Triathlon Race Director: Jack Caress

March 11, 2005

EnduranceRadio.com

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Welcome back to EnduranceRadio.com.  Thanks for joining us for another interview today.  We’re going to be speaking with Jack Caress.  He’s the President of Pacific Sports LLC.  They do a variety of triathlons in Southern California, as well as the LA triathlon.  We’re going to be taking to Jack about how he got into this business and about the nuances of race directing.

 

First things first; the Race of the Day today is going to be the Long Beach Triathlon.  It’s September 25th, 2005.  You can click on the Race of the Day link right below the link to this audio interview to find out more about the long Beach Triathlon.

 

So we’re going to be right back to speak with Jack Caress in about 30 seconds.”

 

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<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Jack thanks very much for joining us today, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “”You’re welcome.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “How long have you been in the Race Director business?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “Unofficially I’d say 28 years.  Now our Newport Beach Triathlon started in 1978, but I say unofficially because the first five or six years it was a race direction by committee, and then ultimately I became the sole Race Director when everybody else had more important things to do in their business and I stepped up and took over.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Being on the Race Director side for so long, you’ve seen a lot of things in your races, and certainly have put out a lot of fires and a lot of challenges you’ve had at races.  What are some of the things that you want athletes who are participating in these races to know what Race Directors have to do to put on an event of this size and scope that you do?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “Like you say, I’ve seen a lot over the years and it changes.  The biggest single thing that comes to mind is really permits.  When we first started getting permits, like for our Newport Beach Triathlon 28 years ago, we got the permits; we went and applied and got the permits all at once the week before the race, to close streets in the manner we do, it’s not quite the same now.  We apply for permits, in many cases, within a week after the race that’s just been completed so we can secure the date, so we can make sure that we get the process started for the future, but permitting issues are without question the biggest single chore that we have to do throughout the year, and I don’t think most people that just race in the events understand the enormous amount of meetings, the enormous amount of detail, the type of work that goes into making these things happen from our standpoint, from the municipalities or the permitting agencies; it is an enormous job and its getting more and more so as time progresses.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Is it becoming also more difficult to show the cities or the agencies that are involved the benefits of putting on the race as opposed to; we’re going to have to close down streets and the downside, I guess, to applying for these permits as well?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “Well that’s a good question.  Los Angeles or Long Beach and maybe fortunately or unfortunately, our races other than the three events we put on in Catalina, which is kind of the opposite of putting it on in cities, you have different concerns, but all of our other races, be it Cleveland, Long Beach, LA, Newport, there’re all in urban areas, very urban areas, so you have concerns that are far different than putting on a race that maybe in a semi-rural area or a park or something like that.  But the issue that’s difficult for me, the frustration can be; many times we’re dealing with people that are bureaucratic in nature in terms of them may be staff level people, they may be very good at their jobs but they don’t necessarily understand the benefits, in other words their jobs is really the permitting or the closing of the roads.  They could be with the Department of Transportation, the Police Department, the Public Works Department, and they’re in a very different role than; for example, we also deal with politicians, people in the Chamber of Commerce, people that are seeing all the benefits of putting these events on, so you often times can meet with the political side of things, like in Los Angeles all the City Council and Mayor’s office and the Chamber of Commerce and that Central City Association, all the people that see the benefits of bringing economics, economic benefit and people from around the United States into these events, they’re very supportive of it.  On the other hand, the people that have to actually do the work can often times be very frustrating, put it that way, to deal with and I don’t think that we’re saying anything that’s untypical of anybody putting on an event in an urban area.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Well sometimes you kind of hope you get lucky and maybe one of those people is a triathlete or an endurance runner or something.”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “Yes, either that or there are some of them that understand both sides.  It’s really the individual people and the pendulum swings quite a bit.  You can see it really gets down to the people you’re dealing with.  If people that are in special events for a particular municipality thinks that its positive for their city to have these sorts of things then the process can be fair simpler.  If they’re in a position where they’re really restrictive and they think that these are bad for a city or its just a lot of work and, ‘I don’t see the benefit,’ or the liabilities are too high, or all those things, then it can be a mountain of hurdles they can put in front of you.  It all depends on what side of the fence they sit on.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Now we have a lot of listeners who are all over the country and all over the world, and some of them are in smaller, more rural areas that are considering starting a race because theres nothing really close to them.  Has it become more expensive over the years to hire the off-duty law enforcement, or whatnot, to close the streets and all the other ancillary things that have to go along with putting one of these on?