MARYSVILLE, Calif. — Dennis Gage, promoter of Marysville Raceway, used to be far from enthusiastic about live streaming his racing events.
Now he owns a streaming service, NorCal Speed, along with Petaluma Speedway promoter Rick Faeth.
But the icing on the cake was when Gage ran a pop-up race last Friday and did so because he figured the stream would create enough income that he had a good chance of at least breaking even. Marysville is not a Friday track normally and the decision to race on that day was made about 28 hours before the pit gate opened.
“When streaming first started,” explained Gage, “on the local level, particularly for our weekly shows, nobody really had the capabilities until there were one or two companies that did streaming. But there wasn’t very good availability and the companies weren’t willing to pay much.
“I was opposed to streaming for those reasons, plus I thought it would have an impact on our front gate. We did a tiny bit before COVID, mostly special programs. We discovered the people who were watching the stream were mostly out of town. When COVID happened, no fans were going to go to any races.”
During the COVID stretch of no fans in 2020, Gage made a key phone call that changed everything for him and Marysville Raceway. That call was to a longtime friend, Steve Beitler, who at the time promoted Washington’s Skagit Speedway.
Beitler told Gage he was going to race on some Thursdays to offer something to stream. Gage took Wednesday and a series of races at Marysville provided some income, even without fans allowed.
It also changed Gage’s viewpoint regarding the value of streaming a race.
“It was like, ‘Wow, we survived because of streaming,’” Gage recalled.
Just when needed, a change within the streaming industry led to his current connection with SPEEDSPORT.tv, which is now the source of streaming for both Marysville and Petaluma NorCal Speed tracks with additional California tracks also becoming SPEEDSPORT.tv tracks this year.
Gage said, “SPEED SPORT decided they wanted to branch out and SPEED SPORT had the server capacity, the expertise and knowledge, and they decided to take the project on and it became a joint effort. Everything we do is fed to them and is distributed from their servers.”
The Friday race came about because of the massive amount of wet weather California has endured this winter. Races have already been canceled and plenty more are likely, at least in March. There was no potential of being able to race on Saturday and Friday was the third of three days in a row with sun to help dry the track.
So Thursday morning Gage announced he was racing on Friday, a move that, at the very least, is a rare plan.
“Two days of drying out, so I thought now is the time to have a race,” decided Gage. “I sent two texts, Tanner Carrick and Andy Forsberg. They both said yes to racing Friday. I saw the weather across the country and figured there would be a demand for streaming, and I hoped the streaming numbers would come through because we will be light on fans. Turned out we were light on cars, which I hadn’t expected and the people were about a standard Saturday night crowd. But it turned out OK.”
When things got back to normal in Marysville following the COVID era, Gage saw virtually no change in the front gate, actually he was slightly up in attendance, plus he had streaming income he did not have before. In 2022, the front gate went up some more as did the streaming income.
The majority of stream viewers are out of state, and Gage noted how SPEEDSPORT.tv was very good at getting him this data.
“Ralph Sheheen and I have been friends for 40 years,” noted Gage, “and his first announcing gig was at Cycleland Speedway which I helped him get. SPEED SPORT is committed to doing the right thing for auto racing. I believe in the institution of SPEED SPORT and it is a central share point for unbiased racing information.”
In a couple years of time, Gage moved from the not really wanting anything to do with streaming side to seeing and enjoying the benefits. That might not have happened without the turmoil of the 2020 season.