Why You Should Race Triathlons Locally with Set Up Events Ep 9

as local race directors, we need all those people who are training to do an Ironman. We need them to do our little local races. And it just makes sense that they would want to do those and that it would help them in their training to do, you know, before they go do that Ironman, to go through a couple of transitions, to go through taking that wetsuit off a couple of times.

Welcome to the Find Your Edge podcast. Get ready to dive into all things training, nutrition, recovery, and more. Whether you're a new or experienced endurance athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone who just wants to improve your health and fitness, this podcast is for you. I'm Kris Newport, founder, head coach, registered dietitian, exercise physiologist, and certified personal trainer with the Endurance Edge and the Fueling Edge. With more than 20 years experience in the fitness industry, 18 years in multi-sport, and over 10 years as a sports nutritionist, I'm speaking with athletes and experts about key actionable steps you can take to reach and sustain peak performance and health. Let's do it. Welcome back to the Find Your Edge podcast. I am your host, Chris Newport, and I am here with a returning guest, Bill Scott from Setup Events. Welcome to the show, Bill.

Thanks, Chris. I appreciate it. Looking forward to chatting with you as usual.

So the last time we spoke with you, COVID had just started.

Yeah.

How, how are things?

Well, things are a lot better now, obviously, than they were. I mean, uh, for, you know, for everybody, it's been a very tough 2020. Uh, no different for us, you know, not being able to put events on. But boy, I tell you what, looking forward to 2021 with the early races that we have on our schedule— Pinehurst in mid-April and White Lake in early May— Registration activity for both races is just way ahead of what we anticipated. People are anxious to get back to racing, and we just can't wait to get to April 17th.

And you guys are no rookie to this business. How, how long have you guys been around?

So we started— setup started in Wilmington in 1994. I started putting races on in Texas in the late 1980s, but when I moved here, we started setup in '94. So yeah, we've been around a long time.

That's awesome. So how— and, and tell us a little bit about your company, like how, how many people work for you and where are you? I know you're in North Carolina, but you're also in Virginia, you're also in South Carolina. Like, tell us about that.

So When we started, we got to a point where we were putting on so many races that we had to— my wife actually came to me and told me, you better figure this out quick or I'm going to be losing a timer. And so that's when we decided to bring Jeremy Davis on, who is in South Carolina. Jeremy, also well known as the race director for Beach to Battleship. But, um, Jeremy became our first licensee, and Jeremy began to put on all the races in South Carolina while we continued to put the North Carolina races on. And then our second licensed team ended up being Greg Hawkins up in Virginia. Greg has since left Setup 6 years ago and is doing his own thing up in Virginia right now, uh, but Greg started putting on all the races for Setup in Virginia. And then we had ended up having another licensee in North Carolina because we were putting on so many races here that we couldn't handle it. But those days are, are long gone, you know. That was back in the— from 2000 to 2010. And then obviously the past 10 years, you know, things have been going a different direction in terms of our business because of so many races popping up and people having different opportunities to, you know, get into CrossFit or do Tough Mudders or Spartan Challenges or what have you. So the number of athletes at our races, you know, began to go down about, actually about 10 years ago, and it's just been kind of a steady decline up until about 2 years ago, and then it kind of flattened out. Uh, so we are a much different company than we were 10, 15, 20 years ago. You asked how many employees we have? My wife and I.

