North Country Race Talk

AIS Management (Paul, Sam & Jared),

I appreciate that your endeavors gave us a nice facility to race at. I also appreciate that you’ve kept me in the loop on your past and current plans for your facility. I also have a great deal of respect for your passion for auto racing, and the financial sacrifices Paul personally made to build the nicest asphalt racing facility in the Northeast. Most importantly, I cherish the trust we’ve developed to discuss issues openly. That doesn’t mean we have to agree, but in the end we can walk away still respecting one another views. Although I would rather have discussed what I have to say with Paul personally, I think it’s very important for the rest of my AIS “family” see what has to be said.

I’m glad you’ve finally found a way to use this forum to communicate to the race teams and fans that help you realize your dream. As an owner of several businesses, I know all too well what my business strengths and weakness are. I’ve made just about every business mistake imaginable, and hopefully have learned enough to keep from repeating those mistakes. The hardest lessons I ever learned is that everything is a compromise (including marriage), and if you can be honest with yourself and honest with your friends/clients/customers, you will be successful. I’m not measuring success in dollars; success comes when you find a job you love. If you can accomplish that, you’ll never have to work a day of life, and the money just takes care of itself! This doesn’t mean you can ignore money. That “lesson” to be learned there is we have to live within our means(if we could only teach our political leaders that one.) When we live outside those means, it opens a Pandora’s Box of problems. We see the results of that all around us; alcoholism, drug addiction, broken families, the list goes on.

The whole reason I started this post is simple. When folks posting on this forum said unreasonable things about my “home” and “family” at AIS, I couldn’t just sit back without defending the AIS management. Well, now the tables seemed to have turned, and I feel a need to defend the rest of my “family”, the race teams and fans.

First, you’ve got to stop this financial “Smoke & Mirrors” game. To those who only own residential property, these number seem outrageous. Commercial property is a completely different animal. Compared to all the commercial real estate I own, your still getting a relatively good deal on your taxes. You’ve invested a lot more on your properties than you’re assessed. How could you expect to have made that kind of investment and not be taxed accordingly? Sure, go grieve it like the rest of us do, but those taxes should have been in your business plan. If they weren’t, that was a huge mistake on your part. Don’t saddle your friends/clients/customers with this like it's their problem. It’s your cost of doing business.

For the Health Department Issues; Why wasn’t this in your business plan? Or if you still think your taxes are too high, demand you get the service your high taxes warrant. Why attack the system like a bull in a china shop. You’ll always get more bees with honey!

As for the ruling issue with the #22 truck. You can scream from the highest mountain you don’t want to hear about it anymore, but that problem will just fester and haunt you forever until you admit you're human and made a mistake. You threw yourself under the bus on that one and I can’t deflect the criticism this time. There's no question in my mind it was wrong decision given the AIS 2009 written rules. Don't blame poor Rob, he followed the rule. Apparently, those impacted by the ruling reversal agree as well.

Now, the inexcusable! How can you live with yourself while not paying the race teams money due to them? They sacrificed to provide you the show you needed. It doesn’t matter if they had fun doing it. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. There have been years where I took a cut in my own pay or borrowed money to give my employees their annual raises or Christmas bonuses. Maybe that’s why after 25 years in business, my employees are growing old with me and yours are jumping ship faster than rats from a sinking boat. My employees work hard every day for me (you’d be surprised how far a sincere thank you goes!) If the gross income of my business drops, I’m the one doing something wrong. It’s my job as the “fortunate” owner to fix the problem. It might mean firing the employee that is the problem, but not all of them! If I do a good job, we all reap better financial rewards. No one has the patience to listen to anyone lamenting about money woes caused by their own mismanagement. Areas have been ignored that needed attention (NASCAR, website, advertising, sponsors, etc.) and wasted time in areas that should have been delegated to someone else (rule interpretation, fixing the generator, parking cars, etc.) all leading to a death spiral of likely financial ruin.

I’m sure this isn’t sitting well with any of the management team, but I can’t sugar-coated the problems, and the warning signs and suggestions were ignored. The truth can be painful, and no one likes admitting they are wrong. I'm hoping this is a wake-up call to seek help from professionals rather than well intentioned friends and family members, otherwise, history will just keep repeating itself. I hope you haven’t already sealed your fate.

Thank you for the chance to experience my dream. You all still mean a lot to me, but I can’t stand by and watch you self-destruct anymore. Besides, I have my work cut out finding a new place for the rest of my AIS “family” to congregate!

This isn’t my forum or yours, but I think Billy will welcome you to exchange ideas here, and I’ll gladly continue step up to the plate for you or anyone else I think is being unjustly abused here or anywhere else. Use it wisely.

