to admit, but its what happen and I have to accept the responsibility of the error.

Our printer gives us a window to print.  Tuesday morning or Thursday morning.  If we have been extremely fortunate that they have squeezed us in on a Friday evening a couple of times.  But, we are suppose to print on Tuesday Mornings.

The week of edition 28th, the paper was very late in being outputted.    Quite simply I got behind and couldn’t get caught up (kind of sounds like my racing career). The paper was printed on the morning of the 2nd, but most of the tracks rained out.    That meant there was very little “news” from that weekend, and since people were going to be getting a paper mid-week, we decided to combine the paper of the 5th and 12th.

On the 14th when the paper was getting ready to be mailed, we discovered that the file I sent to the printer was actually April 28th’s issue. Somehow (probably while in sleep deprivation mode) I mislabeled the file and saved over the good copy with the old copy and erased the print ready issue. We ended up with 5000 copies of an unusable paper.

Those stories are available online and we will work the profile stories into future issues.  We added two weeks on to everyone’s subscription date and we aren’t going to mail those issues.

That was the low point.

Since then, we have been gradually getting the paper out earlier and earlier.  We have also improved the overall accuracy of the paper, with less typo’s, misspellings and incorrect photo captions.  Still not as good as we want to be, but better each week, and getting better every day.

I want to thank our partners at our featured tracks for their tolerance towards of missteps.  We appreciate very much the opportunities we have been given and the advice and console we have received which have allowed us to get better at what we are doing.

Those that feel every promoter is a money grubbing, greed oriented person couldn’t possibly be more wrong.  These are some of the most hard working, self sacrificing people I have ever met in life and without a doubt have the best interest of racing close to their hearts in every decision they make.

OTHER BUSINESS : We extended the $20 renewal offer through May to compensate for the slow and delayed delivery of the papers which might have resulted in you getting your copy after the deadline.  Effective June 1st that offer has ended.

We also extended the period of papers being mailed to non-renewals an extra 4 issues.  This is the very last paper you will be receiving if you have not renewed your subscription.  As noted  on Page 2 of the Michigan Racing Scene side of the paper, you can now see on the mailing label when your subscription end date is.   Please flip over to the other side if you have not already done so and review that article to get additional information.

We are adding an “all the results” page to the paper starting this week.  This is a VERY popular page on the website.  We list all the winners at all the tracks in all the division running on a single page.  Due to the positive reviews, we have decided to add that page in the paper as well. These are all the tracks featured on our map, see page X.

I hope this transparency and view into our operations will answer any questions you might have about where we   are and where we are headed.