We are really—

we are the only employees of this company. So what we do is we have people that do contract labor for us in different capacities so that we're able to do the job. This is a change since COVID because we had my son-in-law and daughter worked for us full-time, uh, as our race director and logistics person. But because of COVID and the inability for us to pay them, they had to go back and do what they used to do. So we had to figure out a new way of doing things. And that means getting me more involved kind of on the corporate end of things, website work and communications with athletes and all of that stuff, and then figure out a way to get these races produced. So I found a great young race director who's a pro triathlete in North Carolina, who is going to become our race director for all of our North Carolina Triathlon Series races. This year. I'm going to mentor him this year, but he's going to be the one physically on site with the staff and doing all the labor. I don't do labor anymore at my age, so I'll be there to kind of direct things. And then I had to find people that would do the logistics work up front, you know, all the volunteers and police and EMS and all the stuff that goes on before you ever get to a race site. And so I found a combination of 3 different gals that are going to divvy up the 11 race weekends we have and become those logistics people. And so this new way of doing business is how we're moving forward, and it's been very successful so far. The people I have found are doing a phenomenal job, in fact, better than we had done. And so it's really kind of opened up a new opportunity for us, and we're excited about it.

So it almost seems like in a way COVID was— I mean, at least for my business, it was almost a weird blessing in disguise. And I feel almost kind of terrible saying that, right? It's almost like, hey, things maybe need to change a little bit. Do you feel that way?

I do, I do. And, um, yeah, I would word it kind of exactly the way you just did because I've talked about that with a couple of people who have already come to me and have said, what's happened in the last month or two? Because especially communication with athletes, it's different than it was. And I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus, but it's a— it's another example of how just maybe making some changes needed to be made.

Yeah.

And COVID kind of forced us into making some of those changes to kind of right the ship a little bit.

Yeah. Uh, so tell us about some of those changes. What, what were the things that you're going to, what are some of the things maybe you'll keep doing? What are the things that you can't wait to get back to doing, you know, sort of pre-COVID, during COVID as it relates to communication with athletes or how a race is produced? Cause you've talked about all the things that I think nobody really necessarily has an appreciation for. Like, yeah, those cops that are on the corner that are directing traffic so you don't get hit by a car when you go through, that EMS is there. Hopefully you won't need it, but it's there, all those volunteers. So yeah, to tell us a little bit about that.

Well, obviously, the— with COVID the challenge has become, you know, getting back to being able to drag all those people back on board, right? Because you're really dealing with a situation where every municipality is different. This is not a statewide deal anymore, or certainly above that. This is a local deal because it's the local government and their health department that is going to make a decision on what goes on in their county. And so what we, what we run into in White Lake is far different than what we may run into if we were trying to put a race on in Wake County right now. And I'm not pointing a finger at Wake County because we don't have any problems with them, but, you know, there are some areas that it's going to be a lot more difficult to get the support of medical and police and everything right now because of what's going on. Now, things are, things are changing quickly. I mean, I have to tell you, just in the last 2 months, attitudes are changing at warp speed right now for the better. Because the cases are going down and hospitalizations are going down and vaccines are going up and herd immunity is— I mean, everything is, is finally happening. So things are changing, but it's been a, it's been a difficult process. Uh, ironically, Azalea, which is our— for 25 years it's opened up the triathlon season. It's the most difficult race we're having to deal with because it's staged on a state university. And you talk about politics. Well, I mean, you know, they weren't— they won't even touch it. So we have tentatively moved Azalea to a summertime date right now, but they don't want us to open up registration yet because they, even though they've approved the summer date, they haven't approved letting us do it because of where we are. And we anticipate in the next few weeks we're going to be given the go-ahead on that. But there was no way we were holding Azalea in March. We, we would have had to have that approval in December, and that just wasn't going to happen. So it— that part of it, in terms of getting all these races cranked back up and getting approvals, has been a real, you know, eye-opening experience for us.

So we were recording this in February. Of 2021, what's on the menu, what's on the schedule for the rest of the year so far? And then what of those races that you have typically had, like Azalea, are kind of, mm, they're not fully set in stone yet for some of those reasons that you just mentioned?