Best regards,
Steve Burton

Steve Burton,

As always a very well thought out answer to many questions and statements. I respect you deeply as a businessman and as a friend. On a good note for Paul and AIS, he has graciously offered up equipment to get the dirt off the Evans Mills track. This in itself says alot. One more step toward an asphalt facility to race at can't be bad. If this jesture helps make the decision then I applaud Paul for this.


Thanks for the fun,
Randy VanTassel

On another racing forum, a question was asked: "If you owned a race track, what would you do?" One particularly creative response was "I would bend over in the middle of the frontstretch and let everyone kick my a--, because that's what would happen."

Let's make sure we're comparing apples to apples here. We're talking about a business that has no municipal hook-ups whatsoever and is open for business to the public approximately 20 days per year. There are a few private rentals as well. This facility was taxed similar to other commercial enterprises in Lewis County for the first three years of operation, but then the assessment was tripled (with no improvements made) while the assessment at the other commercial entities remained the same. The assessment for the grandstands alone is 1.7 million. Makes me wonder what kind of precious metal they're made from. Is it still true that commerial property differs from residential in that the assessments are generally not near 100%? I don't know for sure and it may differ from county to county, but that's been my experience.

There is also a scenario at the State Department of Health. A new director took over in the Watertwon office two years ago and things changed dramatically. In the businesses that I manage, we've found our dealings with the Health Department to be exponentially more difficult than they were a couple years ago and have shelled out a lot of money to meet new regulations. It sounds like the same thing has happend at the track. What was approved in the past is suddenly not good enough anymore.

I doubt that Paul is sleeping well at all at night, actually. This appears to be a huge blow personally. He does have many loyal employees in the excavating business who have been there for years and have pleaded with him to shut down the track before everything goes under. Even some racing associates are advising the same. As many successful business persons have learned, success in a commercial enterprise does not automatically lead to success at a racetrack. Paul appears to come from the old school where you build your business from the ground up, and when something needs done, you go out and do it. That pioneer attitude is what got the track built in the first place, but actual operations have obviously been more difficult.

One practical way to get the taxes down would be to have someone else purchase the track and take the bill of sale to the assessment office. Perhaps that is one reason why other NY tracks where ownership has changed are taxed lower than this one. But whoever the new owner is, they better be prepared to bend over on the frontstretch because this is a brutal business to be in right now. As you can see from other racing forums, AIS isn't the only track that hasn't paid drivers for the last race of the season.

I'm hoping the Evans Mills thing works out for everyone as it seems to be the best solution out there at the moment. I'm hearing too many rumors about Oswego to have a clue what they might do next year. Albany-Saratoga and Shangri-La II appear to be gearing up but they're likely too far away. Hopefully something will happen soon.

Keith

Memphis Motorsports Park hosted Nationwide and truck series races and they have shut down. They even have a drag strip that couldn't help keep them in business. I don't know any of the details about why they closed, but it doesn't look positive for the track owning business...?

Correction on the above tax figures: the AIS grandstands are valued at 50% of the property assessment, which when revised for the latest adjusted assessment puts them at $850,000. Anyone want to buy them for that?

That's a surprise about Memphis. Usually a drag strip can carry the track for awhile.

Can anyone that knows Caprara's or have an avenue to contact them deliver the message about the equipment?

If a track representative could do this it would have a lot more emphasis than if a racer told them this.

We could argue all winter of taxes and assesments etc................

Let's see if we can get the offer of the equipment delivered to the "powers" at Evans Mills. This could be a real big push in the right direction for us.

Nate

Folks,

I spoke to Paul about what I posted earlier. I apologized, I may have been a little rough on him. We’re all frustrated and feel helpless.

There’s no doubt he is not a quitter and has nothing but good intentions. Although that’s a strong attribute, combined with his stubbornness to make this track work, this combination is just beating the tar out of him financially. The numbers sound more like the federal deficit! If I understand him correctly, he has tapped every source of money (short of holding up a bank) to keep AIS floating. I see why he has a devoted circle of friends that are trying to help him succeed, but also see why his circle of friends is getting smaller.

Unfortunately, he is well beyond my help. I feel bad. I’m stubborn too. I won’t quit trying to come up with a workable solution if you’ll let this rat climb back on board. Of course, I reserve the right to slap him upside the head if he needs it and reserve the right to roast him in my usual comical ranting on this forum! (Stay tuned I've got another one in the works!)

Respectfully,
Steve Burton

Even if every driver put up $500 and got something for it (season passes, etc) It still wouldn't pay the taxes without some additional financial help. Then you start the season like every other season not enough coming in to pay what has to go out to the Govt. and that doesn't account for the power and water situations. Anyone really wonder why a million and a half people making over $70,000 have left New York State. It's the taxes and the out of control Government BS that drives Businesses and economies right into the ground.

Taxes... the people of New York do it to themselves... Look in the mirror and ask yourself why you voted for two of the biggest tax and spend members of the United States Senate - Shumer and Hillary (while she was there)?