Terry in 2008 we rocked up to the winton round to discover the tv package was off for the rest of the yr, but u seemed to find plenty of tv coverage for your 2009 fx series without the support of ma, how was this possible? dont get me wrong the 2009 fx series coverage was great for the sport but what happened in 08?
I have actually covered this quite extensively on this website previously Mr Racer but I'll go through it again just to make it clear for those who missed it last time.
If I am guilty of anything that is not telling at the time all the stakeholders what had happened and was happening that was causing this situation to occur in 2008. At the time I had not wanted to antagonise MA as I had hoped it all would be worked out in a positive manner between both parties, which never ended up happening as history shows. I had considered that if I told the whole story about how MA were behaving at the time then they would have reacted badly and there would have been no hope of reconciliation. That was my mistake, I should have just told everyone how they were playing games and undermining the relationship which in turn caused the issues with TV etc.
MA and I were in a 50/50 partnership running the ASC, this meant we both accepted 50% of any loss or equally so 50% of any gain. For 2008 we were looking at prior to the beginning of the series an estimated loss of about $140,000 from memory and this was after regigging the series and making some cut backs for that year. We found ourselves in this position after several sponsors cut back at the last moment leaving us with budget shortfalls, any loss would have been a shared loss between the two parties. This had been accepted by both parties (being myself and D White the MA CEO)at a meeting at MA early in 2008 and it had been agreed that we would cut back on the prizemoney and several other initiatives to keep the potential loss down to the previously mentioned number. But we both agreed that it was very important to keep the TV going no matter what. When I found out what MA was up to behind the scenes I asked them to give some written assurance that they were not intending to break the agreement and leave me high and dry. They refused to do so.
From memory in the same correspondence I had said if they couldn't give me a guarantee that they were going to honour the agreement, which would have entered its sixth year of a ten year deal in 2009, then why would I keep underwriting the potential budgeted loss by paying for the TV etc when potentially they would leave me with the whole bill at the end of year with potential court action required to resolve any differences. I also had said from memory that if they didn't guarantee that things were moving forward as per our agreement then I would have to cancel the TV for the series as I refused to pay for it all on my own if they wouldn't honour their side of the deal. The refused to guarantee that they would honour the deal at that time so I cancelled the TV after two rounds.
As a side note, and I'm sure MA have a record of this as they electronically recorded the Board meeting I went to in May without even warning me that it was being recorded, Ron Kivovitch the MA president said at that meeting (again from memory as I wasn't given the chance to record the meeting and they refused to provide me with a copy of the recorded contents even though I had warned them the next day that according to what I had been told they were breaking the law by secretly electronically recording the meeting) anyway Kivovitch said to the best of my memory that at no time had he or the Board agreed to pay for any TV in 2008 so paying for the TV was my problem not there's.
At the time I didn't even bother to argue the point that White had agreed to the budgeted loss for 2008 which included TV as it was obvious where they were going with all of this.
So now you know why I ended up pulling the pin on the TV after two rounds in 2008, my then partners had walked away from the deal and were playing games behind the scenes and I was being left holding the can with no guarantees that they would honour their side of the deal.
With regards to this question I could have used the same often used excuse MA does for not commenting on this and other contentious issues as there is pending legal action, but I won't at this time, as I believe the members / license holders of MA deserve to know from first hand experience how their governing body acts behind the scenes even with legal action pending. Most readers on this website as well as I are nearly all members of this organisation and there should be for the first time real open political debate about how this sport has been run or more to the point not run and how our money we put into it is used and the decision processes that leaves its rank and file members out of the loop when it comes to major decisions. Plus I'm quite happy to put on record how this whole thing came to where it ended up as I did nothing wrong nor did I breach any agreement with them so I have nothing to fear.
In the end their actions created the situation where I have gone off and affiliated myself with another sanctioning body the AASA which is why I can now run Australian Championship series and classes for the first time. The MA monopoly has been broken for the first time and the sport will be better off for it and I won't be the last to move away from MA in the future I have no doubt about that.
So from memory that is what happened and why the TV ended up being dropped after two rounds in 2008.
Now you might understand why when people ask me on here if I would run the ASC again if I was asked I say no.
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Re:
Re: fx (racer) 02/09 07:33 PM 