So on the North Carolina Tri-Series calendar, there are only 2 changes right now from last year. One is the Tri-Ladder race in Charlotte, the old Latta Plantation race, which has been around for, God, 30, 35 years. That race is gone. That race is no more. It has finally succumbed to just growth. I mean, there's just no way the town would approve it anymore. So it's sad. So that race is gone. Azalea is the only other race on our calendar that is in question right now. All the other races are a go, so we are feeling great about, about this year. Probably the most interesting thing we have planned this year, and it hadn't gotten a lot of fanfare yet because we really haven't done a lot to promote it so far, is the race we're doing in September called Clash in the Carolinas, which is going to be the first time that anybody's ever done this, and it's going to be an iron distance race for relay teams only. But the interesting catch is, is that all 3 disciplines go on at the same time. So it has to be a 3-person relay team because everybody's doing their thing at the same time. So the bike starts first, and then the run starts an hour later, and the swim starts an hour later, and then the swim finishes, and then the run finishes, and then the bike finishes. And at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we're doing awards and we're So it's going to be very interesting. It's going to be a white light in that first weekend or second weekend in September, coupled with the, the International and the Sprint on the next day. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be real interesting to watch this thing play out. Great for spectators because spectators get to see everybody start and then everybody finish in all three disciplines at the same location. So It's going to be a lot of fun and prize money. So we're giving out money for the top male teams, female teams, and mixed teams. We'll have 3 different divisions.

That sounds really cool.

It'll be a lot of fun.

Yeah, and I think people are really itching to get back into this sort of team atmosphere.

Yeah.

You know, because we've had to be 6 feet apart or more for a very long time. So I'm excited about that. I mean, I remember starting to talk that one up in 2020.

Yeah.

And then of course—

Before we had to cancel it.

Yeah.

The one thing you asked me that I'm going to look forward to doing that we used to do is shaking everybody's hand at the finish line.

Right? Yeah.

That's the thing I'm looking forward to the most.

I do love me a good high five too. A good sweaty open water swim, you know, just—

I've given a lot of good sweaty hugs to people at the finish line. I look forward to doing that again.

Yes, for sure. So speaking of races, you've put on a few.

Yeah.

Yeah. How was it? What, what, what was different?

Well, we did them primarily to test our COVID plan and we did a couple of runs over in the Atlanta area. We had a great venue over in Atlanta where we didn't have to deal with private land and The system worked great. The numbers were marginal because I think— and we did those back in June of 2020, so there was still a lot of uncertainty. Yeah, yeah, and uncertainty. I actually was— it was interesting. I wouldn't say funny, that's not the right word to use, but I got a couple of emails, Chris, you wouldn't believe, when we opened up registration for those runs.

Oh boy.

I mean, you would have thought that I had just crossed over to the dark side.

Yeah, you cut somebody's head off, didn't you?

My goodness gracious.

Yeah.

But, and then we ended up, amazingly, we ended up being able to put on the YMCA Wrightsville Beach Triathlon with 400 people in Wilmington in September. How we ever got that thing approved, I'll never know. Because we're dealing with Wrightsville Beach, the city of Wilmington, New Hanover County. It went great. We used that time trial COVID system, masking, the whole bit. Went off without a hitch as far as I know. And that's— I mean, we— and then we did a couple of other runs using this COVID plan with time trial starts, you know, starting runners about every 5 seconds and Keeping them spread out, leading up to the start line, and having everybody wear masks until they start, and then handing them a mask at the finish line. And, you know, just doing things that we've really all been doing for the past year, just applying it to a race site.

What about transition areas? Because I know in the past, you know, you're like fighting for your spot.

Spreading them out. You know, instead of having— so in our bike racks, we typically have 6 bikes on a 10-foot rack, like 3 on each side. So what we did is we just eliminated the middle. And so we ended up going with 4 on a rack and then spread the racks a little bit farther apart from each other just to create that space. I mean, again, you just— people were able to walk around and I tell people all the time, you know, I, I get a lot closer to people when I go to Harris Teeter than I do at any of these runs that we put on. You know, people just naturally go stay away from each other. You know, we've just become so accustomed to doing it for the past year, right? So you give people enough room outside and it's not like they're all going to run up to each other and, you know, create a rugby scrum.