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “Yes, without fail.  The prices have gone astronomical and that is the largest single reason why event registration fees have gone up.  A typical city, and I say typical, and its not, I wouldn’t event say this untrue in a rural area; most of the time, I’ll give you an example, on police costs, when the race is run on a Saturday or Sunday, you are bringing in police that are typically working overtime and most cities will have a requirement that they have a minimum charge.  For example, it could standard, I shouldn’t say standard, but more often than not its at least four to six hour minimum, time and a half plus benefits, so in a city it could be easily $75 to $100 an hour for each policeman, and a race like Los Angeles we have 184 intersections and we may have 350 policemen working; well you figure that out and you determine how much the cost is.  On a smaller scale it’ll be the same in another city, and if you’re doing it in a rural area the cost per hour may be slightly less but it’s not untypical to have those kinds of minimum requirements.  I understand that side of things but all that has to be incorporated into what it costs to put on an event.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Another thing that Race Directors may not think of first hand when they’re thinking about putting on a race is the insurance and liability of doing something on this scale.  Do you see wide swings on what that’s cost, based on where you’re having the event?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “No.  The cost of where you’re having it, ironically, doesn’t really come into play.  The only time that, for example, getting insurance in Cleveland is the same as it is in Los Angeles, or if we were putting a race on in the middle of a National Park in West Virginia, or something, it wouldn’t cost any different to buy liability insurance.  Sometimes, though, cities, but it can be cities or it could be a park, it could any place that’s putting on a race may have an unusual requirement for insurance.  I’ve seen stadiums and things like that that we’ve used that have; a typical insurance policy maybe for a million or two million dollars of liability coverage.  Well sometimes, and theres no generalization here, an entity, or permitting agency could require five million dollars and then you have to go out and purchase additional insurance which can be quite expensive.  Theres no consistency there, it could be a rural or an urban area that might have that sort of thing, but again those costs are significant.  But I haven’t seen them go up dramatically over the years.  I mean they’re a little higher but I don’t think that’s the most significant cost, although some people think it is, is really isn’t.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Over the years you’re been able to build up your list of athletes that race in your races every year.  When you first started out what kind of things did you do to promote your race to get people to know that its there and sign up?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “Well early on, I mean things have changed dramatically in terms of the way we promote races.  Up until the late 90’s everything was direct mail.  The single best way, well it still is, still the best way to promote is the old fashioned grass roots way of getting information in somebody’s hands, whether it might be advertising at another person’s race by handing out flyers or putting something in the goodies bags, or sending out a direct mail piece to an athlete that’s competed in a race.  We always advertise in the local publications or the national publications for triathlons, Inside Triathlon and Triathlete and other magazines like that.  But I’d say more and more and more it’s becoming using the website and using our direct email.  We have a monthly newsletter called, ‘Pacific Latitudes’ that you can sign up for on our website.  We also send out competitor updates, if you enter a specific race you will get updates about whatever’s going on with that particular race and that has become our single greatest way to reach the athletes.  It has changed the whole focus of how we do things, and it mirrors the time when online registration started.  Eight five to ninety per cent of the people now are entering races online and that’s the way they want to be communicated with; hence you have things like EnduranceRadio.  I mean who would have thought that 10 years ago you would have something like what you’re doing.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “No, absolutely.  The technology and the internet and broadband has helped that out a lot for sure.

 

Triathlon has grown quite a bit over the past five or 10 years.  Have you seen a change in the demographic or the types of people that are signing up for your races these past few years?”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “No question.  Its much more, much more women than it was.  In fact I tell people when I give talks about being interviewed for a Newport Beach race in the early 90’s, and they interviewed me because we had such a high number of women, its was about 12% women did the race and that was considered to be extremely high and they wondered why we were so high.  Well, it is not uncommon now for us to have over 40% in our races that are women.  I think it’s changed the entire feel of the race, it’s changed the way we market things, its changed all for the better.  It used to be a lot of men hanging out together, now its families.  I mean one of the questions we’re trying to cope with right now is; we get questions about day care, where both the husband and wife, or boyfriend and girlfriend, they want to do the race and if they happen to have children what do they do with them?  Well, we haven’t been able to solve that problem yet but it’s an issue we didn’t even have to think about 10 years ago.  I think it’s been a great thing for the sport to see that change.  It’s made a tremendous change, not just in triathlon but also in running.”

 

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Well of course our listeners can go to Pacific Sports LLC by clicking on the link to that website right below the link to this interview.

 

Jack thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us.  I really appreciate it.”

 

<<Jack Caress>>: “You’re welcome.”

 

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