Is that limiting some of your registrations? Like, are you limited on space at certain races? I mean, I know White Lake is huge, and I like— she really is huge.

Pinehurst is huge. Lake Norman is huge. I'm going through the list starting at the beginning of the year.

Triangle, you know, and YMCA and Wilmington. That's it.

I can't think of anything space-related. Again, Christy, the advantage we have is that we're not talking about 2,000-person races, right? All of our races are 200 to 500. So, you know, we don't deal with those Ironman-type problems and issues that they have to run into. It's a, it's a much different deal.

Do you like it that way? Do you like being the, the small race company, or smaller race company, I guess? As compared to, you know, somebody like Ironman?

Yeah, you know, with that comes a lot of pressure and headaches and, you know, what they're going through right now financially. So I kind of like where we're at. You know, we've never been a big company. We've always been a kind of a— we've always tried to be the small, you know, kind of community company that people know and I've always wanted to stay that way.

I remember, and this was a while ago, cause I started— White Lake was my first race in 2003. And it was awesome. It was a great— and I've done some really terrible races. I've done some really great races. And I will have to say that every race I've done from you guys has been a great experience. Good volunteers, good finish line. Um, not that I'm trying to kiss up or anything.

I appreciate that.

I'll be asking for free races later, but yeah, I just, uh, what has been sort of the transition over these, I guess what you've said the past 10 years of, is it that people want the more pomp and circumstance? I love the small town races. You're higher likelihood of placing. You really kind of get to know your fellow racers and the way that you guys have the series set up. You kind of like have this little, challenge with, you know, that person you see listed. So, uh, do you think that that's something that we can kind of bring back, this small town racing?

I hope so. I mean, we're— we're— one of the things we've talked about from the beginning of COVID till now is, and how we've kind of restructured ourselves, is trying to get back to that, trying to get back to making our races more small town community fun type events. I think we got away from that for the past few years, and I think we need to kind of get back to that a little bit, and I'm hoping we go that direction.

Well, we as coaches want to support you guys as much as possible. How do you think that synergy, whether it be the athletes knowing what's going on behind the scenes with you guys, or us as coaches pushing, you know, group training programs for some of your races, or How do you see this, us all kind of working together to make sure the sport stays around?

I know. So I know that a lot of people getting into the sport— you can correct me because you're, you're there— but it seems like there is a percentage of people that come to people like you, people like Tom Clifford in Wilmington and others, and their goal is to do an Ironman. And you're nodding your head.

Yeah.

Is that—

yeah.

So where— how many— what percentage would you guess are people whose goal is to do not an iron distance race, an Ironman, right? Branded race.

I, I think so many people— and if, and if somebody who's never done triathlon is listening to this, they kind of think that that's like the end-all be-all of the sport, and it's not. I mean, look at— there's a reason why Olympic distance race is called Olympic distance race.

Right.

You know, so, and that, that's my personal favorite distance. I love being on the line.

Always was my favorite.

Yeah. Like, you know, it hurts and it hurts longer than a sprint, but you know, again, you get, you go home for lunch. Like that's, that's key. I would say pre-COVID, a lot of people are coming to us because they want to do an Ironman, especially when we had Raleigh, uh, 70.3 that went away. Uh, as far as I'm aware, it's gone forever. It was a logistical nightmare. Yeah. So, and it was hot. Oh, there was just so many things that were so unpleasant about that race, but I had people in, you know, so that race was in June. I would have people coming to me in April and May saying, hey, I signed up for this thing because it sounded cool. I don't know what I'm doing. And oh my God. And I'm like, okay, I can't help you. Yeah. So. Pre-COVID, yes, people would come to me specifically to train for not just iron distance but Ironman.

Yeah.

You've got your Beast Battleship shirt on. Like, I do.

I wore it for a reason.

Yeah. I mean, great event that— and it's always going to be B2B to me, right? That's just— yeah, that's how it is. But anyway, now people just want to race.

Yeah.

And I think we just miss racing, whether it's Long distance, short distance. And honestly, now that we're all sitting at home, we're working more and we're more stressed out and we just have to get out and move.

Yeah.

So, and I feel like sprints and Olympic distance races are such an easy grab for somebody who's never been in the sport and they're so fun.

So fun. It always, I know there's a certain amount of coaches out there who coach people to do Ironman distance races, but they don't, in my opinion, send their people on the logical progression of racing. You know, do a sprint and then do an international and then do a half and kind of work your way up the ladder. And to go back to your question, I would love to see this synergy between race directors and coaches become one to where coaches are steering, automatically steering more people into their local races to support that race director community. And I'll bet you, and I can speak for one right now, you're looking at him, who would work with coaches to come up with programs that would give groups discounts to do races, sprints and Olympics and halves as they stair-step their way up. Guarantee you there would be race directors that would work with coaches to do that, because we, we need, as local race directors, we need all those people who are training to do an Ironman, we need them to do our little local races. And it just makes sense that they would want to do those and that it would help them in their training to do, you know, before they go do that Ironman, to go through a couple of transitions.

To go through taking that wetsuit off a couple of times or get a wetsuit stripper. Is that gone with COVID That's like the— I, I just love that, a wetsuit stripper. They're the best strippers.

That was a, uh, when we did B2B, that was a job that we filled up very quickly. We filled up the wetsuit stripper slots very quick.

It is the coolest. If you've never seen somebody get their wetsuit stripped off, it is— it's an art.

It's about a 3-second process if you get the right guys doing that wetsuit. It's amazing.

So awesome.

Yeah.

Is that on pause with COVID I guess. Yeah.

I guess. I don't think there's going to be any wetsuit strippers until we get past COVID, for sure. Yeah. You're on your own.

Right.

You've been there, right? You've had to wrestle that wetsuit off in the transition area. It's a bear.

Oh, yeah. Especially in the grass or in the gravel. Oh, you're falling over sideways. You don't know which end is up. Yeah. It's crazy. Well, we definitely want to support you as much as possible. And I do agree. People do need to do some of that stair-step, like try the sprint, try the Olympic, try the series, you know, why not go for a spot in the series? So I do like how you guys have kind of, um, always kept that. Hopefully, uh, I don't know, you guys, you and I have talked about this sort of over email, but I'm excited about the new Olympic Relay format that they're doing in Tokyo this year.

Yeah.

Female, male, female, male of 300K swim, 8K bike, 2K run. Like, that sounds so cool. Like, family-friendly, spectator-friendly. I'm hoping, fingers crossed, that something that you guys could do something like that, because I think that would be a blast.

Well, I am certainly willing to look at doing something like that if we can find the right venue and everything. I mean, no question about it.

Yeah, that would be awesome. Yeah, I'm always up for trying new ideas and stuff because you guys sent out a survey, if I remember right, back in maybe 2019, I think.

Yeah.

And what were some of the things that you gleaned pre-COVID?

International distance races. People wanted internationals, and that's one of the reasons why we Added the international distance now to a couple of the sprint distance races that we typically had. So now I think there's 5 internationals during the year that we put on here in the state of North Carolina, which is great. You can race pretty much anytime you want from a, from a calendar standpoint. That was pretty much the main thing that— there are a couple other little things that— one of the things that came out of it was, uh, we went through a period where we gave people the option of not purchasing a t-shirt, they could register and then do the t-shirt as an add-on. And we, we've experimented with some different things trying to figure out ways of keeping people happy.

But at the end of the day, it sounds like we're ready to race and you guys can do it safely.

No question. No question we can do it safely.

I'm, I'm doing the happy dance. I know nobody can see me, but no question about it.

The only thing we're waiting on right now, and it'll be a call that we won't have to make until we get probably about a week out from Pinehurst, is whether we will implement the COVID plan, which means spreading out the TA, going to a time trial start, doing all that masking and everything. Or if we get to April 10th and Moore County says You're good to go. You know, we don't know where we're going to be at that point.

Yeah. Is it, is it more difficult for you guys to execute the time trial start or like a wave start?

No, time trial is more difficult because it changes the way you set up the whole start area because you got to socially distance and lead them into a corral and they kind of go through this snake-like corral, you know, to go across the timing mats. And, and then it stretches the timeline out a little bit, not much. So we would much rather do wave starts, you know, the way we used to do it and the way we'll do it in the future. We'll still do a couple of time trial starts because going back to that survey that you mentioned, that was another thing that came out of that survey was that there were a lot of people that enjoyed the time trial start format. And I'll tell you the reason why is mainly because it gave people the opportunity to race together If you had a husband and wife in a regular race, they would never race together. They would be in different waves, right? Time trial start, they can start right next to each other, 3 seconds apart.

Yeah, daddy-daughter, daddy-daughter.

Yeah, so we will probably continue to do a, a few of the races as time trial starts and some as waves to give people the opportunity to do some of those like that.

So what about this pro thing? Tell us about that, because I think at White Lake you've got, you've got some pros coming.

Yeah, we have 10.

That's, that's new.

Yeah. Yeah. So at the end of last year, uh, we entered into an agreement and a relationship with Tom Clifford down here in Wilmington with Without Limits. And Tom came to me and said, what would you think about us partnering with you on the White Lake Half, just the Saturday race, and bringing a pro field in. And so one thing led to another, we had a number of discussions, and we decided to go ahead and do it. Again, just trying to be open to new ideas and changes and things we can do to, you know, to make the race a little bit different feel. The venue change is going to be an immediate change of, you know, the whole feel of the event's gonna, gonna change because of moving it over to Galveston Beach, ironically, where we used to have the race back in the '90s. So that's going to be a big factor, but we're excited about it. We think, you know, bringing the pros in, I mean, there's going to be some people that are going to be excited to see them race and everything. I personally, I've never been a big proponent one way or the other of having pros or not having pros.

Yeah.

But we've certainly appreciated the involvement we've had with Tom and his company, and they do a great job of marketing and promotion. And so having them involved just to bring that aspect of what they can bring to us, sure, is alone is well worth the involvement. So we've been very pleased.

Yeah. Yes, we are. We are excited, that is for sure. So that's May 1st, May 1st, White Lake Half. Yeah, we'll be able to— will the pros go off at a separate time?

So everybody, they'll go off, they'll go off at the, at the beginning, uh, and they'll either— again, whether we do a time trial or a wave start, they'll go off first regardless. But, uh, if they go off time trial start, they'll go off and then we'll wait a minute and then we'll let all the age groupers go off. If we do a wave start, same thing, they'll go off and we're only going to wait a minute for the first age group, you know, wave 1 to go, because they're not going to catch those pros anyway. So, uh, that's kind of how we'll approach it, but they'll, they'll start at the beginning.

Okay, cool. And we just so happen to be sponsoring May 2nd, the wave 1 Olympic and sprint distance. I'm excited for people to be able to try some post-race food courtesy of the Fueling Edge. What other races are on the calendar? This, this is your platform. Tell us, where should we race this year?

So Piner's, April 17th.

Okay.

All right, then 2 weeks later, White Lake, as you just mentioned.

Yep.

Then 2 weeks later, on May 15th in Charlotte, we've got the Lake Norman Sprint.

That one historically has— so like, I remember that was like one of the first ones to sell out.

Now that's— you're not to be confused with the old Lake Norman YMCA.

Okay, was it a different race? Was that what it was? Okay, all right.

This is the Lake Norman State Park Sprint, which is further out, different venue, different day. That's a— that's an August summertime race at the Y, and this is at the state park, so different race.

Okay, and that's mid-May.

Yeah, and then the beginning of June you've got Triangle, right where you are, and then 2 weeks after that, mid-June, we've got Carolina Beach, you know, the double sprint.

That is so fun. If people have not tried that format.

They need to. That is so much fun. You know, that started as the Kure Beach Double Sprint in 1997, and, uh, we've been doing it ever since. Obviously it moved down, down the block to Carolina Beach, but same island. And a lot of fun, you know, where you start out with a swim and then you got the short run and then the bike and then back to the run. And then the only race where you finish coming out of the ocean and running up the beach 20 yards under the inflatable. And it's just a totally different feel.

It is totally different and it's a blast. It is wild.

It is. You know what's interesting, Chris, about that race is that if you're an experienced triathlete, a top-level age grouper, it will kick your ass because it's anaerobic the entire time.

It is. And it's like How— what other race do you do that many transitions?

No way.

Yeah.

And you're just going as hard as you can the whole time. But the irony is, is that for beginners, it's perfect because they've got these short little race segments and they're not going as hard as they can.

Right.

They're more interested in just getting these small race segments done. So it works ironically.

By the way, then you can sit on the beach the rest of the day.

Then you can sit— you finish the race, grab your bottle of water and sit down on the sand and watch the surfers. Yeah.

Yes.

It's a very, very cool vibe. That race always has been.

Yes, I agree. Yeah, I agree.

So Carolina Beach, then you go to hopefully Azalea, which is going to be weird to have a full swim race middle of July, but it is what it is this year.

We won't all be freezing. So that'll be—

there'll be no cold run from the pool to the transition area in mid-July for sure. Uh, Lake, Lake Logan, you know, the triple weekend, half international and sprint at Lake Logan up in the mountains, the first weekend in August. And then Lake Lure, if anybody's never been to Lake Lure and done that sprint triathlon, what a gorgeous place that is. That's the week after, uh, second week of August. Uh, and then we go down and we get to White Lake fall events, which are the second week of September. Clash of the Carolinas, the Iron Distance Relay Race on Saturday, the International and Sprint on Sunday. Two weeks after that, the YMCA Wrightsville Beach Sprint. And then we finish up the year the first weekend in October in Raleigh, Sandling Beach for the International and the Sprint up at Sandling Beach State Recreation Area up on Falls Lake.

And where do people register?

People go to setup-events.com.

Awesome. So I will make sure to link to that.

Yeah.

So for our takeaways, we like to wrap up every episode with leaving people with a couple of different, perhaps action items that's meaningful for their health and performance. And in this case, I'm kind of thinking more of like the health of our racing community. What are your 2 or 3 things? To leave people with?

Please race locally. Please. Not only for setup's sake, but for the sake of Benji Jones and for the sake of, you know, the great people at FS and all of our— at Trivium, all the race companies. Please race locally and support our local race director community so that we can make it through. This is a 2-year deal for us because we had last year and this year now we have to absorb all those deferrals. We defer— everybody that registered last year gets to race for free this year, and you know, we're not charging them anything additional. So it's a 2-year process for us and all the other race directors out there. So you can help us by just racing locally and helping us out.

How do you think other people can get other people involved? Is it relays? Is it relays? Family? Yeah.

Relays is the easiest way of doing it, you know? Right. You can always find 2 other people that can do the 2 others you can't do.

And what about feedback? If somebody has some feedback for you, you know, some of the bigger racing companies might be a little slower to respond. How, how are you guys handling feedback, both positive and constructive feedback?

Well, the, the one great thing about having a company our size where we have 2 employees, again, Linda and myself, is I am the feedback person and I am the one that's answering emails every day. And I have always prided myself on communication and not— so if anybody has any questions or problems or anything, bill@setup-events.com.

The boss man.

And I will get back to them and handle it.

Yes. All right. Bill Scott with Setup Events. Race local.

Chris, I can't wait to see you at White Lake.

Ditto. Same here. Thanks, Bill.

You bet.